The Swiss voice in the world since 1935

Lucerne wants to introduce a flat-rate naturalisation fee

Lucerne city council wants to introduce a flat-rate naturalisation fee
Lucerne city council wants to introduce a flat-rate naturalisation fee Keystone-SDA

In the city of Lucerne, applicants for naturalisation should be able to obtain a Swiss passport more cheaply in future. The city council would like to introduce a flat fee of CHF500 per application. This would be significantly lower than the current fee, which is based on the amount of processing required.

The City Council is proposing a corresponding amendment to the naturalisation regulations to the city parliament, as announced on Monday. Accordingly, the fee for individuals over 25, married couples and families will be a standardised CHF500 (about $630).

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The fee that the city currently charges naturalisation applicants is based on a cantonal ordinance. According to this, individuals pay an average of CHF1,900 and couples CHF2,300 for the city’s naturalisation procedure. In addition, there are cantonal and federal fees.

The city council explained that these fees could deter people from naturalisation due to their high amount. This would also exclude well-integrated foreigners from political participation.

More

According to the city council, processing a naturalisation application does involve a great deal of work for the city. However, the fee of CHF500 helps to cover the costs. At the same time, it remains socially acceptable.

The City Council assumes that the new fee will reduce income from fees by around CHF270,000 per year. With this proposal, it is implementing a motion that was partially passed by parliament in February.

Adapted from German by DeepL/ac

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch

Popular Stories

News

Thousands of anti-abortion activists march through Zurich-Oerlikon

More

Demographics

Thousands of anti-abortion activists march through Zurich suburb

This content was published on With crosses, Christian songs and an oversized pram, around two thousand anti-abortion protesters marched through Zurich-Oerlikon on Saturday afternoon. The city police were present with a large contingent.

Read more: Thousands of anti-abortion activists march through Zurich suburb

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR