Newly married same-sex couples risk losing out on fast-track citizenship

Choosing the right way to achieve marital status could have an impact on naturalisation. © Keystone / Ennio Leanza

Same-sex couples have been advised to think carefully about how they achieve marital status if they want to apply for facilitated Swiss citizenship.

Several couples have welcomed a change to the Swiss law to allow same-sex marriages by tying the knot on the first day that the legislation comes into force on Friday.

But the Zurich authorities have warned of “legal ambiguities” in regulations concerning fast-track citizenship through marriage.

When couples convert their existing civil partnerships into marital status, the years they have spent together as a registered pair are counted as married. But opting for a newly minted marriage might mean the couple starts at year zero, reports Swiss public broadcaster SRFExternal link.

This is important for people who want to halve the time it takes to gain Swiss citizenship through their spouse. Naturalisation usually requires a person to live for 10 years in SwitzerlandExternal link, but only five years of residence in the country if they are married to a Swiss citizenExternal link.

The Swiss Federal Office for Civil Status recommends that all couples who are trying to obtain fast-track naturalisation would do better to convert their civil partnership status rather than decide on a marriage from scratch, says SRF.

Last September, the Swiss population overwhelmingly voted for a law change to grant full marriage and adoption rights to same-sex couples.

This made Switzerland the 30th country worldwide – and one of the last in Western Europe – to extend civil marital status to male-male and female-female couples.

The law came into force on July 1, updating previous legislation that had only allowed for same-sex civil partnerships since 2007. There are currently around 10,000 same-sex couples living in a civil partnership in Switzerland.

Registry offices were booked out in several Swiss cities on July 1, said officials. The city of Zurich, for example, had 250 appointments to conduct marriages.