Citizenship Test Solothurn 2026 – Baroque City & Watchmaking Guide

Solothurn, the eleventh canton since 1481 and proud of the number eleven ever since, is the only canton that makes a civics course a legal condition of naturalisation. Section 15bis of its Citizenship Act says that foreign applicants must attend a Neubürgerkurs of at least twelve hours that ends with a learning check; in practice it is 20 lessons at the adult education centre of Solothurn-Grenchen or Olten, costs CHF 400 and is compulsory for everyone from 18, both spouses included. The exam is written, in two parts, and passed with a grade of 4.0. There is no communal knowledge test on top of that, but there are two interviews, one at the Oberamt and one with the naturalisation commission of your Bürgergemeinde, and the citizens' assembly or council must give its assurance. Since 1 January 2026 the language bar is German at B2 spoken and A2 written. This guide explains who can apply, how the course and the exam work, what the canton and the communes charge and how the file travels from your Bürgergemeinde to the cantonal government, all taken from the act, the ordinance, the sheets of the Office for Communes and the pages of the Bürgergemeinden of Solothurn and Grenchen. The Solothurn canton page has the same facts with every source linked.

The federal rules come first: a C permit, ten years in Switzerland with three of them in the five years before the application, years between the ages of 8 and 18 counting double with at least six actual years, F permits counting half and N, L and S permits not at all. Solothurn adds four years of settlement in the canton, two of them immediately before the application, with the years between 8 and 18 in the canton counting double, and two years in the commune. Both spouses must meet these periods themselves; only registered partners of Swiss citizens benefit from a shortened rule. German is required at B2 spoken and A2 written since 1 January 2026, proven by a certificate from the fide list, unless German is your mother tongue, you attended at least five years of compulsory school in German or you completed an upper-secondary or tertiary qualification in German; children under 12 are exempt, and the citizenship commission can grant a dispensation in hardship cases. Integration means respecting the legal system with a clean VOSTRA record, meeting your financial obligations without debts, debt collections, certificates of unpaid debts or unpaid taxes, knowing your rights and duties, being familiar with local life, working or being in education, and supporting your family's integration. Anyone on social assistance in the three years before the application or during the procedure cannot in principle be naturalised unless it has been fully repaid; initial training and other important reasons are assessed case by case. Minor children under your parental care are included, those over 16 only with their written consent, and from 16 a young person can apply alone with the parents' consent. Anyone who has lived in the commune for the last ten years without interruption, went to school mostly in Switzerland and applies before 22 is entitled to communal citizenship.

The course is the heart of the Solothurn procedure and comes before the application. Your Bürgergemeinde registers you at the adult education centre of Solothurn-Grenchen or Olten, but only after you have shown your language certificate; the CHF 400 are paid to the vocational training centre before the course starts, and you may attend before your ten years in Switzerland are complete. The course and exam regulation of the citizenship commission, valid from 1 January 2026, lists what you must be able to do afterwards: know the naturalisation requirements, describe Switzerland and Canton Solothurn from key facts, explain the features of Swiss democracy, vote and elect independently, understand the essentials of social insurance, form an opinion on economic and labour questions and know the canton's school system in outline. Only those who attended every lesson are admitted to the exam; unexcused absences make the whole course count as failed. The exam consists of two written individual tests, basic knowledge without notes and detailed knowledge with notes, with at most 1.5 hours for both. Each part is graded on a linear points scale, the overall grade is the mean of the two, and 4.0 passes. If you fail, you may repeat once at the exam date of a following course, for a fee, without attending again; if that fails too, you repeat the whole course. Cheating means exclusion and a three-month wait. The certificate goes to you and, in copy, to your Bürgergemeinde. Anyone who did an apprenticeship, a Matura or the cantonal school in Switzerland can ask the Office for Communes for a dispensation with a copy of the apprenticeship contract, the certificate of competence with grades or the school report.

