Australian citizenship waiting time is 16 months

Australian citizenship applicants face a long waiting atleast 16 months and over 200K people are waiting according to latest report.

According to SBS, The Department of Home Affairs last month told the Federal Parliament that over 200,000 people were awaiting the outcome of their citizenship applicants as of April 30 this year with the average waiting period for processing applications ballooning up to 16 months.

During the first eight months of this year,  only one third of 54,419 citizenship applications were approved compared to 139,285 in the year 2016-17.

The delays are attributed to new applications after announcing the citizenship reforms that sought to increase the general residence requirement and introduce a standalone English language test.

In 2016-17, a total of 137,750 people become Australian citizens by conferral from at least 190 different countries according to Australian citizenship statistics.

Indians are largest foreign nationals acquiring Australian citizenship according to citizenship statistics. This followed by UK nationals  and Philippines.  Brexit is one of the key factors, causing Britons to acquire second citizenship in Australia.

The following table shows the number of people who were conferred as Australian citizens in 2016-17, according to their former nationality.