Based on some questions recently posed to me (circa 2019), I've decided to start a post, that I'll edit, that talks about reasons for wanting to have more than one passport (and typically more than one citizenship.) To be clear: I only have ONE passport, my Canadian.

These are in no particular order. If you have other reasons, let me know! I'll also have comments on some passports that you might not want to have.

Reasons for having dual or more citizenship/passports

1. Your passport belongs to the country that issued it. For example, a Canadian or US passport belongs to the government of Canada or the US government. You do NOT own it. They can take it away any time they feel like it. Now arguably, they have to have a good reason, but in practice, if you are the one who they took the passport back from it will be very rare that you will agree with them about their reasons being legitimate.

The US government has in recent years been reported to becoming very aggressive (like their IRS) at taking away passports from people that they think owe them any amount of money (Some say >$5000). But more than one person has been mistaken - someone else with the same or similar name has a debt, and the next time the person used their passport it was confiscated because someone ELSE owed the government money. And this is not the only situation. The point is: Your government can take your passport from you and prevent you from travelling if they correctly or incorrectly decide they don't like you or don't like someone with a name similar to you.

The no-fly list is a similar problem, but at least if you are on the no-fly list and you have a passport, you may still be able to travel, just not by plane until you get into another country.

2. If you are in a country that doesn't like your passport country. It used to be that a Canadian Passport was considered a 'good' passport to carry. But starting in 2019, I would never travel to China again (yes I have previously) with a Canadian Passport due to them, apparently arbitrary, arresting and sentencing Canadians to death with no, what we would call in Canada, due process. Why? Because Canada became a huge enemy of China in 2019 due to us going along with the USA on the detainment of a Chinese citizen.

This is even more so if you travel on a USA passport - many countries around the world, even more so since the coronation of Trump, hate the USA and its citizens.

3. With dual citizenship/passports there are a lot of easy (and complicated if you want) strategies to increase wealth by a variety of legal means including deferral of taxes. I hope in 2021 or 2022 to start taking advantage of that, but we'll see!

4. In some countries, to own or manage property it is much easier like Costa Rica (or mandatory like Thailand) that you be a citizen (and somewhat better in Costa Rica if you have residency, Citizenship though makes it easier in the long run). Dual is OK in every case I know of.

5. Enhanced privacy. There are some countries where it is just better to travel under one passport or another.

6. It's just plain cool! Having an Ecuadorian or Costa Rica, or Panama, or Irish passport, well, it is just nice.

7. Easier to get a third passport/citizenship. If you are a Citizen of Ecuador, you can get Citizenship in Costa Rica in 5 years. If Canada or US, it takes 7 (accumulated) years minimum.

8. When you visit some countries, other countries won't let you in. For this reason some people hold a passport that they only use when travelling in Israel, and another passport when travelling to countries that hate Israel and penalize you (won't let you in, or call you a spy) because you have Israel in your passport. In many cases you can do this by getting 2 passports from one country, something the USA allows, and then being careful which one you present to immigration - so for example you present one to Israel and a different one to Iran (Iran may not, probably won't, let you in if they see as Israel stamp.).

9. Having 2 passports lets you more safely travel to countries that your country is at war with. Not too much of a problem with Canada (other than currently China) but a huge problem for Americans.

10. Some people and their families are at grave risk with certain passports that prevents them from fleeing a high risk of death.

11. Insurance against loss or theft. Note the USA allows you to have 2 USA passports for this reason.

12. Update Sept 2019: I have a person on our team that, thanks to Trump, has trouble visiting the US because he has the wrong color skin and the wrong nationality. He has one of the Central American ones, and he has spent too many years of his life - legally - living in the US, so the US says he can't come back until he gets US citizenship. His mother is a US citizen and plans on dying in the USA. He wants to be able to visit her as she 'goes down hill', so he sees his only option is to get a US passport - so that is the process he is doing, and it will apparently be fairly easy since his mother is a US citizen even though he was born in the 'wrong' country. This seems like another exception to why you would normally not want to get a US passport as your second (or third or fourth) one.

Reasons to NOT have 2 or more passports

I read one travel agent who said she refused to book people who have 2 passports because she 'knew' that everyone that does that is scamming and cheating and doesn't deserve to be allowed to travel. She self reported that she was a 'true' American. She challenged 'anyone' to give her even a single good reason to hold 2 passports. She rejected all respondents as using 'excuses' to justify their 'bad behavior.'

There are higher costs - not much, but if you are on very limited income, an extra let's say $100 every 10 years may be too much for you. But for almost everyone, you will save more money than it cost.

It takes work (and usually money) to get a second passport. The best way to do it is doing it as part of something else you love, like a move to Ecuador, which incidentally has a treaty with Canada so you can only be a 'resident' of one of those 2 countries at a time.

