Best Second Citizenship for Every Income Level (2026 Update)

Moving Abroad Resources:

👉 Moving Abroad Relocation Roadmap Guidebook that walks you through the five phases of moving abroad ($27): https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/relocate

👉 Moving Abroad Relocation Blueprint Course which offers step by step guidance on everything from choosing the right country to immigration to taxes and everything in between: https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/blueprint

👉 Want us to handle the details of your move abroad? Apply for our white-glove relocation services here: https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/consult

👉 Free Moving to Mexico Guide: https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/mexico

👉 Free Moving Abroad Checklist: https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/abroad 

Remote Work and Online Income Resources:

👉 Expat Income Accelerator course which shows you the multiple ways you can make money globally based on our 15+ years of experience in online business, investing internationally and living in multiple countries: https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/income

👉 Get Your First High Paying Client Online Bootcamp which walks you through the first four foundational steps of creating and monetizing an online business based on 15+ years of experience in online business: https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/firstclient-yt

👉 YouTube Mastery Workshop which shows you how we’ve built two YouTube channels that bring clients and passive income from digital course sales (including turning Entrepreneur Expat into a six-figure business in six months): https://www.YouTubeMasteryWorkshop.com

👉LinkedIn Mastery Workshop which shows you how to use LinkedIn to find remote work, clients and connect with recruiters based on Justin’s experience building a six-figure business and finding remote work on LinkedIn: https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/linkedin

👉 Free Make Money From Anywhere Guide: https://www.entrepreneurexpat.com/money-guide 

V I D E O S    T O    W A T C H    N E X T :

Online Business Tips to Working and Traveling In Mexico: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zGH0voCyOc&list=PLh3xKhkMgH_IA6s3KvB_g9Cc9Ze1eji8j&index=2

Moving to Mexico: 10 Reasons Why We Chose to Live in Guadalajara https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK23vD8_xjc&list=PLh3xKhkMgH_LAY7UV78YMgms-f2e1UcwN&index=23

Tips for Moving Overseas: Top 5 Remote Work Skills That Make Money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzjCrlNAL8&list=PLh3xKhkMgH_IA6s3KvB_g9Cc9Ze1eji8j

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Inquiries: community@entrepreneurexpat.com

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Disclaimer: The information in this video should not be considered tax, financial, investment, or any kind of professional advice. Only a professional diagnosis of your specific situation can determine which strategies are appropriate for your needs. Entrepreneur Expat can and does not provide advice unless/until engaged by you.

