There are seven ways an American can get a second passport, and four of them cost little more than filing fees: Citizenship by descent, by birth, by marriage, and by naturalization. The other three are a preferred-nationality fast track, citizenship by investment, and citizenship by merit, the route we expect to replace citizenship by investment over the next decade. Most people can name one or two.
This guide ranks all seven by ease of access rather than price. It starts with the routes you may already qualify for without knowing it and ends with the ones you buy or earn from scratch. Each comes with what it costs, how long it takes, and the catch nobody puts in the brochure.
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1. Citizenship by descent: The cheapest second passport most Americans never check
Cost: Documents and filing fees. Timeline: Roughly 1 to 3 years, depending on the country and the consulate backlog.
Americans grow up with jus soli, citizenship by place of birth. Most of Europe works on jus sanguinis, citizenship by blood. If a parent or grandparent was born in Ireland, Italy, Poland, Greece, Hungary, or a handful of other European countries, you may already be a citizen on paper and only need to prove the bloodline. Several Latin American countries offer descent as well. Mexican citizenship by descent is one of our clients' most requested routes, because a natural-born Mexican can naturalize in Spain in 2 years instead of 10 (more on that fast track below).
Ireland shows how light the process can be: One parent or grandparent born on the island, an entry on the Foreign Births Register, a small government fee, and a wait of about a year in Dublin as of 2026. The payoff is outsized. An Irish passport brings the right to live, work, study, bank, invest, and access healthcare across the European Union, plus the UK through the Common Travel Area. A claim through Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, or Hungary opens the same EU rights, usually with no residency or language requirement (Hungary, which expects Hungarian, is the exception). Compared with a decade of naturalization in a high-tax European country, that's years of time and a large tax bill saved.
One myth to retire: Italian descent through a great-great-grandparent no longer works. In March 2025 Italy capped claims at a parent or grandparent under Law 74, and the constitutional court upheld the cap in April 2026. The catch with every descent claim is paper. You have to trace and document each link with birth, marriage, and naturalization records, and if your ancestor naturalized in the US before the next generation was born, the chain breaks. If you have a foreign-born parent or grandparent, check this route before you spend a dollar on any other.
2. Citizenship by birth: Free for your children, and a fast track for you
Cost: Close to nothing. Timeline: Immediate for the child, as little as 1 to 2 years for the parents.
Fewer than 40 countries grant citizenship automatically to anyone born on their soil, and nearly all of them are in the Americas: The United States (reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 2026), Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Panama, and others. Europe has essentially no birthright citizenship. Having a child abroad is fully legal in these countries, and if you're planning a family or your children are young, where they're born is a citizenship decision.
In some countries the child also pulls the parents in. The parent of a Brazilian child qualifies for residency immediately and can apply for citizenship after 1 year instead of 4. The parent of a Mexican child gets permanent residency, with citizenship after 2 years instead of 5. One birth in the right hospital can produce three or four passports in a family within about 2 years.
Governments notice volume, so the rules are tightening. Chile, home to Latin America's strongest passport and the region's only visa-free access to the United States, now requires parents to have residency before the birth under President Kast. Argentina's 2025 decree resets your residence clock if you leave the country. Portugal now requires a parent to have 5 years of legal residence at the time of birth, up from 1. The catch is simple: This route does nothing for you if your children are grown.
3. Citizenship by marriage: A second passport in as little as 1 year
Cost: Filing fees. Timeline: 1 to 3 years in most countries.
Most countries shorten naturalization for the spouse of a citizen, and a few shorten it dramatically:
- Brazil: 1 year of residence when married to a Brazilian.
- Spain: 1 year of legal residence when married to a Spaniard.
- Italy: 2 years living in Italy or 3 years abroad, plus a B1 Italian test.
- Portugal: 3 years of marriage, with no residency requirement at all.
- Mexico: 2 years of presence in the country.
- Argentina: The residence clock is waived for spouses.
Two warnings. This isn't a loophole: Expect to prove the relationship with shared leases, joint bank accounts, photos, and sometimes an interview. And in most countries the clock starts when your residency card is issued, not on your wedding day, and the card itself can take months. If you're already in a cross-border marriage, you're closer to a second passport than almost anyone, and you probably haven't looked at the paperwork.
4. Citizenship by naturalization: Why Latin America beats Europe on time and tax
Cost: Government fees are a rounding error; the price is time on the ground. Timeline: 6 months to 10+ years.
Naturalization needs no ancestor, spouse, or check, just presence, and the clocks vary widely. Latin America is faster: The Dominican Republic in 6 months through its investor residency, Argentina in 2 years, Uruguay in 3 years if married or 5 if single, Paraguay after 3 years of permanent residency, Brazil in 4, and Mexico in 5. Europe is slower: Portugal moved from 5 to 10 years in 2026, and with the AIMA backlog most families should plan on 13 to 15; Greece takes 7, and Spain takes 10 for Americans. These are qualification dates, not passports in hand.
