Website design By BotEap.comDon’t leave home without one? The smart business traveler these days doesn’t leave home without two or three passports. That was the conclusion of a recent New York Times article titled Carrying a Second Passport? It’s not just for spies covering the benefits of traveling with multiple passports, second citizenships, and naturalization. According to the article, for example, many people do not even realize that they already have dual citizenship and therefore have the right to carry a second passport from a foreign country. Others do not know that they can legally buy a second passport through the so-called “Economic Citizenship” program …

Website design By BotEap.comOne example cited is Alessandro Pappalardo, a New York-based artist who travels on passports from Italy and Argentina. You recently added a US passport to your wallet. Formerly employed by an airline in South America, Pappalardo says: “I used to go to Brazil a lot and I always decided which passport to show depending on which line was shorter.”

Website design By BotEap.comAnother example cited in the Times article is Stefan Stefanov, who has US and Bulgarian citizenship while his company is in Poland. Choose the correct passport based on where you are going. “Of course, I do not hide that I am a US citizen,” says Setfanov. “But I don’t walk it either.”

Website design By BotEap.comAlthough statistics are hard to come by, as globalization continues apace and American citizens often feel discriminated against or targeted for foreign travel, more Americans seem to want additional passports than ever before. “Smart Travelers and Business Travelers they want to make sure they have two passports based on nationality because there are certain advantages, “says Jan Dvorak, president of Travisa, a passport services company in Washington, DC, quoted in the Times article.

Website design By BotEap.comWhat is the biggest advantage of having a second passport? For the sovereign individual, the greatest advantage is undoubtedly the legal right to work without restrictions in various countries, a particular benefit of passports from European Union countries. In addition, says Dvorak, carrying a second passport is “a way of hiding where you have been”, when traveling between countries with sour relations, for example between Israel and Arab countries.

Website design By BotEap.comSo how can you get a second passport? As a first step, to obtain a second passport you must become a citizen of the destination country. Once complete, the application process for a second passport is relatively easy. Of course, qualifying for second citizenship is the hard part. But there are ways, even if you don’t have Irish, British, Italian, or German ancestry (those are among the countries known to be most generous in handing out passports to American citizens based on ancestry). Israel, for example, allows anyone of Jewish descent to use what is called aliyah, or the “Law of Return.” This grants instant Israeli citizenship to anyone of Jewish descent or anyone who converts to Judaism.

Website design By BotEap.comRuth Yoffe is another example cited in the Times article who also carries a second passport. Yoffe is the founder of Reloop Designs, a company that hires disabled people in Cambodia to weave baskets out of plastic waste. As a citizen of the United States and New Zealand, she travels frequently in Southeast Asia. “For obvious security reasons, I always try to travel and put my visas in my New Zealand passport,” he said. “On a plane, I don’t want to be identified as an American if I have that option, depending on where I’m going.”

Website design By BotEap.comAnother advantage is that visas cost less for New Zealanders than for Americans. “They assume that anyone else from any other country cannot be as rich” as Americans, Yoffe said. Many countries like Brazil charge additional fees to Americans to offset the cost of obtaining a US visa for citizens of that country.

Website design By BotEap.comAlex Thomas, corporate manager of Travel Document Systems, a visa and passport services company in Washington, explains in the article how some of his clients “are not comfortable traveling with a US passport, and if they have an additional passport, they prefer to use … four or five people a month who specifically ask what they should do to get a passport “for another country … Because of the way things are going in the world,” he said, he expects that number to increase. In other words , The demand for second passports is at an all-time high!

Website design By BotEap.comHowever, what the New York Times article does not cover, probably out of respect for editorial guidelines and political correctness, is the fact that any entrepreneur who wants to can simply buy a second passport. So-called “economic citizenship” programs allow wealthy individuals and families to acquire a second citizenship of a country like Saint Kitts and Nevis or Dominica. The only requirement to obtain one of these passports is to make an economic investment in the country.

Website design By BotEap.comAlthough expensive, these high-end economic citizenship programs are often worth it for wealthy individuals who do not have the time or inclination to wait the two to five years required to establish residency in another country and apply for citizenship through of naturalization in one of the most liberal countries. to obtain second passports such as the Dominican Republic or Paraguay. Plus, they have the advantage of being completely tax-free and not bogged down in bureaucracy or military service obligations.