Yesterday, 9 September 2026, the Irish Government approved the priority drafting of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2026. If the proposals survive the legislative process in their current form, most people who move to Ireland and want to become Irish citizens would need eight years of reckonable residence instead of five.
The key word is proposed. Nothing has changed in the law today. What the Government approved is a General Scheme, the outline of a bill, which the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration says it will publish in the coming days and then refer to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice for pre-legislative scrutiny. Only after that will a bill be drafted, introduced, debated and, possibly, enacted. The Department's press release is explicit that scheduling, debate and enactment are matters for the Houses of the Oireachtas.
Still, a Government decision to prioritise drafting is a strong signal. If you are moving to Ireland in 2026, or have recently arrived, this is the moment to understand what the current rules are, what is proposed, and which questions nobody can answer yet.
What the Government Has Proposed
According to the press release, the General Scheme includes proposals to:
- increase the qualifying period of reckonable residence from 5 to 8 years for most applicants;
- introduce language tests in English, Irish or Irish Sign Language, together with an Irish civics, society and politics test;
- ensure that applicants for citizenship by naturalisation are self-sufficient.
The Government frames the package as bringing Ireland into line with other European countries. The press release lists Austria, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland as examples of countries with residence periods of seven to ten years, and names a series of Member States that require proof of stable income, tax compliance and no reliance on social assistance.
Minister of State for Migration Colm Brophy put the political logic in one line: citizenship "is a privilege, not a right." Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration Jim O'Callaghan stressed that the measures concern the requirements for naturalisation and should not be read as a judgment on the contribution of migrants.
That is the full extent of what the Government published yesterday. The detailed text of the General Scheme, which will set out how the eight years would be counted, what level of language would be required and how self-sufficiency would be measured, was not released with the announcement. Anyone quoting precise mechanics today is ahead of the published record.
The Rule That Applies Today
Until a new law is enacted and commenced, naturalisation in Ireland runs on the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, as amended many times since.
Under section 15(1)(c), the Minister may grant a certificate of naturalisation if the applicant has had one year of continuous residence immediately before applying and, during the eight years before that year, a total of four years' residence in the State. One plus four makes the familiar five years. The Minister's discretion is absolute, and the applicant must also be of full age, of good character, intend in good faith to continue living in Ireland, and make a declaration of fidelity and loyalty, normally at a citizenship ceremony.
Three other provisions shape how that time is actually counted:
- Absences. Section 15C allows up to 70 days outside the State during the year of continuous residence, plus up to 30 further days where the Minister accepts that exceptional circumstances required the absence.
- Time that does not count. Section 16A excludes certain periods from reckonable residence altogether, among them time spent in breach of immigration law, time on a permission granted to study, and time spent as an applicant for international protection.
- Spouses and civil partners of Irish citizens have their own route under section 15A: at least three years of marriage or civil partnership and living together, one year of continuous residence on the island of Ireland immediately before applying, and two years' total residence in the four years before that.
The Government's announcement changes none of this today. It proposes to change the headline number for most applicants, and to add three new conditions on top.
What Eight Years Would Mean in Practice
The simplest way to see the effect is with a calendar.
Take a non-EU professional who moves to Ireland on a work permission in January 2026 and never breaks the chain. Under the current rules, the earliest possible application date falls in early 2031, once one continuous year plus four further years of reckonable residence have built up. Under an eight-year rule for most applicants, the same person would be looking at 2034 at the earliest, before any processing time.
For a family, the difference compounds. A child who arrives at ten could apply under current rules alongside a parent in the mid-teens. At eight years, the child may well be an adult before the family's applications are even eligible, with everything that means for university fees, travel and the child's own choices about where to live. The Brief's essay on the family who came to Ireland and whose children refused to leave is a reminder that children put down roots faster than paperwork does.
The language and civics requirements matter less for native English speakers, but they are not trivial for everyone else. English, Irish or Irish Sign Language would all be accepted according to the press release; the level and the form of testing are not yet public. A civics test would be new for Ireland. The self-sufficiency test is the requirement most likely to affect people between jobs, early-stage founders and families living on savings, and until the General Scheme is published there is no definition of what income or resources will count.
