Oral Reply to Parliamentary Question on Eligibility of Citizenship for Male Permanent Residents who Complete their National Service by Mr Amrin Amin, Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs

Question:

Mr Darryl David: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) whether all male permanent residents who complete their National Service get to be offered Singaporean Citizenship automatically and, if so, how soon after completing NS are they offered it; and (b) how many such cases are there every year.

Answer:

1. Singapore Citizenship (SC) is not granted automatically to Permanent Residents who have completed full-time National Service (NS).  PRs who are interested in taking up citizenship would have to apply, and will be assessed accordingly.

2. Each application is evaluated holistically on a range of criteria, to assess how committed an applicant is to sinking roots, and also how well the applicant is able to contribute and integrate into our society.   The fact that the PR has completed full-time NS and has performed well during NS will be a plus factor in the evaluation.

3. For the period from 2011 to 2015, ICA received about 4,000 applications for citizenship from Permanent Residents who had completed full-time NS. About 98% of the applications were approved.