How to Get a Second Passport in 2026: Five Common Routes Compared

A second passport is no longer the preserve of the ultra-wealthy or the conspiracy-minded. It is a mainstream planning tool used for global mobility, business access, family security, and insurance against political or currency risk in a home country. But the market around it is noisy, and much of the advice online is either out of date or sold by agents paid by the very programs they recommend. The rules changed materially in 2025 and 2026: Italy restricted its ancestry route, the European Court of Justice shut Malta’s investment program, Vanuatu lost its EU access, Portugal doubled its naturalization clock, and Canada expanded citizenship by descent.

This guide walks through five common planning routes to a second passport, what each can cost, who it suits, and the trade-offs promotional material tends to skip. They are not an exhaustive taxonomy: citizenship can also arise at birth, through adoption, restoration, statelessness provisions and other country-specific rules.

Five common routes to a second passport

The five routes most relevant to proactive planning are citizenship by investment, citizenship by descent or ancestry, naturalization through residence, citizenship connected to marriage, and citizenship by exceptional or special grant. Each carries a distinct cost, timeline and eligibility profile, while birth, adoption, restoration and humanitarian provisions sit outside this simplified planning framework.

Route	Minimum cost	Typical timeline	Residency needed	Language test	Who it suits
Investment	~$90,000+	1 to 9 months	Usually none	No	Speed, no ancestry, can deploy capital
Descent / ancestry	A few hundred dollars in fees	9 months to 2+ years	None	No	People with qualifying parents or grandparents
Naturalization	Living costs over the period	2 to 10 years	Yes, genuine	Usually yes	Those willing to relocate and integrate
Marriage	Modest fees	1 to 5 years	Often yes	Often yes	Spouses of citizens, genuine marriages
Special grant	N/A	Discretionary	Varies	Varies	Rare; not a planning route

Route 1: Citizenship by investment

Citizenship by investment (CBI) is the fastest predictable route because you qualify by deploying capital rather than by spending years or proving lineage. The Caribbean and a handful of Pacific and other nations run formal programs with published prices, due diligence, and no meaningful residency requirement.

As of 2026, the headline options:

Program	Minimum (donation route)	Processing	Notes
Dominica	$200,000 EDF (single)	about 6 to 12 months or more	Future in-country collection visit announced; implementation pending
Grenada	$235,000 NTF	about 6 to 8 months	Only active Caribbean CBI state with a US E-2 treaty
St Kitts and Nevis	$250,000 SISC	official decision target 120 to 180 days, plus preparation	Current national guidance publishes no fixed stay
Antigua and Barbuda	$230,000 NDF (up to 4)	measured files often 12 to 18 months	5 days physical presence in 5 years
St Lucia	$240,000 NEF	measured files have ranged about 12 to 26 months	Current national guidance publishes no fixed stay
Turkey	$400,000 real estate	6 to 12 months	No residency test, hold property 3 years

A few honest caveats the sales pages bury. St Lucia’s measured files have taken materially longer than historic marketing targets, so treat every timeline as variable. Grenada’s US E-2 treaty does not grant a visa automatically: it requires a separate qualifying US business investment, and an applicant who acquired treaty nationality through investment may need three continuous years of domicile in the treaty country. Regional governments have announced stronger genuine-link standards, but no common 30-day rule is currently published as an operative national requirement across all five programs.

The cheapest active program Civita can verify from a complete official schedule is Nauru, with a $90,000 contribution through December 31, 2026 against a $115,000 standard price. Civita models about $114,700 all in for one person. Sao Tome and Principe enacted an investment-nationality framework in 2025 but remains monitored rather than ranked until the administering authority publishes a complete current fee, family and application schedule. Vanuatu is among the fastest established routes: its Citizenship Act requires the Commission to decide a DSP application within three months, from $130,000 plus FIU and other costs. The EU permanently revoked its Schengen visa-free access on December 12, 2024 after due-diligence failures. Malta, formerly the only EU passport available by investment, was declared illegal by the European Court of Justice on April 29, 2025. Its successor is not a priced commercial pathway.

CBI suits people who want speed, lack qualifying ancestry, and can deploy six figures. It does not buy you a strong passport in the EU sense, and every reputable program screens criminal records, source of funds, and sanctions exposure. See our best Caribbean citizenship by investment 2026 comparison for a deeper Caribbean breakdown.

Route 2: Citizenship by descent and ancestry

If you have a parent, grandparent, or in some cases great-grandparent who was a citizen of another country, you may already be entitled to that nationality. This is usually the cheapest route, costing a few hundred dollars in document fees rather than six figures. The catch is paperwork: you need an unbroken documentary chain (birth, marriage, naturalization records) proving the link.

