Almost a quarter of Swiss dual nationals possess an Italian passport.
(Keystone)
Around 17% of Swiss residents over the age of 15 hold two passports. Canton Geneva has the highest proportion of dual nationals at 45%.
According to figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Tuesday, the double nationality rate exceeds 20% in the cantons of Zurich, Basel City, Ticino, Vaud and Neuchâtel. The cantons with the lowest proportion of Swiss citizens with a second passport are Bern, Uri, Schwyz, Obwalden, Nidwalden, Appenzell Inner Rhodes and Appenzell Outer Rhodes, which do not exceed 10%.
Among the dual national population, 64.4% obtained Swiss nationality by naturalisation, while 35.6% had it at birth. The non-Swiss nationality most prevalent among dual nationals is Italian (24.7%), followed by French (11.2%) and German (7.8%).
A total of 45,000 people were naturalised in Switzerland in 2017: 2,000 more than the previous year. More than three-quarters of them came from a European country. One-fifth of the total benefited from a facilitated naturalisation process offered to spouses and children of Swiss citizens.
All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.
As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.
