Fact Sheets

USCIS is committed to helping Green Card holders understand the naturalization process. This fact sheet provides information to adoptive parents whose children were issued IH-4 and IR-4 visas.

USCIS is committed to helping Green Card holders understand the naturalization process. This fact sheet provides information to VAWA lawful permanent residents.

USCIS is committed to helping Green Card holders understand the naturalization process. This fact sheet provides information to special immigrant juveniles.

USCIS is recognizing the one-year anniversary of several executive orders (EO) that impact USCIS and highlighting the progress we have made so far.

The purpose of this report is to update the Trends in Naturalization Rate FY 2014 Update Report. In line with its predecessor, this report focuses on understanding the naturalization trends of lawful permanent residents (LPRs) who are eligible to naturalize. Those who obtained LPR status in the same fiscal year (FY), also known as cohort, were tracked over time to understand their tendency to naturalize within certain time frames. Specifically, we analyzed how often LPRs naturalized within 6-years,1 10-years, and 20-years. As such, this FY2018 update only contains information up to the FY 2012 cohort, which was the most recent cohort eligible for naturalization in FY 2018.2 Additionally, this report contains naturalization trends of selected LPR cohorts by region of birth, country of birth, and class of admission. The findings in this report can inform targeted regulatory and policy actions aimed at improving naturalization rates, strengthening the naturalization program, and inform outreach related to Section 5 of Executive Order 14012, Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans (February 2, 2021).

Overview Over 3.7 million people became U.S. citizens between fiscal years (FY) 2015 and 2019.1 This fact sheet summarizes data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) naturalization records to provide information on the demographic characteristics of these new citizens.2 On average, nearly 760,000 individuals naturalized each year in the FY 2015-2019 period, with annual totals ranging from 707,300 to 843,600. The yearly number of naturalizations depends both on operational factors, such as application processing times, and other factors such as the number of LPRs eligible to naturalize at any given time, their motivation to apply, and their ability to pay the associated fees.3 Naturalized citizens are becoming more diverse in their place of residence spreading out across the United States. Naturalized citizens in FY 2015 to FY 2019 spent a slightly longer time (a median of 7.7 years) as lawful permanent residents before naturalizing compared to a median of 7.3 years in FY 20092014. The median age for the FY 2015-2019 population increased by one year to 41 years old. Females and married new citizens made up a higher proportion of naturalized citizens compared to males and individuals with other marital statuses. The majority of people who naturalized came to the United States as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens or through family-sponsored preference categories.