7 Reasons to Acquire Multiple Citizenships

--- by D. Petkovski ---

I’m a big proponent of personal freedom and acquiring multiple citizenships is a major factor for that.

When I talk about this, whether on X or IRL, people often seem to misunderstand the benefits a second nationality can provide.

In this post, I’ll cover my top 7 reasons why everyone should strive to be a citizen of at least two countries, and the more the merrier.

Table of Contents

1) Access to a Variety of Opportunities, Laws, and Education

This point is self-explanatory.

Let’s say you’re born and raised in Thailand, but inherit German nationality from one of your parents.

That means you have a unique ability that none of your neighbors or peers have:

You can attend top tier universities across the whole European Union, without paying higher tuition fees than locals, without needing a residence permit, and without satisfying arbitrary point systems for foreigners.

Settling, studying, and working become a matter of simply moving to any country within the EU.

You can choose the lifestyle and labor laws that are most favorable to your situation. Again, without needing a company “to sponsor you” or procedures for a working visa.

You basically are a native in multiple places.

2) Aligning With Political Orientation

A person might be completely disassociated with what his country has become over the years.

This is not applicable to everyone, especially not for those around the center of the political spectrum, but some might have stronger inclinations towards certain countries and/or regimes.

And in more extreme cases, people might feel that regardless of the ruling party, the government isn’t acting in its citizens’ best interest.

It’s a massive liberation when “voting with your feet” is an option.

It can boil down to crossing a border instead of enduring endless unrest or potentially violent escalations.

3) Escaping Government Overreach

Government overreach is not typical just in countries that are falling apart or in communist takeovers from the past.

Democratic societies also have varying levels of government oppression, but it’s usually less visible.

Let’s take Sweden for example and their “Offentlighetsprincipen” – the principle of public access to official records.

In summary, you can simply type in the name of any Swedish resident on websites such as merinfo.se and it’ll give you all the information about them – their address, age, phone number, cars they have, names of family members and links to their profiles, companies they own, job history, tax returns, etc. And then, people with bad intentions can simply look you up and enter your home uninvited.

Then, let’s take Norway and the controversial “Barnevernet” (child protection organization) that facilitates kidnapping of kids without warning, given that a low-life bureaucrat decides that you’re not a suitable parent.

Another example is Canada freezing the bank accounts of “anti-mandate protesters” – people that donated money to the Freedom Convoy in 2022. If you expressed your political views, all of a sudden you couldn’t pay your mortgage or afford food.

I can go on and on, but I’ll stop here. And this is just in the countries with successful marketing campaigns.

Imagine being financially well off but forced to remain within the borders of such regimes.

4) Choosing a Favorable Tax System

Having multiple citizenships allows you to choose your preferred tax residency.

And unlike people that are considered criminals, you’d have the ability to legally avoid (over)paying taxes.

If you’re a retiring off of your long-term stock portfolio, you might choose countries without capital gains taxes.

If you’re a location-independent freelancer, you might consider lowering your income tax rates to 0%-10%, effectively doubling your net income.

And lastly, if any of the countries you’re a national of decides to tax non-resident citizens (like the US does), you just renounce that particular citizenship and abolish the power of government oppression upon you.

A notable example is when France introduced an oppressive wealth tax causing an exodus of millionaires from the country. As EU citizens can freely reside anywhere in the union, over 60k people left France, doing more harm than good in terms of tax revenue. Unsurprisingly, this tax was later abolished.

5) Minimizing Bureaucratic Friction

When I moved to the Netherlands as a non-EU citizen, I needed to do a Tuberculosis test as part of the residence permit requirement.

My girlfriend that moved with me from the same country didn’t have to do it because she had a Hungarian passport.

Let me repeat that: both people come from a country that’s considered risky for that illness. Both people move and register together. And there’s a piece of paper that apparently makes one of them immune to Tuberculosis.

Beautiful.

A few years later, we got married during the Covid lockdowns and embarked on multiple journeys shortly after.

Both of us have acquired Dutch citizenship by then.

When travelling back from a non-EU country, we were asked for vaccination certificates or negative Covid tests. We didn’t have any, but we had an extra passport.

We just gave this piece of paper and the requirement to be inconvenienced magically disappeared.

Same people, same travel destinations, but imaginary rules didn’t apply anymore.

6) Convenient Visa-Free Travel

This one is the most normie-friendly point, but it’s still quite important from practical perspective.

I have a personal rule that I’m not visiting countries that require me to get a tourist visa.

Having multiple citizenships meaning using the passport that the country you’re dealing with prefers to see. And you’ll never be discriminated against because of your nationality.

Acquiring a strong passport, such as an EU one, gives you a visa-free entry in most countries in the world (+ long-term residency right in ~30).

7) Safety Concerns & Escaping War or Oppression

The future is uncertain and it’s always smart to be prepared for emergencies.

In a worst case scenario, a war can break out and you might prefer to flee your country. Or you might become a public enemy due to a regime takeover. Or you’re stripped off of (human) rights because of your identity.

All examples are terrible and I sympathize with anyone that’s forced to endure such atrocities…

But to stick to the topic: if you have a second passport, there’s at least one other country that welcomes you without any overhead. No need to seek asylum, no bureaucratic nightmares, no risk of statelessness and/or deportation…

Even if a regime makes it really difficult for you to leave (with violence, closed borders, and extreme surveillance), it’s practically a case of reaching an embassy.

Afterword & Recommendations

If you are married, see how you can acquire your spouse’s nationality.

If you have ancestors from old European empires, check your citizenship eligibility with the respective embassies.

If you can leverage your skills to expat, choose countries with straight-forward naturalization laws.

Author

D. Petkovski

📓 The Author Husband & Father
Software Engineer StrengthCentric
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