Countries That Allow Dual Citizenship in 2026: Full List

Countries That Allow Dual Citizenship in 2026: The Full Picture

Last updated: August 2026

Most lists of countries that allow dual citizenship are outdated the day they're published, and Germany proved it in the most public way possible. In June 2024, one of Europe's largest economies rewrote a rule that had stood, in some form, for over a century. If you're checking whether your target countries allow dual citizenship, the honest answer is rarely a clean yes or no. It's usually "yes, but" or "no, unless."

That's the gap this guide fills. Instead of the flat allow/prohibit list most competitor content still runs with, this is a three-tier picture: countries that fully allow dual citizenship, countries that allow it only under specific conditions, and countries that prohibit it for their own nationals, along with the notification rules that catch people off guard even where dual citizenship is technically legal.

Key Takeaways

- Roughly 75% of countries now permit some form of dual citizenship, though the real figure ranges 65-76% depending on methodology and definition of "permit."

- Germany's Act to Modernize the Nationality Act, effective June 27, 2024, ended a rule that had required most non-EU naturalizing citizens to renounce their prior nationality; the reform is not retroactive.

- A large middle tier exists between "allowed" and "prohibited": Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and South Korea all permit dual citizenship only under specific, narrow conditions that generic lists routinely flatten into "restricted."

- Legal permissibility and notification obligations are separate questions. Turkey and Israel both require dual nationals to take specific administrative steps even though dual citizenship itself is fully legal in both countries.

- This list answers "is it legal," not "what does it cost me in taxes." Holding a second citizenship carries separate tax and reporting implications that this guide deliberately doesn't cover in depth.

What "dual citizenship" actually means

Dual citizenship means holding legal citizenship status in two or more countries at the same time, with the rights and obligations of each. That's distinct from residency, which is a right to live somewhere, and distinct from statuses like an OCI card or long-term residence permit, which can look like citizenship on paper but aren't.

The question that actually matters isn't "does the world allow this." It's "do both of your specific countries allow it, in combination." A country that fully permits its citizens to hold a second nationality can still be paired with a country that prohibits dual citizenship on the other end, and in that case, the more restrictive country's rule usually wins for that individual.

Trying to separate legal citizenship status from where you actually pay taxes? The difference between dual residency and dual citizenship is one of the most common points of confusion we see, and it's worth clarifying before you go further into this comparison.

Countries that allow dual citizenship without restriction

These countries impose no renunciation requirement in either direction and no notification obligation tied specifically to acquiring a second nationality. This tier includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, France, Italy, Portugal, and most of Latin America.

Germany's June 2024 reform is the single most consequential change in this tier. Under the Act to Modernize the Nationality Act (StARModG), which took effect June 27, 2024, Germany now allows dual and multiple citizenship in all cases. German citizens no longer automatically lose their citizenship by naturalizing in another country, and people naturalizing as German citizens no longer need to renounce their prior nationality. The reform is not retroactive: it doesn't restore citizenship someone already lost before the effective date.

What changed: Before June 27, 2024, Germany generally required non-EU, non-Swiss citizens to renounce their prior nationality to naturalize, with narrow exceptions. That default is gone. Verify your specific case against current Federal Foreign Office guidance (auswaertiges-amt.de), since exceptions and transitional rules can still apply depending on when your naturalization process started.

The United States takes a notably neutral position on this question. The U. S. Department of State's official dual nationality guidance confirms that the US recognizes dual nationality but does not require citizens to formally elect one nationality over another, and doesn't ask about other citizenships during the naturalization interview.

Countries with conditions or restrictions

This is the tier most competitor lists get wrong, either by omitting it entirely or by flattening it into a single "restricted" label that doesn't tell you what's actually allowed. Four examples make the pattern clear.

Spain: allowed only with specific treaty countries

Spain automatically preserves Spanish citizenship on naturalization elsewhere only for a defined list of countries: the Ibero-American nations, plus Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, and Portugal. For every other country, Spanish nationals lose Spanish citizenship roughly three years after acquiring the new nationality, unless they formally declare an intent to retain it. This treaty list is specific and worth confirming against the current Boletín Oficial del Estado text for your exact country before relying on it.

Austria: allowed only in narrow circumstances

Austria's default position is restrictive, but named exceptions exist, including certain birth-related cases and a formal retention permit process (Beibehaltungsgenehmigung) that must generally be approved before acquiring the second nationality, not after. Missing that sequencing is one of the more common, avoidable mistakes people make with Austrian citizenship.

The Netherlands: prohibited by default, with named exceptions

Dutch nationals generally lose Dutch citizenship when voluntarily acquiring another nationality, but the law carves out specific exceptions, including marriage to a Dutch national, birth in the country of the second nationality, and refugee status. If you fall outside a named exception, the default rule applies.

South Korea: conditional dual nationality via pledge

South Korea's 2011 Nationality Act amendment introduced a middle path: instead of requiring renunciation, eligible dual nationals sign a pledge not to exercise their foreign nationality rights while in Korea, and Korean law treats them as Korean nationals only for domestic legal purposes. Men generally must renounce by March 31 of the year they turn 18 if they want to avoid South Korean military service obligations tied to citizenship, a deadline that catches families off guard when it isn't flagged early.

Sarah, a Dutch-Canadian dual national we've heard from through reader questions, assumed her Dutch citizenship was safe indefinitely after she naturalized in Canada in 2019, since she'd read a generic "dual citizenship allowed" summary. She hadn't fallen under any of the Netherlands' named exceptions. It wasn't until she tried to renew her Dutch passport in 2023 that she learned she'd automatically lost her Dutch nationality years earlier. The generic list she'd trusted hadn't mentioned the exceptions requirement at all.

