Why One Passport Isn’t Enough in 2026: Risks Not Reflected by Rankings

Passport rankings reduce citizenship to a score. In the 2026 list, Singapore tops the chart, while “weaker” passports sit far below—measured by a single number: how many countries you can visit without a visa. But this metric captures only one passport function.

It tells you almost nothing about how your citizenship could be used against you.

One citizenship means one point of failure. The state that issued your passport can, in theory, cancel it, restrict your ability to leave, tax you regardless of where you live, demand appearances for service, and—during a crisis—either fail to arrange evacuation or not reach you in time.

On top of that, other countries can “downgrade” the value of your passport overnight, with no meaningful appeal available to you. None of these risks are counted in visa-free country tallies. They all trace back to one root cause: you’re dependent on a single sovereign, and the leverage stays with it.

In 2026, seven vulnerability scenarios are especially relevant—and each one is tied to the same underlying dependency.

Your State Can Strip You of Citizenship

Citizenship feels permanent. In practice, it isn’t guaranteed. States have the right to revoke citizenship, and in recent years this tool has been used more aggressively.

The clearest example is Kuwait. Since 2024, the country has stripped citizenship from more than 70,000 people (as of April 2026), publishing lists in an official bulletin almost week after week.

If you include dependents who lost status after the main applicants, estimates could approach a quarter of a million—nearly one in five Kuwaiti citizens. Those affected included women naturalized through marriage, as well as holders of a second citizenship that was not officially disclosed.

For people who held only a Kuwaiti passport, the consequences were especially severe: once their names were added to the list, they became stateless. Dual citizens had a “safety net”—the ability to rely on another state.

The United States is moving in a similar direction, but through different mechanisms. In June 2025, a U.S. Department of Justice memorandum identified denaturalization as a priority within civil enforcement proceedings: authorities were encouraged to pursue loss of naturalized citizenship in all cases where the law allows and evidence supports it.

Civil denaturalization differs from criminal cases: the evidentiary threshold is lower, there is no right to a court-appointed attorney, and lawsuits can be filed even decades later—regardless of how long it has been since naturalization. Observational data suggests cases rose from fewer than ten per year to more than thirty by May and June 2026.

If a person has only one passport and loses citizenship, there is nowhere to “fall back.” If they also have their original citizenship, then after revocation of naturalized status, they effectively return to their prior situation.

The State Decides Whether You Can Leave

A passport is permission to depart. That means the issuing state can withdraw that permission.

In May 2026, the U.S. State Department began proactively revoking passports of Americans who owe child support arrears. The first wave involved roughly 2,700 people with debts of $100,000 or more.

The legal threshold is much lower—$2,500. And the agency has already signaled an expansion of the measure: it is likely to affect hundreds of thousands of people.

A revoked passport can’t be “reactivated.” If the event happens while a person is abroad, the most they can expect is a limited-validity document that helps them return to the U.S.—but not go further.

Child support is only one trigger. Many countries use exit bans that apply in tax disputes, civil cases, and investigations. Such a ban may have no fixed end date. When your right to travel depends on whether the state is willing to let you out, that right becomes conditional.

The second “civil” option—another country’s passport—can restore your ability to leave where the first path is blocked.

Taxes Follow Your Citizenship

Almost all countries tax based on residency. The U.S. is a rare exception: it taxes citizenship, counting worldwide income regardless of where the citizen lives. The rule dates back to the Civil War era. A similar approach exists in Eritrea, but elsewhere it is uncommon.

An American who hasn’t visited the country for decades still must file annual returns, and tax authorities are considering changes aimed at making dual citizens easier to identify—more a sign of expanding enforcement than offering relief. A public example is Boris Johnson: born in New York, raised in the U.K., he renounced U.S. citizenship in 2016 after the U.S. taxed the sale of his London home.

France was close to a similar logic. In the night of October 24, 2025, during debate on the 2026 budget, the National Assembly considered a measure that could extend tax obligations for wealthy French citizens for up to ten years after moving to a lower-tax jurisdiction. The threshold was estimated at roughly €235,500, and the target group was people relocating to places where taxes are at least 40% lower than in France.

The proposal failed: 131 votes in favor versus 132 against. Still, ideas about citizenship-based taxation were discussed earlier—in 2019 and again in 2024.

A one-vote margin doesn’t guarantee anything by itself; direction matters. France isn’t the only one—Sweden, Finland, and Germany already have practices that apply taxes for people who leave during a post-departure period.

This “tax trap” connects to all the other vulnerabilities through one key point. You can’t simply refuse your only citizenship. No state will allow you to become stateless. That means opting out of tax citizenship is only possible if you have another citizenship—so the second “civil” option becomes a prerequisite for a real exit from the first.

