The purpose of this article is to discuss the most recent results of the historiographical works on the subject “how to become a citizen” within the European continent in the early modern period (sixteenth‐nineteenth centuries).
The idea that citizenship status could not mark the difference between natives and immigrants on a geographical basis, as natives were entitled to it at various stages as well, stands out from the presentation of some case studies (the Republic of Venice, the Papal State, the Reign of Naples, France, Spain and Britain).
In many contexts, citizenship was rather the political recognition of social and economic integration of somebody that already acted as a citizen within the new setting.
The comparative perspective can lead us to some reflections, when we notice that participation in the life of the local community was often the main requirement for applying for its citizenship, at least until the spread of nation states in the nineteenth century.