Transcript

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Not everyone's sitting on$2 million in assets, but everyone can still play the second citizenship game. Whether you're earning$5,000 a month from your laptop or looking for global mobility with real estate holdings in a high net worth, there is a path for you. In this video, I'm breaking down the best second passport or residency options by financial tier, budget, mid-range and high net worth, using real numbers and real requirements as of 2025 going into 2026. I'm Justin Keltner, and on this channel Entrepreneur Expat, we talk about global mobility, Second passports and citizenships and being able to live and work and invest anywhere in the world. If that's something you're interested in, don't forget to subscribe to this channel. Hit that notification bell and give this video a like as well, so that you don't miss any of the latest content and you help us reach more of our community as well. We really. Appreciate it. If you're interested in getting one-on-one personalized support from our team, then book a call below@entrepreneurexpat.com slash consult if you have a million dollars or more in net worth. And if not, then feel free to check out the free resources as well as some of the courses we have available for you in the description of this video. Let's jump in now to tier three, which is under$50,000 of income per year, which is is typically the long term game that you're playing to have residency, and you're staying in a country for a while on a path to citizenship in that country. You're typically not buying a passport at this level, like perhaps you would at some of the higher tiers, but you can absolutely get on the path to this one, and in fact. This is exactly what my wife and I did. Even though our income is certainly higher than that$50,000 Mark Mexico was very easy for us because it's a soft landing for expats. There's a lot of opportunity here for us as business owners, especially since we're talking so much about Mexico and helping people move here. And it was just very easy. We're close to family. Uh, there isn't that long of a flight to go back to the us. It's very accessible and it's. Are still really the, the primary go-to for Americans and Canadians at many different income and. Investment savings levels. So currently Mexican consulates wanna see about$4,200 per month in income, or around$70,000 in savings per person to get temporary residence. And once you've got that temporary residence, you can renew it or convert it to permanent residence depending on how many years they give you. And after five years of total residence here in the country, you can apply for citizenship in Mexico, which we're planning on doing here in just the next couple years. No major roadblocks. Now Argentina is also a hidden gem here. You can apply for citizenship after just two years of physical presence in the country, and they don't even require you to hold permanent residency. There's no formal income threshold As long as you can prove self-sufficiency and live there consistently. Now, of course, you do have to spend over six months per year in Argentina placing you in their tax net, which they do have moderately high taxes, but it is one of the fastest legit timelines to citizenship in the entire world. One small downside that I'll just say from my research in Argentina was that. There isn't currently a way to actually renounce Argentinian citizenship, so if you did decide to get that passport and later decided for whatever reason you didn't want it, that is something certainly to bear in mind. Uruguay is also for folks who want stability and are ready to commit. You can apply for citizenship there after just three years if you're married and have a family there, or five years if you are flying solo. But it's not actually a citizenship, you know, paper game, like a back pocket citizenship that you can do, let's say in Mexico where you don't have to spend too much time in Mexico. You do actually need to live regularly in Uruguay to be able to qualify for that. Expect to also show around$1,500 per month in income, and you've gotta spend at least 183 days per year in the country under most circumstances. Columbia now offers a digital nomad visa as well. It's quite affordable, so if you show around a thousand dollars per month in foreign income, you can get a Visa for up to two years and live there legally. It's not a direct path to citizenship, but there are transition options available. You wanna be careful though, because they do have different categories of visas, some of which will allow you to convert to citizenship after a certain amount of time on that visa and some of which won't. So you wanna make sure that you consult with a professional. And if you're interested in one-on-one support for Columbia or Mexico or Oguire or any of these countries, just book that call below@entrepreneurexpat.com slash consult if you're in this bracket, in this tier three bracket in terms of income. And assets. You maybe don't have too many assets under 50 K per year, 60, 70 K per year in that range of income, then you're pretty much playing the residency long game. First, you've gotta be physically present in that country. You gotta show up, show financial solvency, and start that clock on citizenship. These countries are still fairly open, but they are tightening up. For example, Mexico just shut down earlier this year. One of the most common paths to citizenship here, which was the regularization program. So you do want to absolutely do this quickly if you are serious about it. Now in tier two, which is 50,000 to about$150,000 per year us of income. Or around a hundred K to a quarter of a million dollars in assets. You have some slightly more fast track passport possibilities at this level. You're no longer stuck waiting five to 10 years for citizenship. You can start skipping the line. So in the Caribbean, Dominica and St. Lucia both offer citizenship by investment at a hundred thousand dollars plus around$10,000 roughly in legal fees and government fees. That's for a single applicant via their donation. Two. Those countries, national Development Funds, no residency is required. No language tests are required. You'll have a passport from one of those countries in about three to six months. With Visa free access to 140 plus countries. Granada, which is also in that region, is a little pricier. That requires$150,000 donation, but you unlock something cool if perhaps you're not from the US already, which is access to the US E two Visa, and that lets you start a business and live in the US as a non-immigrant. So perhaps you do want to spend some time in the us you're looking at taking advantage of some opportunities there because of course there still are a ton of opportunities in the us. I just would much rather live in other countries personally. But if you are a non-US citizen. Having that Granada citizenship does give you a quicker path to that E two investment visa, so that is a plus for some non-US entrepreneurs. Now, ST. Kits and Nevus, they recently upped their minimum donation to$250,000, but it is still a fast. Visa free way to get into the UK or the eu, at least for now, if you want the ability to visit those countries on their passport, and there's no physical presence requirement. Now, I did say that this tier was for people with up to$250,000 of assets. I'll put a caveat there, which is that if you've got$250,000 in assets, you probably don't want to invest all 250,000 in getting a second passport. No matter how bad you think things might be in the US or Canada. It's just. If it's a hedge and it's a good hedge, and I think