The Questions Nobody Can Answer Yet
Several things will decide whether the proposals affect you, and the announcement answers none of them:
- Transition. Will people already living in Ireland keep the five-year rule? Will applications lodged before commencement be decided under the old law? The press release does not say.
- Counting. Is it eight years of total residence, and within what window? Will the one-year continuous residence requirement change? Will any new category of permission stop counting as reckonable residence?
- Spouses of Irish citizens. The announcement refers to "most applicants". It does not say whether the separate spouse route would change.
- Commencement. No date has been announced for when any new rules would take effect.
- The self-sufficiency threshold. Income level, reference period and the treatment of assets rather than income are all open.
Until the General Scheme is published, treat every confident answer to these questions as speculation. Once it is published, the pre-legislative scrutiny process will add committee hearings, and the text can still change before a bill is introduced.
Who Is Most Affected, and Who Is Not
The proposals concern naturalisation, the route by which a foreign national becomes Irish through residence. They matter most to people who have no other secure right to live in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe.
Non-EU nationals living in Ireland on work, family or other immigration permissions are the core group. For them, citizenship does not only mean a vote. It means an EU passport, freedom of movement across the Union and the end of permission renewals.
EU and EEA citizens already have a right to live and work in Ireland under EU law, so a longer road to Irish citizenship affects them less in practical terms, although some will still want the Irish passport for its own sake.
The announcement says nothing about citizenship by descent. Under sections 7 and 27 of the 1956 Act, a person born abroad whose Irish-citizen parent was also born abroad, typically someone with an Irish-born grandparent, becomes a citizen by being entered in the Foreign Births Register, without any requirement to live in Ireland. The proposals as announced concern the conditions for naturalisation. For the many Americans, Britons and Australians with Irish grandparents, descent remains a separate question from anything announced yesterday.
Ireland Joins a European Pattern
The Government's own framing points to a broader trend. Governments across Europe are lengthening, conditioning and testing the path to citizenship. Portugal is the obvious recent example; the Brief covered its move to ten years in "Portugal Just Moved the Goalposts. Again." The strategic conclusion is the same in both cases: a second citizenship built on residence now takes longer and asks more, and the plan has to be built around that.
For people who chose Ireland partly because of the five-year route, the lesson is not to panic but to separate the reasons for the move. If Ireland makes sense for its language, its legal system, its schools and its economy, eight years does not change that. If the move was mainly a passport strategy, the calculation deserves a fresh look, perhaps alongside the options discussed in Second Passports in 2026. Tax is a separate question again, and one where Ireland is often misunderstood, as the Brief has argued in why Ireland is not the tax haven people think it is.
What to Do Now if You Are Moving in 2026
There is no rule to comply with yet, but there is a lot of good housekeeping that pays off whichever way the law goes.
Keep your immigration permission unbroken. Under section 16A, time spent in the State without valid permission does not count as reckonable residence today, and there is no reason to expect a stricter regime to be more forgiving.
Log every day you spend outside Ireland. The current 70-day allowance in the continuous year is precise, and a future regime may well add conditions. A simple travel log with dates and boarding passes costs nothing and settles disputes years later.
Know which of your years count. If you started on a study permission or arrived through the international protection system, check how section 16A treats that time before assuming it will count towards anything.
Build a paper trail of self-sufficiency now. Payslips, tax returns, bank statements and evidence that you have not relied on social assistance are the documents most countries with a self-sufficiency test ask for. Keeping them organised from year one is cheap insurance.
Watch for the General Scheme. The Department has said it will be published in the coming days. The transition provisions will be the most important pages in it for anyone already in Ireland.
Do not rush a weak application. If you are close to five years, it is tempting to file quickly in case the law changes. An application that fails on good character, gaps in permission or insufficient evidence gains nothing from being early.
Ireland remains an English-speaking member of the European Union with a common law system. None of that changed yesterday. What changed is the Government's stated intention: the road from resident to citizen is set to become longer, more conditional and more carefully tested. Plan as if it will, and treat any faster outcome as a bonus.
Work with Sebastian
If Irish residence is part of your plan, or you are weighing Ireland against another European base for your family, the timeline to citizenship belongs in the decision from the start. Book a consultation.
