Congratulations @ziyep and @nejc74 !!
Personally, I’m still stuck at the “état civil” procedure in canton Vaud. I recieved a letter from SPOP in July saying that my naturalisation is paused until I get registered in état civil, but I’ve never heard from civil state since then, so for almost 4 months.
Does anyone know the current timelines for the état civil vaudois to get in touch with us ? And how long does it take for them to process the documents ?
City of Zurich
10/23 Online application submitted.
01/24 kt requested 1 document clarification, provided, processed same day.
04/24 DE certificate requested by post (advised I have 6 months to take KDE or submit a certificate).
05/24 DE certificate provided.
07/24 Test & interview invite received.
09/24 Test & interview completed.
10/24 Gemeinde Confirmation received. 1. still no online status change, 2. letter advised bill would come from the kanton later, 3. from what I see, test to receipt of Gemeinde approval can take anywhere from 2wks - 2mths. Waiting for official confirmation post-interview was a little agonizing for me, which is why I mention it - no need to stress if you aren’t lucky enough to receive it after 2 weeks.
Some remarks:
Hopefully, that is the hard part out of the way.
I finally submitted my application yesterday in Zürich city. Now the endless waiting begins…
Hello everyone! I’m thrilled to share that as of the end of October 2024, I am officially Swiss! 
This forum has been an incredible source of support throughout the journey, especially in the waiting periods, so I’m excited to give back by sharing my own timeline with all of you.
(online-status is still “Schlussprüfung”)Wishing you all patience and success!
Got my first update by paper mail today, my file has been sent to my Wohngemeinde (Stadt Zürich).
Timeline so far:
27.10.2024 Pressed the submit button in eEinbürgerung
28.10.2024 Got an Empfangsbestätigung by paper mail from Gemeindeamt ZH (28.10 is the date on the letter, the letter itself was sent by B-Post and came a few days later).
07.11.2024 Got a paper letter from Stadthaus Zürich reminding me that I’ve become eligible for citizenship and that I should apply (thanks Stadthaus :))
14.11.2024 Got a paper letter from Gemeindeamt saying that my file has been sent to my Wohngemeinde for processing the municipal citizenship.
P.S. I’ve also sent a letter to Gemeindeamt in the meantime explaining some extenuating personal circumstances and asking them to consider them when scheduling the Vorprüfung. Maybe that had some effect, I never received a direct reply. The online status is still “In Einreichung”.
Wow, that was fast! Just got a paper letter from Stadtkanzlei Zürich with an invitation for the Grundkenntnistest on Dec 20 2024. I’m guessing they’re waiving the interview because it’s not mentioned in the letter at all (a friend who recently got the Zurich city citizenship had it explicitly mentioned (“Zur Besprechung Ihres Einbürgerungsgesuchs und zur Überprüfung Ihrer Grundkenntnisse über die Schweiz lader wir Sie gern zu einem persönlichen Gespräch ein”)).
27.10.2024 Pressed the submit button in eEinbürgerung
28.10.2024 Got an Empfangsbestätigung by paper mail from Gemeindeamt ZH (28.10 is the date on the letter, the letter itself was sent by B-Post and came a few days later).
07.11.2024 Got a paper letter from Stadthaus Zürich reminding me that I’ve become eligible for citizenship and that I should apply (thanks Stadthaus :))
14.11.2024 Got a paper letter from Gemeindeamt saying that my file has been sent to my Wohngemeinde for processing the municipal citizenship.
18.11.2024 Got a paper letter from Stadtkanzlei Zürich with an invitation for the Grundkenntnistest on 20.12.2024.
The online status is still “In Einreichung”, I guess it’s going to be useless to follow the online status from this point on.
Wait! You’re saying that submitted your application on the E-Einbürgerung site 3 weeks ago and you have already received an invite from Stadt Zürich for your Grundkenntnisstest? It took me and others the forum 8-10 months to get to that point. Are you married to a Swiss? Well done to you but it does raise a lot of questions about how effective the E-Einbürgerung is managed, if at all.
No, I’m not married to a Swiss, mine is the most boring ordinary naturalization case ever (non-EU, not married to EU/Swiss, also had an L permit for the first two years so I’ve been forced to wait 12 years instead of 10).
There are informal provisions for an accelerated naturalization procedure in the SEM handbook (page 75, “338 Beschleunigtes Einbürgerungsverfahren”).
My case is not exactly among the listed examples but still I have some familial circumstances that are messed up because of current geopolitics and the sooner I become Swiss the easier life would get (not only for me individually). I wrote them up in a letter and asked Gemeindeamt for their thoughts after submitting the e-Einbürgerung. Looks like they acknowledged the urgency and I’m thankful for that (I absolutely didn’t expect it though, it’s not as life-and-death as the examples in that handbook).
I hope that the best for you in this process given your circumstances. I certainly am not judging you but, I have to admit that it does bother me somewhat that the authorities have the power to make the process more efficient, when they want to.
Sorry I meant to say that am not judging you or your intentions. Forgive the typo.
Oh, I am completely with you on this, I find it ridiculous that the first two steps of the digital process take many months when they are literally accomplished by clicking a button or two (Vorprüfung is literally just checking ZEMIS that you have the C permit and have had a B+ permit for the last 10 years — totally automatable behind a push of a button, same with the civil register check — Infostar is an online system which the canton has access to). That should take days at most.
Same with the Gemeinde level procedure, actually. I can understand the argument that there are not enough human interviewers and a large queue of applicants, but since they do waive the interview for some people, they could easily run the Grundkenntnistest at scale, like the theory test at the DMV/Strassenverkehrsamt, one supervisor could sit in a room with several dozen people clicking through the test.
My timeline so far in Zurich Stadt:
The last 3 steps are exactly the same time as mine but I applied end of July 2023.
Just an update, I reached out to Canton Zurich to check if they received my dossier from the Gemeinde (I got the approval about 2 months ago). They confirmed that they did in late October and informed me that their current processing time (Prufung Kanton) is running between 4-6 months.
It is not a bug, it is a feature, part of the filtering process.
congratulations! I am curious about some parts:
I submitted my application under the new law via the Zurich online portal, meaning I didn’t need to take the citizenship test or attend an interview.
I thought under the new law, you would need to take the citizenship test.
What would it filter for? I cannot hardly imagine that anybody who had lived here for the 10+ years that are needed to apply would ragequit and leave Switzerland before getting citizenship because the process took an extra year.
What does it mean when you got the bills? does it mean you have received the approvals?
Sorry for the confusion; So in the second half of June, I got the approval from the gemeinde, and at the end of October i got a mail that had:
In mid November I received the actual bill from SEM and paid it.
@swisstobe Thanks for sharing your update. Did the letter for approval from Stadtrat mention that the fee for the Gemeinde is CHF 1’200? The cantonal fee is CHF 500 (written in the official site of ZH, screenshot below), but the fee for the Gemeinde is not reported in the page because the fee differs between municipalities. The letter from Stadtrat includes two sentences with the fee for the Gemeinde and says that you will receive the invoice later from the canton. Was the number in your letter CHF 1’200?
@swisstobe May I ask if your application moved to Prüfung Gemeine in the beginning, middle or late February?
@pumquero Congrats! Did you also receive a bill of CHF 1’200 for the City of Zurich or was it a different number?
Thank you both!
