Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on New Citizens Relinquishing Their Citizenship in the Past 20 Years by Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law

Question:

Mr Leon Perera: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) what cumulative absolute number of new citizens over the past 20 years have relinquished their citizenship; and (b) whether the number of such cases has been increasing or decreasing annually over the past 10 years.

Answer:

A total of 5,400 naturalised Singapore citizens renounced their citizenship between 1998 and 2017, an average of about 270 each year. Over the past 10 years, the annual renunciation rate for naturalised citizens has remained stable and low, at around 0.1%.