Unified electronic system for granting citizenship to be launched in  Armenia 

ArmInfo. A unified electronic system for granting and terminating citizenship will be introduced in Armenia. On January 20, the National Assembly of the  Republic of Armenia will discuss the amendments to the laws "On  Citizenship" and "On State Duty" submitted by the RA government in  the second reading at a plenary session. Presenting the documents,  Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Armen  Ghazaryan noted that the verification of submitted applications will  also be carried out electronically. The program plans to create a  unified electronic platform where all cases related to citizenship  will be fully presented. Currently, this process is carried out in  paper form, which is associated with expenses and time. The  electronic platform will present all data related to both the  granting of citizenship and its termination. With the help of the new  system, all requests will be made to other structures involved in the  process of granting or terminating citizenship - the State Revenue  Committee, the Ministry of Defense, the Police, the National Security  Service and others, which will operate on a single electronic  platform.

As the Deputy Minister emphasized, an important component of the new  program will be the issue of preserving the database. The fact is  that maintaining paper records requires additional efforts, and  against this background, preserving data in electronic form is much  more effective. The package retains the right of foreign citizens who  have applied for citizenship to a one-time visit to the authorized  body to submit an application and identify the applicants. In all  other cases, transactions will be carried out electronically.

The relevant amendments are also being introduced to the Law "On  State Duty". Currently, a state duty of 1 thousand drams is paid for  obtaining Armenian citizenship, and upon termination of citizenship,  the state duty rate is 25 thousand drams. Both state duty rates have  not changed since 1997. Taking into account inflationary pressures  and technical changes, it is now proposed to increase the state duty  rates to 50 thousand drams and 150 thousand drams, respectively.  Refugees and stateless persons are exempt from paying state duty when  obtaining citizenship.

Earlier, Kazaryan reported that, as a rule, the issue of granting  citizenship is studied within 90 days, and the termination of  citizenship - 180 days. He also cited statistics, according to which  7,800 people received Armenian citizenship in 2020, 2,500 in 2021,  and over 25,000 in 2022. At the same time, citizenship was terminated  for 4,904 people in 2021, 4,510 in 2022, 3,654 in 2023, and 3,107 in  the first 9 months of 2024.  The deputy minister also reported that  in March of this year, it is planned to select a company through a  tender that will implement the biometric passport system. After  concluding an agreement with the winner of the competition, the  company will have a maximum of one year to fully implement the  system.