Armenian NA approves electronic naturalization system 

ArmInfo. An electronic  system for granting citizenship will be introduced in Armenia.

The National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia approved amendments  to the laws "On Citizenship" and "On State Duty" at its session on  December 4.

Earlier, while presenting the documents, Deputy Minister of Internal  Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Armen Ghazaryan noted that within  the framework of the program, it is planned to create a single  electronic environment where all cases related to citizenship will be  fully presented. Currently, this process is carried out in paper  form, which is associated with unnecessary costs and wasted time. The  electronic platform will present all data related to both the  granting of citizenship and its termination. With the help of the new  platform, all requests to other structures involved in the process of  granting citizenship or its termination will be carried out. We are  talking about the State Revenue Committee, the Ministry of Defense,  the Police, the National Security Service and others, which will  operate on a single electronic platform.

As the Deputy Minister emphasized, an important component of the new  program will be the issue of preserving the database. The fact is,  Kazaryan continued, that maintaining paperwork requires additional  efforts, and against this background, preserving data in electronic  form is much more effective. The package retains the right of foreign  citizens who have applied for citizenship to a one-time visit to the  authorized body to submit an application and identify the applicants.  In all other cases, operations will be carried out electronically.

The corresponding amendments are also being introduced to the Law on  State Duty. Currently, a state duty of 1,000 drams is paid for  obtaining Armenian citizenship, and the state duty rate is 25,000  drams when terminating citizenship. Both state duty rates have not  changed since 1997. Taking into account inflationary pressures and  technical changes, it is now proposed to increase the state duty  rates to 50,000 drams and 150,000 drams, respectively. Refugees are  exempt from paying state duty when obtaining citizenship. 

Ghazaryan also said that, as a rule, the issue of granting  citizenship is studied within 90 days, and the termination of  citizenship - 180 days. He also cited statistics, according to which  7,800 people received Armenian citizenship in 2020, 2.5 thousand in  2021, and over 25 thousand in 2022. Moreover, in 2021, citizenship  was terminated for 4,904 persons, in 2022 - 4,510, in 2023 - 3,654,  and in the first 9 months of 2024 - 3,107.