Considering a citizenship path that sidesteps this entire conditional-tier problem? Grenada citizenship by investment and similar programs are built around jurisdictions with no renunciation requirement in either direction, which removes this specific risk category from the equation.

Countries that prohibit dual citizenship for their own nationals

A smaller group of countries still maintains an outright prohibition for their own citizens, enforced either through automatic loss of citizenship on naturalizing elsewhere or a formal renunciation requirement.

Japan requires dual nationals to choose one citizenship, generally by age 22, or within roughly two years of acquiring the second nationality after turning 20, under the Nationality Act. Enforcement in practice has been inconsistent, and a legal challenge to the choice requirement drew renewed public attention in 2024-2025. Confirm the current litigation status directly with Japan's Ministry of Justice before treating this rule as settled, since it's an area actively being contested.

Singapore requires citizens who hold another nationality to formally renounce it, typically between ages 21 and 22, through an Oath of Renunciation, Allegiance and Loyalty administered by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. Renunciation requests can be denied for men with outstanding National Service obligations, which is a detail generic lists frequently omit entirely.

Considering the practical alternative to naturalizing directly in a restrictive country? St Kitts & Nevis' citizenship by investment program is one of several options for readers whose home country's own restrictions make holding a second passport through naturalization elsewhere the harder path.

The UAE's narrow 2021 exception

The UAE's Federal Decree-Law No. 3 of 2021 created a narrow, discretionary path to dual citizenship, granted only by presidential decree, for investors, specialists, scientists, artists, and their immediate family. It is not a general policy shift, and most UAE nationals still don't have a standing right to dual citizenship the way Germans or Americans do. Treat any claim that "the UAE now allows dual citizenship" as materially incomplete without this qualification.

Notification rules in countries that allow dual citizenship

Here's the category nobody else treats as its own decision factor: legal permissibility and administrative notification are two separate questions, and conflating them causes real problems.

Turkey requires citizens who acquire a second nationality to notify the nearest Turkish consulate, even though dual citizenship itself is fully legal for Turkish nationals. Skipping this step doesn't make you lose Turkish citizenship, but it does create documentation gaps that surface later, often at the worst possible moment, like a property transaction or military service registration.

Israel requires dual nationals to enter and exit the country on their Israeli passport, regardless of what other citizenship they hold. This is a border-control rule, not a citizenship-status rule, but ignoring it creates friction at passport control that a purely legal reading of "is dual citizenship allowed" wouldn't predict.

The general pattern holds across most of the world: legal doesn't always mean paperwork-free. If you're planning around a specific country, check both questions separately. Whether dual citizenship is allowed, and whether anything needs to be filed, declared, or used at the border once you have it.

Who this matters for, and who it doesn't

This comparison is the right starting point for:

• People evaluating citizenship by investment programs who need to know whether their home country will let them keep both passports
• People pursuing ancestry-based citizenship claims who need to check both their current country's rules and their target country's rules
• Anyone facing a naturalization decision where they'd otherwise assume they have to give up their existing citizenship, without checking whether that's actually true

Look elsewhere if:

• You already hold dual citizenship and have a specific compliance question. That's a job for an immigration attorney licensed in the relevant country, not a comparison list like this one.
• Your real question is about where you owe taxes, not your legal citizenship status. Those are separate questions with separate rules, covered next.
• You're treating any single country's entry above as the final word. Rules like Spain's treaty list and Japan's choice requirement are specific and change; verify against a primary source before making an irreversible decision.

What this list doesn't cover, and where to go next

This guide answers one question: is dual citizenship legally permitted. It deliberately doesn't answer a related but separate question: what does holding a second citizenship cost you in taxes.

Tax implications of a second citizenship are a distinct issue from legal permissibility. Citizenship-based taxation (the US model), worldwide income taxation tied to residency, and reporting obligations under FATCA and CRS all operate independently of whether your two citizenships are "allowed" to coexist. Tax obligations that come with a second citizenship is worth reading before you assume legal permissibility settles the financial question too.

If you're a US citizen weighing a second passport, reporting obligations that come with holding a second nationality apply specifically to you regardless of which second country you're evaluating, since the US taxes citizens on worldwide income no matter where else they hold citizenship or residency.

Military service obligations tied to citizenship, not residency, are another separate category. South Korea's citizenship-linked service requirement is the clearest example in this guide, but it's not the only country where holding citizenship (rather than merely living there) triggers an obligation that a legal-permissibility list won't surface on its own.

Ready to figure out which route actually fits your situation? Get in touch with Atlasway to talk through whether a citizenship-by-investment program, an ancestry claim, or a naturalization path makes the most sense given both your current citizenship's rules and your target country's.

Conclusion

The honest picture on countries that allow dual citizenship in 2026 is three tiers, not two: countries that fully allow it, a large conditional middle tier that most lists flatten into meaningless "restricted" labels, and a shrinking group that still prohibits it outright. Germany's 2024 reform is proof that this list keeps changing, and Spain's treaty-country carve-out, Austria's retention-permit sequencing, and South Korea's pledge system are proof that the details inside each tier matter more than the headline classification.

If you're evaluating a second citizenship, start by checking both your current country's rules and your target country's rules independently, since either one can be the limiting factor. From there, the next questions, tax exposure, notification requirements, and whether a purchased citizenship-by-investment route or a naturalization path fits your timeline better, are where the real decision gets made.

Note: The information in this guide is for research and educational purposes. It does not constitute legal advice. Dual citizenship rules change frequently and vary by the specific combination of countries involved, so always verify current requirements with a licensed immigration attorney before making a decision.

The information in this article is for research and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal or tax advice. Program rules, investment thresholds, and government fees change frequently — always verify current requirements with a licensed advisor before taking action.