EU27 Member States granted citizenship to 776,000 persons in 2009. One year before, it was granted to 699,000 persons. The new citizens came mainly from Africa, Asia and non-EU27 Europe. The main contribution to this increase came from the United Kingdom and was a consequence of the unusually low number of citizenships that, for purely administrative reasons, the United Kingdom granted in 2008.

Citizenship is the legal bond between an individual and a state, acquired by birth, naturalisation or other means according to national legislation. Naturalisation is the process by which a state grants its citizenship through a formal act on the application of the individual concerned. Other ways of granting citizenship may include spouses of nationals, minors adopted by nationals and descendants of nationals born abroad returning to the country of origin of their ancestors.

In 2009, the largest groups that acquired citizenship of an EU27 Member State were citizens of Morocco, Turkey, India, Ecuador and Albania. Among the Member States with the highest total number of citizenships acquired, the largest groups in the United Kingdom were Indians and Pakistanis, in France, they were Moroccans and Algerians and in Germany, it was Turks. In addition, in some Member States, a large part of the citizenships was granted to citizens from only one country. The Member States with the highest concentrations were Greece (84% from Albania), Romania (67% from Moldova) and Hungary (66% from Romania). In Latvia and Estonia, 96% and 93% respectively of the new citizens were recognised non-citizens, which means that those persons are neither citizens of the reporting country nor of any other country, and who has established links to the reporting country which include some but not all rights and obligations of full citizenship. The majority of these persons were citizens of the former Soviet Union.

On average, 1.6 citizenships were granted per 1,000 inhabitants in the EU27. On the other hand, eight Member States granted less than one citizenship per 1,000 inhabitants. However, the highest number of citizenships were granted by the United Kingdom (204,000 persons), France (136,000) and Germany (96,000), which together accounted for more than half of all citizenships granted by the EU27 Member States.