ARMENPRESS: Armenian citizenship applications exceed 32,000 in 2025, historical high, Deputy Minister says

Acting Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Armen Ghazaryan said that applications for Armenian citizenship have increased significantly in recent years, with citizenship primarily being sought for two purposes. In 2025, the number of applications exceeded 32,000, marking a historic high.

He said the first purpose is to obtain a travel document.

“If you look at the years when there were problems in our densely populated Armenian communities in the Diaspora, for example, with certain countries where our compatriots were citizens and could not travel or faced difficulties traveling. There is still such a situation today, obviously in relation to the Armenian community in Russia. And we are seeing a sharp increase in applications for Armenian citizenship. If you look at the applications for citizenship in 2025, their number exceeded 32,000, which is a historical maximum for the entire history of Armenia’s existence. In the two preceding years, the number of applications was more than 20,000, and if we go back further, we see average figures of 7,000–8,000. We see that some event took place, specifically military operations on the territory of Ukraine, travel restrictions were imposed on Russian citizens, and then we see an increase in such applications for Armenian citizenship. And if we examine the grounds as well, we will see that Russian citizens who mainly apply for Armenian citizenship are ethnically Armenian. In other words, this trend is mainly related to our Diaspora,” Ghazaryan said at a press conference.

He said this means that Armenian citizenship is being instrumentalized in this case simply to obtain a travel document.

“Because if we look at what requirements the Republic of Armenia has for ethnic Armenians to obtain citizenship, those requirements are zero, meaning that there are no requirements. Now you may say that we periodically hear from our compatriots that obtaining Armenian citizenship is difficult. I can state with full confidence that this is not the case. There may be administrative difficulties, meaning that a person does not have sufficient documents to prove their Armenian ethnicity, one piece of information is incorrect, another piece of information needs to be cross-checked, or something needs to be clarified. In other words, if we look at this administration from the perspective of paperwork, yes, there may perhaps be difficulties. However, if we look at the requirements imposed by the state on ethnic Armenians for obtaining citizenship, the Republic of Armenia essentially imposes no requirements. And this, in my professional opinion, is a problem, and this problem needs to be addressed. We also have similar emphases concerning citizenship in the visa liberalization action plan, but that is not the only basis or rationale. We had these discussions regarding the importance of the institution of citizenship even before the visa liberalization dialogue with the EU had begun. In other words, this issue is not new to our agenda, and in the near future we will also present a draft of relevant legislative amendments that will address these issues,” Armen Ghazaryan elaborated.

He pointed to another issue related to the institution of citizenship that needs to be addressed.

“A person who renounces Armenian citizenship has the opportunity to apply to restore that citizenship 10 minutes later. Is this logical and normal? Again, in my modest professional opinion, no, it is neither normal nor logical. If a person renounces their citizenship, voluntarily saying that they no longer wish to be a citizen of the Republic of Armenia, this means that the citizen terminates the social contract they have with the state, saying, ‘I no longer want to be part of this contract.’ But after taking one lap around the building, the citizen can say, ‘No, now I want to be a citizen of the Republic of Armenia.’ It is obvious that there are other motivations here, particularly regarding the renunciation of citizenship by minors. We need to have an honest discussion in this regard. Under our legislation, a minor may renounce Armenian citizenship only if one of the parents has renounced Armenian citizenship. We are talking about the renunciation of citizenship by our minors and, in particular, about the renunciation of citizenship by male minors, and I believe this issue should also be addressed in the context of the institution of citizenship,” the Acting Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs concluded.