it's really solid insurance policy, but I probably would not invest any more than about 10 to maybe 20% of my assets in a second passport unless the situation in my country was really so dire that I absolutely had to get out and get my family out. Fortunately, we're not quite there in the US or Canada. But if you do have maybe closer to half a million or a million dollars, at least one of the a hundred thousand dollars options or$150,000 options might make sense depending on your risk tolerance and how badly you really want that second passport, and how much you view it as a solid hedge to some of the political and economic instability in your country that's currently happening. And if you prefer Europe, then there's Portugal's D seven Visa, which lets you live in the eu. If you can show only about 820 Euros per month per person in passive income, it's roughly$870 us. In passive income per month, you'll need to rent or own a place in Portugal, you also do have to spend significant time there In Portugal, it's not like a set it and forget it thing. Like a lot of the Caribbean programs you've gotta be spending not necessarily the majority of the time, but at least a few months consistently every single year in the country. And that's really subject to their discretion. The Portuguese government wants to know that you're serious about getting your citizenship there and actually integrating in society, not just getting some sort of paper passport that you're not really going to live in that country with. And it used to be the best path to an EU citizenship because in just five years you could get that Portuguese passport. But in 2025, just this year, Portugal proposed increasing the timeline. To 10 years for most applicants. So if you haven't started that process already and you think Portugal might be the way to go, then we highly, highly recommend that you do get started on that process. Don't forget to book that call with our team if you do have a million dollars or more in net assets because we can help you create a personalized plan, avoid a lot of mistakes, and uncover perhaps. New ways of doing things that you hadn't thought of before. As a recent example, we helped John and David who are YouTubers and financial consultants. Move from the US and,, get their residency in Mexico in just a few short weeks because they realized their retirement accounts did not have enough money, even with over a million dollars in their retirement accounts for them to be able to comfortably retire in the us. And they also didn't realize that there were easy ways. For them to tap into that retirement. Of course, consult your financial advisor, but we can also help and we can help streamline the process. So entrepreneur x bed.com is where you will find a link to join us and, and book a call with our team. Turkey is another very underrated option. Where you can purchase just$400,000 in real estate held for at least three years, and that'll get you a passport in just about six months. No need to even live there. You've got Visa free access to 110 plus countries, including Japan, South Korea, and a lot of Latin America. So this tier two is where things really start to get interesting. This is kind of the sweet spot. You've got the options of the Caribbean CBI. Where you have that speed. Portugal and Turkey give you a lot of structure and of course access to Europe and Asia close by as well. And if you've got six figures to play with, then you definitely have got some options. Now we're gonna shift up one more gear and talk about the best. Tier here in all of them. If, if you are able to get into this tier, you've got half a million dollars or more of income, or$2 million or more in assets, then there are many premium passport strategies available to you. And these are typically where our clients fall. Some of them would like to move to Mexico and that's just their plan B, if they, uh, are interested in Mexico, if they really like it. But a lot of them are also asking about these more premium options, and we are helping them get these options as well. So at this level, you're not just buying a passport, you're buying access, you're buying mobility, and you're buying leverage because there's, these are some really solid options that just give you freedom and flexibility that perhaps some of the other tiers do not. So Malta used to offer EU citizenship through a structured donation and residency combination around a hundred million euros, all in as of late. 2025, the program has shut down due to EU pressure, but there is speculation that it might reopen in 2026. Just, of course, expect a higher price tag, stricter vetting, and perhaps some more residency requirements spending time in country. So that's one to keep your eye on for sure. Austria is another European country that offers a rare discretionary naturalization route. You're looking at about three to 5 million or more euros, as well as a direct benefit to the Austrian state, for example, job creation or tech innovation. This is perhaps business leaders. That have got, uh, very well running businesses. They've got employees. They might be creating more jobs in Austria if they move there. It's not just for casual investors. It's for ultra high net worth individuals and people with very serious connections. There are some ancestry programs here as well. Of course, if you've got Irish, Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, or even Hungarian citizenship. Then you may qualify for citizenship at a fraction of the cost of some of these other programs, whether you're in that tier one or not. Typically they can be as low as several thousand dollars in legal fees. Uh, we also help people with some of those passports, so we can get you set up, you just have to book that consult below this video and we could chat about the best way for you to do it. Some of those citizenship by ancestry programs are a little slower than perhaps citizenship by investment in Europe or in the Caribbean, but they are a lot cheaper. So as my Jewish Ukrainian grandmother would always say, A penny saved is a penny earned. So why not put that half a million dollars in your pocket or invest it somewhere where it's going to make even more money and get a relatively easy, maybe not as fast. That's still relatively easy citizenship. By dissent. We can help you do that as well Around all of this, the main theme that I always like to. Bring home is that everything should be holistic, right? You're not just looking at what's a cheap citizenship by investment program that we can join. You're thinking about things like, where do I actually wanna live long term? You wanna look at what countries are in on the up and up. You see economies like the US and the UK and Australia. In many cases suffering a lot. You see political instability. You see a lot of authoritarianism in those nations. Where do you fit in long term? What sort of country? What? What sort of values do you like in a country? What makes the most sense for you, for your family, for your assets, and also of course for your taxes. That's where second citizenship becomes part of a broader wealth strategy, not just a passport. In your drawer, and if you're serious about taking things to the next level, if you are a high net worth individual with a million dollars or more in assets, definitely book that call. You could chat with myself or my team, and we can help make your relocation and foreign investment dreams come true. We'd love to chat, and we thank you again for all of the time you've spent today with us and for watching our channel. Don't forget to subscribe. Give this video a big thumbs up, and I'll catch you again very soon.