Citizenship Can “Call You Up”

Compulsory service is back on the agenda across Europe. In 2026, Croatia became the tenth EU country with mandatory conscription: the first draftees began preparation in March. In 2025, Denmark expanded conscription to women, and Germany, after reversing the practice in 2011, is moving back toward it. Amid the war, Ukraine lowered the mobilization age.

A citizen is required to serve the state that considers them its own. Having a second passport doesn’t cancel obligations tied to the citizenship you already hold.

So the marketing promise that “a second country will solve everything” works only to a limited extent: a second passport doesn’t automatically remove duties related to the citizenship that is already tied to you.

However, for children, the second “civil” option can provide a different citizenship—and a different “point of life” outside the reach of one country and its conscription rules. That, in turn, affects which state will claim rights over the next generation.

Only One State Decides Whether You Get an Exit

When a region destabilizes, citizenship determines who is expected to try to retrieve you. At the same time, consular capacity is distributed unevenly.

For example, Ireland supports more than 100 diplomatic missions with a population of about five million. Many countries have only part of that number, and some are simply unable to maintain contact or provide help to their citizens in a crisis.

The gap becomes especially visible when airspace closes. During escalations in the Middle East in 2025–2026, flight suspensions effectively stranded travelers across the region.

According to IMI, the UAE evacuated 500 “golden visa” holders after airspace was shut. It was the first real test of the consular expansion that authorities had been signaling for months. The states with resources and political will were able to organize extraction. Their citizens and residents returned home. Others waited.

When a person has only one citizenship, evacuation depends on a single state’s capacity and priorities. A second citizenship option expands the set of countries with a reason to help.

Other States Can Devalue Your Passport

Even a passport’s current value isn’t something you own forever. The state that issued the document doesn’t control how other countries will treat it.

For instance, the United Kingdom has removed visa-free status for countries. First for Saint Lucia, then for Nauru. For Nauru, the stated reason was tied to the citizenship-by-investment program; for Saint Lucia, explanations emphasized rising asylum applications, while the investment program was mentioned as a secondary factor.

A person from Saint Lucia who could enter the U.K. visa-free in one month was forced to obtain a visa the next month—without any actions on their part. Ireland then reduced visa-free access for Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Nicaragua—meaning this wasn’t a one-off decision by a single country.

Visa-free access is a privilege granted by the host state—and the host can revoke it. Passport holders have no vote in that decision.

There is also a “quiet” version of the problem: border technologies. As IMI’s analysis notes, algorithmic screening systems create an “invisible wall”: they rank travelers by risk profiles, and these limitations aren’t reflected in a simple count of visa-free countries. Your ranking number may stay the same, while the real usefulness of your passport shrinks.

Citizenship Can Become a Financial and Legal Risk

Citizenship is not only a document, but also a potential “vulnerability.” When a country is placed under sanctions, its citizens inherit part of the fallout: access to banking can narrow, transactions can draw heightened scrutiny, assets can be frozen—and none of it is tied to any specific action by the individual. Similar effects can come from capital controls: money may become “trapped” within borders due to the owner’s citizenship.

For people whose only citizenship carries such risk, a second citizenship in a more stable, neutral jurisdiction can act as a hedge—insulating decisions made far away from where the person actually lives.

What a Second Passport Can Fix—and What It Can’t

A second citizenship option isn’t the only tool, and it’s important to be honest. Residency permission in another country can also expand mobility and sometimes provide a base to get through a crisis.

Patrick Peters from ClientReferrals warns that waiting for a crisis isn’t the best strategy. He emphasizes that “the reality is: the best programs available today will either stop being available tomorrow, or become more restricted/more expensive.”

In his view, a second passport or residency works only if you obtain it “before you actually need it.”

He argues that investors aren’t just buying “greater global mobility”—they preserve options that may disappear or become stricter “on the same terms” as soon as tomorrow.

He points to a broader trend: governments raise investment thresholds, strengthen due diligence, and change program conditions with minimal notice. That means people who act in advance typically get more certainty and better terms.

A strong first passport already opens most destinations. For travel, one passport is often enough—and some IMI materials explain in detail how to improve visa-free access without obtaining new citizenship.

But neither residency nor the strength of your first passport breaks dependence on a single sovereign. They don’t eliminate denaturalization risk. They don’t remove citizenship-based taxation.

They also don’t give you a “second anchor” for renouncing citizenship, don’t create a second independent basis for consular protection, and don’t guarantee departure if your state revokes your passport. Only a second citizenship creates another country’s unconditional obligation to accept you as one of its citizens.

This doesn’t mean that every person with only one passport will inevitably face an immediate threat. Most people aren’t subject to citizenship review procedures, don’t have child support debts in the six-figure range, and aren’t at risk of sanctions-related association.

The point is narrower—and harder to dispute: a single citizenship concentrates multiple types of risk in one place. And the cost of that concentration is paid entirely by you.

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