Becoming a Norwegian citizen comes with many benefits. For starters, it secures your residence rights and entry into the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme permanently.

Additionally, a Norwegian passport is among the most powerful in the world and comes with the benefit of making one an EEA national, meaning freedom of movement across the European Economic Area.

It also opens the door (or at least makes it easier) to any current or future children becoming Norwegian citizens further down the line. The appeal of Norwegian citizenship has only increased since 2020 when the country opened up to allow dual citizenship.

Last year, 94 percent of citizenship applications, which in addition to other requirements, require prospective citizens to pass a citizenship test and meet language requirements, were successful.

In total, 39,246 nationals became Norwegian citizens throughout 2022, according to figures from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI).

READ MORE: Do children born in Norway automatically get citizenship?

More than ten percent of those who became Norwegian citizens in 2022 hailed from Syria initially, with Syrians being the largest group to be granted citizenship last year. Applicants of Syrian origin had 97 percent of applications to become Norwegian granted.

After that, Polish nationals were the second largest group, followed by Eritreans and Swedes. All of these groups had more than 3,000 nationals who were granted a Norwegian passport.

Russian, Afghan, Filipino, Somalian, Serbian, Thai and Danish nationals made up the other largest groups to apply for Norwegian citizenship and have their application approved in 2022.

Just under 850 British nationals applied to become Norwegian or Norwegian dual citizens in 2022. For British nationals, becoming Norwegian restores some of the rights they lost as a result of Brexit, such as freedom of movement across the EEA. Some 93 percent of applications from British nationals were successful last year.

Nationals from the US and India saw similar numbers of applications for citizenship granted. Just over 760 Americans had successful applications for Norwegian citizenship, compared to 711 Indians.

At the other end of the scale, Guinean, Honduran, Japanese, Malawi, Senegalese and Singaporean nationals saw the smallest number of citizenship applications granted. Only five applicants from each of these countries were granted citizenship by the UDI in 2022.