This thesis explores the citizenship-belonging nexus from the perspective of citizenship- applicants and newly naturalized citizens in Denmark. Over the past decades, Danish naturalization policy has become increasingly restrictive, requiring applicants to fulfill a long list of conditions to be eligible for citizenship, with a tendency to screen applicant’s values among the newest developments. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observations, the thesis investigates denizens’ notions of citizenship and ‘Danishness’, as well as how and when migrants experience belonging (and lack thereof) while in this increasingly demanding naturalization process. The theoretical framework builds on Marco Antonsich’s distinction between place-belonging – the personal and intimate feeling of home – and the politics of belonging –structural inclusions and exclusion created through discourse and practice. The findings reveal that participants’ sense of place-belonging, self-identity and legal status often misalign, showing how the lived experience of citizenship and belonging may differ significantly from political ideas of integration as a governance tool. While participants were met with an excluding politics of belonging rooted in cultural essentialism, they challenged and negotiated these social and legal boundaries in different ways, revealing the socially constructed categories of the nation-state to be insufficient in understanding belonging in a world increasingly defined by international migration.