Berlin's 3-Year Fast-Track Naturalization Was Abolished: How LEA Handles Applications Already Filed

The Federal Repeal, in Two Sentences

Germany’s 3-year fast track to citizenship for “besondere Integrationsleistungen” (exceptional integration achievement) no longer exists. It was introduced by the June 2024 citizenship law reform, and the Bundestag repealed it through a follow-up law that took effect on 30 October 2025 (BGBl. 2025 I Nr. 256), striking Section 10 Abs. 3 and 3a from the Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz entirely, both are now marked “(weggefallen)” in the current text. There is no transitional clause. That part of the story is the same everywhere in Germany, and if you want the full legislative timeline (the Bundestag vote, the reasoning behind it), our companion guide on how naturalization actually works in Berlin covers the general process and links the underlying law directly.

What’s specific to Berlin, and what the rest of this page is actually about, is how the Landesamt für Einwanderung (LEA), the single authority handling every naturalization application in the city since January 2024, is applying that repeal to real, already-filed cases.

What Berlin’s Own Numbers Show

Nobody had to guess how much this mattered in Berlin, because the Senate answered the question directly. In a written answer to the Abgeordnetenhaus dated 24 June 2026 (Drucksache 19/26325), responding to Greens deputies Jian Omar and Christoph Wapler, the Senatsverwaltung für Inneres und Sport confirmed: 382 people were naturalized under the old Section 10 Abs. 3 StAG between 1 July and 31 December 2024, and 392 more between 1 January and 29 October 2025, the last day the provision was in force. That’s 774 people in total who used Berlin’s fast track before it closed.

Put that next to the national framing around this repeal. Officials cited the provision as rarely used as part of the rationale for scrapping it, and separate nationwide reporting from Mediendienst Integration found that in almost every city that reported figures, the number of “Turbo-Einbürgerung” applications sat in the single digits. Berlin’s own numbers don’t fit that pattern. Hundreds of people actually went through this path here, not a handful, which makes Berlin something of an outlier in how much real use this short-lived rule actually got before it disappeared.

One honest gap in the official record: nobody, including the Senate itself, can say exactly how many applications were still sitting unresolved the moment the repeal took effect. Asked directly how many Section 10 Abs. 3 applications were still pending on 30 October 2025, the Senate’s answer was blunt: “Es erfolgte keine statistische Erfassung im Sinne der Fragestellung”, no statistical record was kept in that sense. Part of the reason is structural: LEA’s digital application form never distinguished between a fast-track filing and a standard one in the first place, so there was no clean way to count them separately after the fact.

What LEA Actually Does With a Pending Berlin Application

This is the part that matters if you’re one of those 774 or if you filed later and the repeal caught your case mid-process. LEA didn’t improvise a response, and the Senate’s answer describes the actual administrative practice in specific terms.

If you filed under the old Section 10 Abs. 3 and hadn’t reached 5 years of residence when the repeal hit, LEA contacts you individually about how your case will be handled. From there, two paths exist, and which one applies depends on what you tell them:

The practical takeaway is straightforward: consenting to the suspension is almost always the better move if you’re close to the 5-year line anyway, since it preserves your existing case rather than forcing a formal rejection and a fresh application later. LEA isn’t required to offer this softer path, there’s no law forcing it to, but this is the practice it has chosen and documented in writing to the Abgeordnetenhaus.

Photo by Mike on Pexels

Worth noting: LEA saw the repeal coming well before it took legal effect. The Senate’s answer confirms the online Quick-Check pre-assessment tool on service.berlin.de was adjusted on 20 August 2025, over two months ahead of the actual 30 October change, specifically because there was no statutory transition rule in the pipeline and Berlin’s case processing already runs long. The main application form itself, though, was left as is: it never separated fast-track filings from standard ones, and still doesn’t.

The Court Weighed In

LEA’s practice of rejecting these applications, even ones filed before the change took effect, has already been tested in court and upheld. The Verwaltungsgericht Berlin ruled on 26 May 2026 (case VG 39 L 209/26) that this practice is lawful, confirming that the absence of a transitional clause in the federal law means LEA is entitled to apply the current 5-year rule regardless of an applicant’s original filing date.

That’s not the end of the story at every level, though. Per the same Senate answer, 9 proceedings tied to the old Section 10 Abs. 3 were still pending at the Oberverwaltungsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg as of the June 2026 reply: 8 applications for leave to appeal (Zulassung der Berufung) and 1 complaint in interim legal protection (einstweiliger Rechtsschutz). Neither the Verwaltungsgericht nor the higher court tracks these cases separately from ordinary Section 10 litigation in its own statistics, so no broader count of related lawsuits exists beyond that Oberverwaltungsgericht figure.

If your specific case is affected and the stakes are meaningful (a residence permit expiring, a job or family situation tied to your citizenship status), the fact that a first-instance court already sided with LEA’s general practice is a reason to get a lawyer’s read on your specific facts rather than assume a challenge on principle will succeed.

Step by Step

Compliance Note

This page explains the general legal framework around the repeal of the 3-year accelerated naturalization path and LEA’s documented practice for handling affected Berlin applications, current as of mid-2026. It is not legal advice. How this applies to a specific pending application depends on individual case details, and the underlying legal picture (including the 9 proceedings still open at the Oberverwaltungsgericht Berlin-Brandenburg) may still shift. Consult an immigration lawyer or contact LEA directly through its official channels if you have a pending application affected by this change.