Dual citizenship has become the global norm, even as a proposed US bill seeks to force Americans with second passports to choose one nationality. The broader trend is moving in the opposite direction: most countries now allow dual nationality, and that shift underpins modern investment migration, citizenship by descent, diaspora policy, and multi-passport planning.
In December 2025, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno introduced the Exclusive Citizenship Act, a bill that would ban Americans from holding dual citizenship.
Under the proposal, existing dual citizens would have 12 months to choose between US citizenship and another nationality. If they failed to choose, the US government would strip their American passport.
The bill is described as unlikely to pass. GovTrack’s forecasting model gives it a 3% chance of enactment.
The proposal also faces a major constitutional obstacle. In Afroyim v. Rusk in 1967, the US Supreme Court ruled that the government cannot strip American citizenship without the citizen’s consent. The transcript frames this as nearly 60 years of settled law.
There is also an enforcement problem. The US government does not systematically track dual citizens.
Estimates of American dual citizens range from 500,000 to 5.7 million. Some analysis suggests more than 40 million Americans may qualify for another citizenship through ancestry alone.
That creates a practical issue: a ban is difficult to enforce if the government does not know who holds another nationality or who is eligible to claim one.
The global shift toward dual citizenship
The proposed US restriction runs against a long-term global trend.
According to the MACIMIDE Global Expatriate Dual Citizenship Dataset from Maastricht University, which tracks 200 countries back to 1960, more than 76% of countries now allow citizens to hold another nationality without automatically losing the first.
The trend has changed sharply over time:
- 1960: about 38% of countries accepted dual citizenship
- 1990: about 50%
- 2000: about 60%
- 2020: about 76%
The dataset tracked 75 policy changes, and 85% of them were liberalizations.
The transcript argues that the old single-citizenship model took centuries to build, but began breaking apart within a few decades.
Why countries liberalized dual citizenship rules
Four forces are presented as driving the global shift.
Gender equality in nationality law
When countries allowed mothers to pass citizenship to their children, more children were automatically born with two nationalities.
Punishing dual citizenship became harder to justify when people acquired it by birth rather than by choice.
Diaspora politics
Many Latin American countries changed their rules in the 1990s.
Examples mentioned include:
- Colombia: 1991
- Dominican Republic: 1994
- Costa Rica: 1995
- Ecuador: 1995
- Brazil: 1996
- Mexico: 1998
Overseas communities wanted to retain political belonging in their country of origin while integrating practically into their new country.
The transcript frames this as a demand to keep both identities rather than choose one.
Regional diffusion
Countries became more likely to liberalize when neighboring countries had already done so.
The transcript describes this as a form of policy peer pressure among states.
End of the Cold War
During periods when interstate military conflict was more common, dual nationality raised concerns about military loyalty.
As that fear declined after the Cold War, one of the main arguments against dual citizenship weakened.
Recent liberalizations
Several major countries have recently moved toward more permissive dual citizenship rules.
Germany’s June 2024 reform is described as the most consequential recent change. Germany eliminated the requirement for naturalizing immigrants to renounce their previous citizenship and reduced the residence requirement from eight years to five years.
The result was record naturalizations.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court struck down automatic citizenship revocation in May 2025, with retroactive effect back to 1995.
Other countries that moved into the permissive category include:
- Nigeria
- Liberia in 2022
- Malawi in 2019
These changes support the broader pattern: most recent policy shifts have made dual citizenship easier, not harder.
Countries that still restrict dual citizenship
Some countries remain restrictive.
China officially prohibits dual citizenship, although enforcement is described as selective. The transcript notes that demand for second passports among Chinese nationals remains high in the investment migration market.
Japan formally requires dual nationals to choose one nationality by age 22, though enforcement is described as inconsistent.
Several Southeast Asian countries also restrict or do not recognize dual citizenship, including:
- Singapore
- Malaysia
- Indonesia
Austria allows dual citizenship mainly where it arises involuntarily.
The Gulf Cooperation Council states formally prohibit dual citizenship.
The transcript frames these countries as a shrinking group of holdouts rather than the direction of global policy.
Geopolitical reversals
Dual citizenship policy can still be shaped by geopolitics.
Slovakia is presented as the clearest reversal in the dataset.
In 2010, Hungary offered simplified naturalization to ethnic Hungarians living abroad. Slovakia, which had about 500,000 ethnic Hungarians, responded by decreeing that Slovak citizens who voluntarily acquired another nationality would lose Slovak citizenship.
The law was partially relaxed in 2022, but the core restriction remained.
This example shows that policy can move backward in specific geopolitical contexts, but the transcript argues such cases do not reverse the broader six-decade trend.
Why dual citizenship matters for investment migration
Dual citizenship is central to citizenship by investment.
CBI programs exist because applicants usually want to add a nationality, not replace their existing one.
Caribbean citizenship by investment programs all recognize dual citizenship, including:
- St. Kitts and Nevis
- Dominica
- Grenada
- Antigua and Barbuda
- St. Lucia
Without dual citizenship recognition, these programs would be far less attractive. Few investors would acquire a Caribbean passport if it meant surrendering their original nationality.
The same logic applies to European golden visa programs such as:
- Portugal
- Greece
- Malta
- Italy
These programs are attractive because investors can layer residency, and eventually citizenship in some cases, on top of existing nationality.
The transcript describes global acceptance of dual citizenship as the structural foundation of the investment migration market.
Dual citizenship and multi-passport planning
For globally mobile investors, dual citizenship allows a portfolio approach to nationality.
A person may use different citizenships or residencies for different purposes:
- Travel access
- Settlement rights
- Tax planning
- Family security
- Political risk protection
- Business and banking flexibility
- Access to education or healthcare
- Long-term relocation options
The key point is that dual citizenship allows these rights to be layered rather than traded.
The transcript argues that the more countries accept dual nationality, the stronger the case becomes for multi-passport strategies.
Practical implications
The Exclusive Citizenship Act is presented as unlikely to become law because it conflicts with US constitutional precedent, lacks a clear enforcement mechanism, and runs against global policy trends.
The broader lesson is that dual citizenship is no longer an exception. It is now accepted by most countries and is becoming more normal over time.
However, restrictions still matter. Anyone planning a second citizenship should check:
- Whether their current country allows dual citizenship
- Whether the new country allows dual citizenship
- Whether naturalization requires renunciation
- Whether enforcement is active or mostly formal
- Whether citizenship was acquired by birth, descent, investment, marriage, or naturalization
- Whether the country has geopolitical reasons to restrict dual nationality
- Whether tax, military, reporting, or exit obligations apply
Dual citizenship can expand options, but it is not automatically risk-free. Some countries still force a choice, and others may tolerate dual nationality only in specific circumstances.
The practical takeaway is that the world is moving toward dual citizenship acceptance, not away from it. For investors, diaspora applicants, and globally mobile families, this trend strengthens the logic of building multiple nationality options, but each passport must still be evaluated for legal, tax, and political obligations.