Which passports you do NOT want to have!

Well, the USA is the most obvious one for a decades old obvious reason. They are seen by most of the world as the world's bully, and Trump seems to revel in that image making it even worse than previously. In 2018 a Canadian was murdered in Asia because "She looked like an American". (So having 2 passports or even the 'correct' passport(s) is not enough to save you all the time, she was riding a motorcycle and was ambushed and killed before they realized she was a Canadian and not an American. You know ... they all look the same to me...)

But there is another reason you don't want to be a US Citizen - taxes! The US is very oppressive at collecting taxes on your worldwide direct and indirect income. For a Canadian (and I suspect many other nationalities) marrying an American or a dual-citizen where one of their citizenships is American, could be the most financially devastating decisions of your life.

• Here is just one scenario - a real life one I know about: Canadian (well call him C) married a dual Citizen (Canadian/American), we'll call her U. C and U owned a nice house and it had gone up a lot in value. A 50/50 chance occur ed: U died. Then the house prices in Toronto (where they lived) scaled back somewhat. Meanwhile, her estate is being wrapped up, and the US government says: She owes taxes on her half of the family home (which was 100% in C's name legally.) But it is owed based on the value at the time of her death. C does not have enough money to pay the taxes that U owed on her death, so he has to sell his house. But his house is worth LESS now (due to the market crash) than the mortgage plus the taxes that U owes (based on the value BEFORE the crash.) C goes bankrupt.

• This is just one of many ways you can get into trouble with a spouse that is fully or partly an American Citizen. Especially if they do something like not file their taxes for years thinking it wasn't necessary for any of several good reasons, and then you get hit with 15 or 20 years of penalties. (Unlike Canada's CRA, the IRS can go WAY back in your history and if you can't prove that THEIR estimate of your income is wrong, you lose - guilty until proven innocent.)

• Am I saying don't marry a whole or part American? Of course not! But I am saying, make sure you get a good tax lawyer that really understands USA taxes and Canadian taxes, and make sure you set things up correctly EARLY ON - yes, at the time you can't afford the tax lawyer, I know. So ... instead of an expensive ring, an expensive honeymoon, an expensive wedding, if you are marrying an American, have a nice (low cost) ring, a nice (low cost) honeymoon and use balloons to decorate your 'out of town in a low cost hall' wedding, and use the rest of the money to get some good tax advice and get your estates set up to 'survive' the IRS.

• In 2017 the USA did something even worse, they retroactively changed the rules for Americans living outside the USA all the way back to 1986 - yes they retroactively changed the tax rules for the last THIRTY (30) years. They have bankrupted many Americans by doing this. Essentially, they didn't like the fact that Americans and Canadian/Americans (or any other duality) were not paying enough taxes to the US Government when they live abroad. This change has been met with horror by many. But what you do do? Revoke your citizenship and never travel to or through the USA again (because your name will be flagged and you'll be detained for unpaid taxes?) Of those they didn't bankrupt, this has destroyed the retirement of many Americans who had been fully obeying the law the last 30 years. (If you care, it is a 'one time retroactive tax' on the retained earnings going back to 1986 of companies owned by Americans, but you shouldn't use this page as tax advice, talk to your tax lawyer - if they don't know about it - stop using them and get a new tax advisor.) Yup, the land of the free.

• A note I can't verify but sounds 'reasonable'. A friend of mine is a dual citizen (Canada/USA). She told me that she can't give up her US citizenship as 'a solution', because the USA is vindictive towards 'ex-citizens', and it could prevent her from travelling into, and perhaps worse, THROUGH the USA. (90%* of international flights originating in Canada go THROUGH the USA.) So she feels, and it sounds reasonable, that dealing with the tax implications is better than giving up her US citizenship.

• 17 studies out of 19 showed that statistics that are made up are just as useful for most purposes as statistics that are based in factual studies.

If you don't have a USA citizenship yet ... I suggest you don't get it unless you really really need it for work or marriage (perhaps your spouse can't travel to YOUR home country - which probably means your spouse is an American...)

There are likely other passports you don't want to hold, but I don't know enough to comment further so I'll wait until when and if I know.

Other thoughts

Clearly there are potential nefarious reasons as well, but those don't interest me personally so I'm not even going to comment on them or spend time thinking about them and I'm certainly not going to give advice to help.

In many cases, such as if you have a US passport, you are required to use 'that' passport when going into 'that' country (or in the case of the EU, that block of countries.) Make very sure you know you can use your other passport before using the 'wrong' passport when entering a country that you hold a passport in - the penalties can be very severe. Or at a minimum, just assume that if you have a passport for country x and you are entering that country, you need to use that passport.