A residency permit and a naturalization clock are also different things. The Portugal Golden Visa needs an average of 7 days a year to renew, but citizenship asks you to prove real ties to the country. Panama's Qualified Investor visa needs one day every 2 years, with citizenship eligibility at year 5, yet naturalization is discretionary, so we recommend learning Spanish and building documented ties in the final 2 years. In Argentina, a single trip abroad can reset the 2-year count.
The time on the ground doesn't have to be a tax trap. Paraguay taxes only local income, Uruguay gives new residents an 11-year holiday on foreign income, and Cyprus offers a 17-year non-dom regime; our free guide to 19 countries that don't tax foreign income covers the rest. The catch is that you're living there. If your business, your children's school, and your aging parents are in the US, a 5-year clock is a real commitment.
5. Preferred nationality fast tracks: An EU passport in 2 years
Cost: Filing fees, once you have a qualifying passport. Timeline: As little as 2 years.
Some countries fast-track citizens of specific other countries, and Spain's version is the most valuable. Its civil code lets natural-born nationals of Ibero-American countries (Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and the rest of Latin America), plus the Philippines, Portugal, and Andorra, apply for Spanish citizenship after 2 years of legal residence instead of 10. They skip the Spanish language exam and aren't asked to give up their existing nationality. An American applying as an American waits 10 years; the same person applying as a Colombian waits 2, an 80% reduction.
The detail that trips people up: The fast track is for nationals by origin. Mexican citizenship acquired through marriage or a Mexican-born child leaves you on Spain's 10-year clock. Mexican citizenship by descent, which counts from birth, gets you the 2-year track, and a third passport at the end. Portugal offers a similar track of 7 years for citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries such as Brazil and São Tomé and Príncipe. The catch is that this route is two steps deep: You need the first passport before the second one does anything for you.
6. Citizenship by investment: The fastest second passport, with moving goalposts
Cost: About $90,000 to $400,000. Timeline: 3 to 18 months, with no language test, residency period, or time on the ground.
Citizenship by investment is the route everyone thinks of first. Prices as of 2026:
- Dominica: $200,000 donation
- Antigua and Barbuda: $230,000 donation
- Grenada: $235,000 donation
- St Lucia: $240,000 donation
- St Kitts and Nevis: $250,000 donation
- Egypt: $250,000 donation
- Turkey: $400,000 in real estate
- Vanuatu: $130,000 donation, in 3 to 4 months
- Nauru and São Tomé and Príncipe: About $90,000
Argentina and Botswana are preparing programs of their own. The catch is where the market is heading. Under pressure from the United States and the European Union, the Caribbean programs, some of which fund up to 25% of government revenue, have doubled prices and layered on due diligence, and their visa-free access to Europe could end in 2028. A passport bought from a country where you have no other ties is subject to changing terms. Our breakdowns of the cheapest citizenships by investment in 2026 and whether a Caribbean passport is worth it in 2026 cover both sides.
7. Citizenship by merit: The route we expect to replace citizenship by investment
Cost: Case by case, from exceptional skills to seven-figure contributions. Timeline: Discretionary.
When the European Court of Justice struck down Malta's citizenship by investment program in 2025, Malta turned to citizenship by merit: Naturalization for people who render exceptional services or make an exceptional contribution to Malta or to humanity, from scientists and athletes to entrepreneurs, job creators, and investors. There's no price list, quota, or fixed residency period. Each case goes to an evaluation board and a ministerial decision, and for a clean profile that fits Malta's economic plans, the contribution typically lands a little above a million euros.
More than 130 countries have the power to grant citizenship to exceptional individuals written into their constitution or nationality law. Sometimes that means a donation, sometimes an investment in real estate or a business, sometimes hiring locally, and sometimes a skill the country lacks. Austria has done it for decades for eight-figure investors, Tom Hanks received Greek citizenship this way, and Peter Thiel became a New Zealand citizen the same way. As the EU squeezes transactional programs, we expect every country that wants investor capital to lean on this mechanism. The catch: Discretionary means discretionary, and you build toward it with a track record. We cover it in depth in our analysis of citizenship by merit and the future of citizenship by investment.
Which second passport route fits you
A European grandparent, a Colombian spouse, a baby on the way, a business that can move, or a founder's track record each points to a different route, before your goals even enter the picture. Descent and birth are worth checking first because they cost almost nothing. Marriage and naturalization reward time. The Spanish fast track rewards sequencing. Investment buys speed, and merit rewards a record you can document.
To narrow it down, take the 90-second Plan B Blueprint for a custom report on the routes that fit your goals, then book a free Freedom Consult and leave with a personalized recommendation. For families building several residencies and citizenships at once, alongside banking and tax planning, our Private Client Engagement sequences every step across borders.
