German Citizenship for Afghan Citizens

Germany allows it: since 27 June 2024 you no longer have to give up your previous citizenship. Whether Afghanistan still treats you as a citizen could not be confirmed. We found no current official Afghan citizenship law, and the Ministry of Justice in Kabul lists the 2004 Constitution as nullified. Ask a lawyer if this matters for you.

According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior (3 July 2026), you can currently apply at the Afghan Embassy in Berlin or the Consulates General in Munich and Bonn; the passports are printed in Kabul with "MFA - Kabul" as the issuing authority. Online passports issued by the Afghan Consulate General in Dubai are recognised under existing practice. Passport extensions issued from 1 August 2026 are not recognised; extensions up to 31 July 2026 can be recognised under conditions. Ask your authority whether it accepts your passport.

They have changed twice within months. In December 2025 the ministry told the federal states that the Embassy in Berlin could not take passport applications and that passports and extensions from the Consulate General in Bonn were recognised again from 10 December 2025. In July 2026 it named the Embassy in Berlin and the Consulates General in Munich and Bonn as places to apply, and said extensions issued from 1 August 2026 are not recognised. Check the current position with your authority before you apply.

According to the Federal Government (July 2026), they are still headed by people sent by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan before the change of power in August 2021, even after officials were accredited for consular tasks in 2025. Passports applied for there are printed in Kabul. The Consulate General in Bonn is supervised by the Embassy in Berlin and offers, among other things, passport applications and birth and marriage certificates.

An e-Tazkira, no: it can currently only be applied for in person in Afghanistan. A paper Tazkira can be applied for through an authorised family member at the NSIA office in Afghanistan, after you appear in person, by appointment, at the Afghan mission. If you never had a Tazkira or passport, you first need an identity confirmation at the mission with the Tazkiras of at least two close relatives. If you have refugee status or subsidiary protection, ask your Einbürgerungsbehörde before you do either.

It depends on your protection status and your case. If you have refugee status or subsidiary protection, ask your Einbürgerungsbehörde, and if you wish a counselling service or a lawyer, before you contact the Afghan embassy or Afghan authorities. The authority decides what can reasonably be expected of you in your case. The Federal Administrative Court expects a passport first; other evidence is possible if getting one is objectively impossible or cannot reasonably be expected of you, and the court names refugees' fear that contacting their home country could lead to reprisals against others as one such reason. The federal application guidance says that, in discretionary naturalisation, the procedure should be made easier and faster for holders of a refugee travel document (recognised asylum seekers and Geneva Convention refugees, not people with subsidiary protection), and that difficulties in obtaining documents should be taken into account. Berlin's 2022 guidance, which binds only Berlin's offices, says getting a passport is in principle reasonable even for recognised refugees and people with subsidiary protection. It says you must credibly explain in your own case why it is not, and that refugee status, but usually not subsidiary protection alone, must be taken into account. Berlin's country-by-country annexes were not available to us.

10,883 Afghan citizens were naturalised in 2025, after 10,095 in 2024 (Destatis). They had lived in Germany for 9.2 years on average, compared with 12.4 years for all new citizens.