A second passport is a critical component of anyone's Plan B. It allows you to live, work, study and retire in another country.
But for most people, second passports don’t come easily.Â
Usually, you must become a resident in a foreign country, live there for several years, learn a local language, etc., and only then apply for naturalization. And even then, your new homeland may want you to renounce your current citizenship.
Alternatively, you can pay six figures to participate in one of the Citizenship by Investment programs in the Caribbean.
But in some cases, you can obtain a second citizenship much easier. You just need to prove that you have an ancestor from the “right” country that offers Citizenship by Descent.
Over the years, multiple European countries have enacted laws allowing descendants of their emigrants to claim ancestral citizenship.Â
In the final installment of the Citizenship by Ancestry black paper, we cover ten countries comprising Northern Europe: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, and the UK.
Among them, Latvia, Lithuania and Ireland have explicit Citizenship by Ancestry programs.Â
In a bonus section, we also cover the applicable rules in Armenia. This country has seen a mass exodus of its people in the past hundred years, and today, it has an explicit Citizenship by Ancestry program.
If you have ancestors from the countries above, a coveted second passport may await you.
But remember — the search starts with you. Explore your family tree. Talk to your parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, and see if any of your direct ancestors came from Europe.
If you are lucky enough to find a family from these countries, search for the necessary documents.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to do it all alone. We have forged relationships with service providers on the ground in the various countries mentioned in this Black Paper. They can streamline the process for you, eliminating much of the legwork and uncertainty.
Finally, think that you have nothing to lose by following the above mentioned steps. Even if your research does not result in a passport, you will still learn much about your family’s history.
We talk a lot about those Plan B strategies with “all upside, no downside” — and this is definitely one of them.
If you prefer to read our content offline, you can download PDF version of this article. Download PDF In the first (Southern Europe), the second (Eastern Europe) and the third (Western Europe) installment of our Black Paper on European Citizenship By Ancestry, we covered regions that have seen a very serious emigration to North America…
