The 2 Easiest Democratic Countries to Gain Second Citizenship

These Countries Are Safe, Welcoming, and Stable.

If you get a second passport, make sure it’s better than the one you already have.

It’s no secret that interest in second passports has exploded among Americans. Everywhere I look, companies involved in international migration and overseas residence issues are reporting a doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling of applications from U.S. citizens.

There are several reasons for this…

The one that tends to garner the most attention is the desire to avoid U.S. income tax.

U.S. citizens are required to pay tax to Uncle Sam, or at least file tax returns with the IRS, no matter where they live in the world. The only way to eliminate your tax obligation is to cease to be a U.S. citizen… which requires that you’ve acquired a second citizenship beforehand.

For such people, the nature of that second citizenship may not matter if they don’t have to hand over their pound of flesh to the government.

But for most people looking for a second passport, I suspect there’s much more than taxation at stake.

What they’re after is permanent and unrestricted access to a safe, stable country outside the U.S. where they can live a high quality of life.

That sounds simple enough, but it’s harder to achieve that you might imagine given the state of much of the world today.

The Economist Intelligence Unit recently released its annual State of Democracy Index. Once again, the U.S. is classified as a “flawed democracy,” ranked 30th in the world. That’s down four spots from last year’s ranking. Although the country ranks relatively highly on electoral processes—which is frankly debatable—it scores very poorly on political culture and government functioning.

That may sound bad. But it’s a similar story across much of the world.

In fact, 37% of the world’s population now live in flawed democracies like the U.S. Another 37% live in authoritarian societies. Eighteen percent live in hybrid regimes where some people enjoy democracy and good governance, but others do not.

That leaves only 8% of the world’s population enjoying full democracy.

As always, the top scorers are the Nordic countries, followed by northwestern European nations like Ireland, France, and the U.K. Rounding out the list are Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius, Chile, Costa Rica, and Uruguay.

Looking at the EIU list can be helpful, but we also need to remember that it’s static. It takes a snapshot of current conditions and tells you where a country ranks at a point in time.

What really matters is where things are headed… and the knock-on effects for a country that’s heading in the wrong direction.

The U.S. is a case in point. The country has been sliding down the EIU’s list since the 1990s. As U.S. political culture has become more divisive, it’s become progressively more difficult for the government to get anything done. That means big issues like energy policy, immigration, and economic competitiveness aren’t getting addressed… and that everyday tensions related to those issues are rising steadily.

That’s what’s driving many Americans to look for second passports. It’s not just about reducing taxes. People want to live in countries that are more stable than America… and most importantly, are headed in the right direction. So, if you are seriously looking at getting a second passport, you should focus on countries that fit this bill.

With that in mind, here’s a list of the EIU’s genuine democracies ranked according to the ease of acquiring a second passport. I’ve ranked them on a scale of one to four, with 1 being relatively easy, 2 doable, 3 requiring a lot of work and or investment money, and 4 very difficult in practice.

Democracy	Ease of Citizenship
Costa Rica	1
Uruguay	1
Mauritius	2
Canada	2
Chile	2
Ireland	2
Spain	2
U.K.	2
Australia	3
Denmark	3
France	3
Netherlands	3
Norway	4
Sweden	4
Taiwan	4
Austria	4
Finland	4
Germany	4
Iceland	4
Japan	4
Luxembourg	4
New Zealand	4
Switzerland	4

One of the things you’ll notice straight away is that some of the most desirable countries, including most of the Nordic and northwestern European states, are difficult places to gain citizenship.

It’s possible to gain citizenship in some of the third-ranked countries, but in most cases, this is through descent or investment. Unless you qualify through the descent route, you’re looking at forking out a lot of money to gain that passport.

The two easiest democratic countries to gain citizenship are Costa Rica and Uruguay. Both have interesting histories that make them both relatively stable and welcoming to foreigners.

In Costa Rica’s case, the country decided decades ago to abolish its military. Its 1949 constitution eschewed a military establishment after a bloody 40-day civil war killed more than 2,000 people.

Ever since, Costa Rican politicians have been forced to find solutions without resorting to coups and other military shenanigans. This has tended to reduce the pull of nationalism in the country, helping make it welcoming to new arrivals.

Uruguay is perhaps the most unique of all countries on this list. It too has a history of internal conflict from which it learned important lessons. But its real uniqueness stems from the fact that it’s the only country on Earth whose constitution guarantees anyone from anywhere on the planet the right to obtain citizenship if they qualify.

Prospective Uruguayans can arrive in the country, declare their intention to seek citizenship, and immediately gain long-term residence status while they await the outcome of their application.

So, unless you qualify for citizenship by descent or have the wealth and clout to obtain citizenship in one of the rich democracies, your path to stability in a thriving democracy might just involve learning a bit of Spanish and heading south to the tropical paradise of Costa Rica or the glorious pampas of Uruguay.