Americans Considering Another Citizenship?
You might have seen news recently about the US passport ranking dropping. While satisfying to read the headline if you're not a fan of where America is headed, these articles are incredibly overblown. Passport indexes are measured in a variety of different ways, a popular one being "visa-free entry."
So it's not as if Americans are unable to travel to an increasing number of places, it's that Americans might have to apply for a visa ahead of visiting some countries instead of just rolling in off the plane. The US still has visa-free travel to 180 countries, that's a difference of only 13 from the top (in Henley and Partner's ranking) country Singapore, and only a few less than in previous years.
While you obviously want the trend to be going the other way, a little bit of extra paperwork is coming for everyone in this current era of anti-globalization sentiment.
All that said, if you're an American reading the news and starting to research alternatives / back up plans in terms of passports and citizenship, here's a (you guessed it) table to help you understand where you'll have to renounce US citizenship if you want to naturalize in another country. Every country listed here has a 'stronger' passport than the US.
| Rank | Country | Visa-Free Destinations | Can I Keep U.S. Citizenship? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Singapore | 193 | ❌ No |
| 2 | South Korea | 190 | ⚠️ Sometimes |
| 3 | Japan | 189 | ❌ No |
| 6 | New Zealand | 185 | ✅ Yes |
| 7 | Australia | 184 | ✅ Yes |
| 7 | United Arab Emirates (UAE) | 184 | ⚠️ Sometimes |
| 8 | Canada | 183 | ✅ Yes |
| 10 | Malaysia | 181 | ❌ No |
Note 1: I've excluded Europe from this table because by and large those countries play well with America and don't require renunciation.
Note 2: The US actually allows for dual citizenship, so column 3 is a bit nuanced in that it means "will the country in column 2 require you to renounce all other citizenship (including US) prior to naturalization."