A total of 11,619 people applied for temporary and permanent residency status in Armenia in the first half of 2026. The figure was presented by Nelli Davtyan, acting head of Armenia’s Migration and Citizenship Service, during a news conference summarizing the first-half results.
“Applications for temporary residency have increased more than threefold. In the first half of this year, 9,534 people applied, and 6,059 applications were approved. Last year and in 2024, the number of applications ranged between 2,000 and 3,000. We are talking about temporary residency status granted for one year,” Davtyan said.
Speaking about permanent residency status, the acting head of the Migration and Citizenship Service said there had also been positive growth in this area, with 2,085 people applying. She did not specify how many of those applications had been approved.
In previous years, the number of applications ranged between 1,500 and 1,700. In this case, permanent residency status is granted for a three-year period.
A total of 2,937 applications were received from citizens of Eurasian Economic Union member states on the basis of employment, compared with around 2,500 in 2025.
Armen Ghazaryan, acting deputy interior minister, said during the news conference that, within available capacity, applications for citizenship from people displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh had been processed at the highest possible pace.
“As of now, we already have more than 40,000 displaced people who have acquired Armenian citizenship. More than 12,000 of them are minors,” he said.
Addressing criticism that the process of granting Armenian citizenship to people displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh had slowed, Ghazaryan called such claims nonsense.
The acting deputy interior minister also said the housing program had contributed to an increase in applications for Armenian citizenship. According to him, the number of applications submitted is higher than the number of people who have acquired citizenship.
Davtyan, in turn, said the procedure for obtaining Armenian citizenship for people displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh had also been digitalized, making the process easier. She then provided specific figures on the granting of Armenian citizenship.
“At present, 27,948 Armenian citizenships have been granted to people displaced from Karabakh, of which 8,676 were granted this year,” she said.
In the first half of 2026, 59,300 more people entered Armenia than left the country, compared with 10,000-15,000 in previous years.