Everything starts at the Bürgergemeinde or unified commune of your place of residence, not at the canton: the canton's free online service Einbürgerung beantragen only checks the basic requirements (C permit, age 16, residence in the canton) and forwards your interest to the commune. In the city of Solothurn you book an introductory interview at the Bürgerkanzlei by phone and receive the application papers there, in Grenchen you start with a non-binding first meeting. Once you hold the language certificate and the course certificate, you have your civil status pre-registered at the civil registry office and only then gather the rest: civil status documents not older than six months, residence confirmation, criminal record and debt collection extracts not older than two months, confirmations of earlier residence in the canton, proof of income and assets, a CV, an employment or education confirmation and a copy of your permit. Fees are charged by effort at every level. The canton's tariff allows CHF 200 to 3,000 per application, in practice about 1,500 to 2,500, invoiced after the federal authorisation; the communes charge 500 to 3,000 according to the canton, the Bürgergemeinde Solothurn about 1,500 for a single person, 1,800 for a couple and 2,000 for a family, Grenchen 2,000 to 3,000 per application with an advance and total costs of 3,000 to 5,500. Add the course at CHF 400 per person, the language exam, the documents and the federal fee. The canton reckons with about two years from filing, its information sheet with two to two and a half, the Bürgergemeinden of Solothurn and Grenchen with two to three, and the language certificate, the course and the pre-registration come before that. The courses were fully booked until the end of 2025, so start early.

Start with the language, because nothing moves without the certificate: since 2026 you need B2 spoken and A2 written from a test on the fide list, and the Bürgergemeinde Solothurn explains that a fide or telc A2 proof plus the passed spoken part of a telc B2 exam is enough even if the B2 certificate itself is not issued. Then treat the Neubürgerkurs as your syllabus: the exam regulation's learning goals are the naturalisation requirements, key facts about Switzerland and Solothurn, the workings of democracy, voting and elections, social insurance, economy and work, and the cantonal school system, and the second exam part lets you use your course notes, so keep them in order. For the Solothurn part, the facts that recur: the accession of 1481 as the eleventh member, the eleven fountains, chapels and towers and the eleven altars of the St. Ursen cathedral, the French ambassadors from 1530 to 1792 and the baroque old town, the Aare and the Weissenstein, Olten as the largest town and rail junction, Grenchen and its watch movements, the cantonal parliament with 100 and the cantonal government with five members, the Solothurn Film Days every January. Our 49 Solothurn questions cover exactly this, and the federal lessons on federalism, direct democracy, rights and duties, social insurance and history mirror the regulation's goals, so you can practise the Solothurn questions here. The interviews at the Oberamt and before the naturalisation commission are about you: why you want to become Swiss, how you take part in local life, whether you know your rights and duties.

With the complete file at the commune, the procedure runs through 15 stations that the canton lists in its file chart of January 2026. The commune reports the application to the Office for Communes within 30 days, checks the papers and passes them to the Oberamt, which interviews you and everyone applying with you and writes the investigation report. The office runs a first preliminary check and returns the file with its recommendation. Your Bürgergemeinde then interviews you before its naturalisation commission and its competent body, the citizens' assembly or the council depending on its regulation, decides on the assurance of communal citizenship; voters learn your nationality, your length of settlement and the details relevant to integration, and a refusal must be objectively reasoned and can be appealed to the department within ten days. Once the assurance is final and the communal fee paid, the office runs a second preliminary check, reports to the citizenship commission, seven members from outside the administration, which provisionally assures cantonal citizenship, and applies to the State Secretariat for Migration for the federal authorisation. When that arrives, the office invoices the cantonal fee, checks your record once more and takes the file to the cantonal government, which grants cantonal citizenship; only with that decision do you also acquire communal citizenship. The entry in the civil register follows, your Bürgergemeinde hands you the naturalisation certificate, in Grenchen at the citizens' assembly, and your municipality invites you to take the voluntary pledge and receive the federal and cantonal constitutions. Until the assurance you must stay in your commune; after it you may move within the canton.