Naturalization Approvals Have Fallen to About a Third of Their Recent Pace, and Approved Applicants Are Now Waiting on the Oath

The United States is approving new citizens at roughly a third of the pace it kept in 2024 and 2025, even though applications are still arriving faster than the agency can finish them. Naturalization approvals have averaged about 22,000 a month in 2026, down from about 70,000 a month over the previous two years, NPR reported on Oct. 13, and that drop is now showing up as canceled oath ceremonies, longer waits and a growing pending list for lawful permanent residents trying to complete the last step toward citizenship.

The backlog of Form N-400 applications passed 742,000 at the end of June. The new reporting shifts attention from the size of that line to how fast people leave it. Demand has not collapsed. Output has.

The intake side tells a different story. USCIS received 145,872 citizenship applications between April and June, according to quarterly agency data reported by Business Standard, or about 48,600 a month, based on those figures. That is about two and a half times the approval rate for the same period, and the pending list grows every month the gap persists.

Where the slowdown comes from

No single order cut naturalizations by two-thirds. The decline tracks several changes that each add time to a file. An August 2025 USCIS memo told officers to weigh good moral character more broadly than the old checklist of statutory bars. Applicants who filed on or after Oct. 20, 2025, take a longer civics test. USCIS has also revived neighborhood investigations into applicants’ character, a practice it had largely set aside for decades.

The sharpest single blow came in late 2025, when the administration held applications from nationals of 39 countries for additional review. NPR reported that a federal court struck down that hold about eight months later, but cases frozen for most of a year do not clear overnight, and the January 2026 approval figure was the lowest monthly total since USCIS began publishing the series in 2022.

USCIS defends the slower pace as the cost of doing the job properly. In a statement quoted by NPR, the agency said it now applies more rigorous screening, including added background checks and closer review of refugee claims, and said the previous administration had “rubber stamped applications.” Immigration lawyers interviewed by NPR in Ohio described the same changes as unpredictable, and one called the result “chaos.” Both accounts can hold at once: more checks per file, introduced with little notice, slow a system whether or not each check is justified.

Approved, but not yet a citizen

The least visible part of the slowdown falls on people whose applications have already been approved. Citizenship does not begin at approval. Under 8 U.S.C. 1448, it begins when the applicant takes the oath of allegiance at a public ceremony. Until then, that person remains a green card holder who cannot vote or obtain a U.S. passport.

NPR reported that immigration officials have canceled 13 naturalization ceremonies in Northeast Ohio so far this year and that Ohio has seen almost 50 percent fewer new citizens. Those figures come from a single report and have not been published by USCIS, but they fit the national approval numbers.

Ceremony delays also fall into a legal gap. The best-known remedy for a stalled case, 8 U.S.C. 1447(b), lets an applicant sue in federal district court if USCIS has not decided the case within 120 days after the interview. It addresses the decision, not the ceremony. Someone who is approved but waiting for an oath date has no comparable statutory clock and would generally have to bring a harder unreasonable-delay claim under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Timing adds to the stakes. The Nov. 3 midterms are three weeks away, and many states close voter registration in October, so an applicant sworn in after a state’s deadline will miss this election unless late or same-day registration is allowed. How many people are in that position is unknown, and naturalized voters do not lean uniformly toward either party.

NPR also reported that processing times have roughly doubled, from about six months to 13, while USCIS’s quarterly data put the median for regular cases completed between April and June at 9.5 months. The figures measure different things: a median describes finished cases, and in a slowing queue the people still waiting have already waited longer.

The next test is USCIS’s fourth-quarter release, covering July through September. Between April and June, filings outpaced completed cases by about 75,000, based on the reported figures; another quarter like that would push the pending list past 800,000. A rebound in approvals would suggest the slowdown was mostly cases from the 39-country hold working their way through. Continued low numbers would point to a lasting change in how long it takes to become a citizen.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

• NPR, “Naturalization in the U.S. is on the decline” (Oct. 13, 2026)
• NPR, “2025 was one of most volatile years ever for U.S. naturalizations” (April 13, 2026)
• Business Standard, USCIS third-quarter FY2026 N-400 data (Oct. 1, 2026)
• USCIS, Naturalization Statistics (FY2024)
• USCIS Policy Memorandum on Good Moral Character (Aug. 15, 2025)
• Federal Register, Notice of Implementation of 2025 Naturalization Civics Test (Sept. 18, 2025)
• 8 U.S.C. 1447 and 8 U.S.C. 1448

About the Author

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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