English Page On Becoming Icelandic Citizen “Unavailable”

There is as yet no English language content for the steps required to gain Icelandic citizenship. A spokesperson for the Directorate of Immigration says updating the page had not been a priority.

If you pay a visit to the official website of the Directorate of Immigration, choose the English language setting, and visit the page on Citizenship, readers will find only a message saying “This content is currently unavailable in English”. This is also the case if you click on any of the sidebar subheadings in the left margin.

Vísir contacted the Directorate for an explanation.

Þórhildur Hagalín, a spokesperson for the Directorate, told reporters that while they were not deliberately withholding information from people, usually people applying for citizenship already know Icelandic and have connections in the country.

Be that as it may, the lack of English text does exclude people without Icelandic proficiency who simply want to know what the process for citizenship is. Such people may have difficulty learning crucial information that one must know years before even applying, such as what can stand in the way of gaining citizenship: this can include any kind of police record, including low-level speeding tickets, or applying for social welfare in the years prior to applying for citizenship.

Þórhildur said that translating this page of the Directorate has not been a priority since the new webpage was launched in 2014. Many projects related to the page are still unfinished, she said, amongst other reasons from a lack of time and money. The Directorate is, she emphasised, fully willing to translate their citizenship page into English.

If you are willing to take a crack at it, we at the Grapevine have set up this publicly accessible and editable Google doc, wherein you can provide your translations of the Icelandic content of the Directorate’s citizenship page, which is linked in the doc. We thank you ahead of time for your willingness to take part in this valuable public service.