Acquisition of nationality

2025: nationality processing came to a total of 45,006 cases.
Naturalization 11,344 cases, Restoration of nationality 4,037 cases, Loss of nationality 20,988 cases, and renunciation 4,014 cases.
By nationality, 104 nationalities are counted, and the largest is the United States (22,608 cases).
Naturalization splits by requirement into general, simplified and special naturalization, and accompanying acquisition, where a child gains nationality with a parent, is counted separately.

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy 2025 nationality statistics.

Note: The annual table runs from 2011 to 2025. Types that gain nationality and types that lose it sit in one table, so the total is not a count of naturalized people.

Table 1.Types of nationality cases, 2025Unit: cases, %

Year

Type		Cases	Share of total

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy.

Note: Types of acquiring and losing nationality appear together in one table.

Figure 1.Nationality cases, 2011–2025Unit: thousand cases

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy, each year.

Note: Naturalization and restoration of nationality are gains; loss of nationality and renunciation are losses.

View as table

Year	Naturalization	Restoration	Loss of nationality	Renunciation

Table 2.Top 20 nationalities by cases, 2025Unit: cases

Year

Rank	Nationality		Total	General naturalization	Simplified naturalization	Special naturalization	Acquired by family	Restoration of nationality	Loss of nationality	Renunciation	Other

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy each year (nationality cases by nationality and type of acquisition).

Note: Each yearbook carries the table for that year, so annual figures are available from 2009. Other combines nationality determination, acquisition by recognition, re-acquisition, nationality choice and nationality retention, and the eight columns sum to the total.

Table 3.Cases by age group, 2025Unit: cases

Year

Age group		Total	General naturalization	Simplified naturalization	Special naturalization	Acquired by family	Restoration of nationality	Loss of nationality	Renunciation	Other

Source: MOJ Statistical Yearbook on Immigration and Foreign Policy for each year (nationality cases by age and type of acquisition).

Note: Ages are grouped in ten-year bands, following the bands used in the yearbook. Everything else is as in Table 2.

Table 4.Top 20 countries by naturalization rate, 2025Unit: cases, people, %

Year

Rank	Nationality		Naturalization	Registered foreigners	Naturalization rate

Source: Open dataset, nationality processing by nationality and registered foreigners by nationality and district.

Note: Naturalization is the sum of general, simplified, and special naturalization, and the naturalization rate divides it by registered foreigners of that nationality in that year. A small denominator makes the rate unstable, so only nationalities with 1,000 or more registered foreigners are listed.

Figure 2.Cumulative acquisitions of nationality, 2006–2024Unit: 10,000 persons

Source: MOIS Status of Foreign Residents in Local Governments.

Note: The MOJ yearbook counts the cases processed in that year, while MOIS recounts each year the people who acquired nationality and live in Korea, so the two are on different scales. The two figures cannot be added.

View as table

Year	People acquiring nationality	Change from previous year

Table 5.People acquiring nationality by province, 2024Unit: persons, %

Year

Rank	Province		People acquiring nationality	Share

Source: MOIS Status of Foreign Residents in Local Governments.

Note: The same basis as Figure 2, and the province totals give the national value.