The 2025 to 2026 changes here are significant. Italy fundamentally restricted its jure sanguinis law: Law No. 74/2025 now limits eligibility to those with a parent or grandparent born in Italy. Great-grandparents and earlier ancestors no longer qualify, except for applications lodged before March 27, 2025 at 11:59 PM Rome time, which continue under the old unlimited-generation rules. Ireland keeps its grandparent rule via the Foreign Births Register (fee €278 for adults, currently around a 9 month wait), with one trap: if a parent was not registered before a child’s birth, that child has no automatic claim. Poland applies the most generous rule, with no strict generation cap as long as you can show an unbroken chain of Polish citizenship back toward 1918 and no ancestor formally renounced. Canada materially expanded its descent rules in December 2025 (Bill C-3, in force December 15, 2025), broadening who qualifies through ancestry by removing the old first-generation limit in many cases, though some details are still settling and should be verified with Canadian government sources.

Our full citizenship by descent and EU passport ancestry guide covers document research country by country.

Route 3: Naturalization through residence

Naturalization is the route most people take without thinking of it as a “second passport”: move somewhere, live there legally, and eventually qualify. The trade-off is time and genuine presence. Argentina offers one of the world’s shortest standard paths at two continuous years of legal residence, with Paraguay at three. Peru, long a two-year option, raised its standard residence requirement to five years (four for spouses of Peruvian citizens) in its 2025 nationality reform, so older guides quoting two years for Peru are now wrong. These routes suit people genuinely willing to relocate.

Europe is moving the other way. Portugal’s revised Nationality Law, promulgated May 3, 2026 and in force as Lei Organica n.o 1/2026 from May 19, 2026, doubled standard naturalization from five to ten years (seven for EU and Portuguese-speaking-country nationals), added A2 language and civic-knowledge tests, and now starts the clock from the date of first residence card rather than application. Many competitor guides still quote the old five-year figure; they are wrong. Portugal’s Golden Visa residency remains available, but the citizenship endpoint is now much further off. Naturalization requires “genuine links”: real physical presence, not a postal address.

Route 4: Citizenship by marriage

Marriage to a citizen typically shortens the naturalization clock rather than skipping it. Timelines vary widely: Spain allows application after just one year of legal residence as the spouse of a Spanish national (the shortest in the EU); Italy requires two years of marriage while residing in Italy or three years abroad, halved if the couple has children; Portugal requires three years of marriage or registered partnership with no mandatory residence; Germany requires two years of marriage plus three years of legal residence and a B1 language certificate. Authorities scrutinize marriages of convenience closely, and a sham marriage can void the application and trigger removal. The relationship must be genuine and, in most cases, ongoing.

Route 5: Citizenship by exceptional or special grant

Several countries retain a discretionary door for people who render exceptional service or national-interest contributions: Malta’s new merit route (2025) for exceptional contributors to science, culture, or philanthropy with no mandatory sum; France’s naturalization by decree for exceptional services; the Czech Republic’s national-interest grants; and Canada’s Citizenship Act section 5(4) for statelessness, hardship, or exceptional service. These are rare, fully discretionary, and not commercially marketed. Treat them as outcomes, not plans.

Which route is right for you

Work backward from your goal. Fastest predictable commercial route: investment, although national timelines vary. Lowest direct cost: descent or registration if you qualify. EU citizenship: descent, marriage and genuine residence naturalization remain possible, while no direct EU citizenship-by-investment program is open. US E-2 planning: Grenada can support eligibility, subject to the separate business-investment and domicile tests. No relocation: some CBI routes, subject to current national visit and biometric rules. Strong mobility: an EU passport can offer broader rights than a Caribbean CBI passport, but only when the underlying citizenship route is genuinely available to you.

Passport strength, tax, and choosing an adviser

A second passport changes where you can travel, not automatically where you pay tax. US citizens with dual nationality still owe worldwide tax to the IRS and must file FATCA reports regardless of which passport they carry; the US confirms Americans do not lose citizenship by naturalizing abroad, but must enter and leave the US on their US passport. Renouncing US citizenship is irreversible (the formal fee dropped to $450 effective April 13, 2026, but a mark-to-market exit tax can apply above $2M net worth). CBI countries in the OECD Common Reporting Standard share account data, and FATF and OECD pressure continues to tighten the whole sector. Confirm all tax and legal specifics with qualified counsel before acting. When vetting an adviser, demand transparency on who pays them, check for licensed-agent registration, and treat guaranteed approvals or “instant EU access” claims as red flags.

Civita is paid by clients rather than programs. Use the Program Explorer for a route-level orientation, the cost calculator for published applicant profiles, or compare the reviewed universe in the citizenship by investment hub. These tools are not eligibility opinions; country-specific legal conclusions belong with qualified professionals.