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20 Nationality-Based Fast-Tracks to 2nd Citizenship · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your passport might qualify you for another citizenship in as little as one year.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: No investment required.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Twenty nations write nationality discounts directly into their law, cutting weights of 10 years down to two or even one.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: For citizens of countries they consider kin.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: In this video, you'll learn about every one of them, and near the end, the critical fine print regarding citizenships by investment.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Every provision in this video comes straight from the statutes and the ministries that administer them.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: The same sourcing behind the citizenship catalogue inside the IMI Sovereign's private investor community, which tracks every path to citizenship across 195 countries.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Links in the description.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Naturalization weights are lengthening almost everywhere.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Portugal doubled its standard requirement to 10 years in May.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sweden moved from 5 years to 8 in June.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Peru went from one of the world's shortest timelines at 2 years to five in 2025.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Through all of that tightening, one class of provisions sailed through untouched.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Preferred nationality naturalization, the statutory discount states grant to citizens of countries they consider good neighbours and or family.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: The logic is decades old, in some cases older than the constitutions now in force.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Spain wrote its Ibero American preference into the Civil Code.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Brazil's Lusaphone track, which we'll cover later, appears in the 1988 Constitution.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Nordic states have exchanged fast lanes since the 1950s.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin with the Iberian country.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Spain asks ordinary applicants for 10 years of legal residence before naturalization.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: For natural-born nationals of Ibo American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, and Portugal, however, the figure drops to just two years.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Brazilians also qualify despite speaking Portuguese, and so do Puerto Ricans.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Note the phrase natural-born.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: The benefit attaches to nationality by origin, so a passport acquired through naturalization somewhere else does not open that two-year door.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Spanish courts have confirmed that distinction repeatedly.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: In practice, most applicants come from the Philippines and Ibero-American countries, including Brazil.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: In our experience, the main challenge is not providing the nationality of origin or passing the DELE or CCSE examinations.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: While applicants generally pass these tests, securing the examination date can sometimes be difficult due to limited availability.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: The most significant issue is demonstrating continuous legal residency in Spain.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: Spanish law does not provide a precise definition of what constitutes continuous residency, leaving it open to interpretation by authorities.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: As a general recommendation, applicants should avoid being away from Spain for more than three consecutive months at a time, as longer absence may raise concern about whether the residence requirements have been met.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: It is also important to show ties to the Spanish territories.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Cross the border, Portugal just rewrote its nationality law entirely, and its preference survived.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Portugal's new nationality law in force since May 19th raised the ordinary naturalization requirement from five years to ten.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nationals of the Community of Portuguese language countries, or CPLP, and of EU member states qualify after seven.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: The CPLP comprises Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sautame and Principe, Equatorial Guinea, and Timor Leste, alongside Portugal itself.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the 26 other EU member states and nationals of some 35 countries are on the seven-year track.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Brazilians are by far the largest cohort among Portugal's naturalization applicants.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: We are observing an increase in new clients from Brazil, says Pedro Oliveira of Optimize Investment Partners, a Lisbon-based fund manager.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Though he notes CPLP clients are a small minority of subscribers to his Golden Visa Eligible Fund, and interest from other CPLP and EU countries has not materialized.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Two more details from the reform, citizenship applications filed on or before May 18, 2026 fall under the old five-year regime, and CPLP nationals retain their exemption from the Portuguese language test.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Though in Oliveira's experience the exemption moves few decisions, since most non-CPLP clients want to learn the language of the country they visit every year anyway.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Portuguese case points at a broader pattern.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Across Europe, an EU passport by itself buys years off the clock in other member states.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Italy grants EU citizens naturalization after four years of legal residence, against ten for third country nationals.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: However, everyone faces the B1 Italian language requirement.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Czechia requires that EU, EEA, and Swiss citizens spend three years of permanent residence instead of the standard five in the country to naturalize, and Slovaks receive a further concession, exemption from the Czech language exam.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Austria, among the strictest countries in Western Europe with its 10-year naturalization rule, lets EEA citizens apply after just six.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Germany is the counterexample.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Its short-lived three-year fast track scrapped in October 2025 rewarded integration merit, never nationality.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Berlin has never offered EU citizens a shorter path.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania have accepted regimes of their own, but attached to ethnicity or descent, a different legal animal belonging to the citizenship by descent family.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: The most complete reciprocal system anywhere is further north.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden each grant the other Nordic states citizens naturalization after just two years of residence.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Iceland is the odd man out, and it requires four.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: This arrangement has grown alongside the Nordic passport union since the 1950s.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: The gap to the ordinary track widens by the year.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sweden's new citizenship law, in force since June the 6th, raised the general requirement from five years to eight, while leaving the Nordic two-year rule untouched.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Denmark demands nine years of continuous residence from most applicants, and two from Nordic citizens.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Norway and Finland both moved to eight-year general rules recently, with their Nordic figure still fixed at two.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: A parallel mechanism exists alongside naturalization.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's acquisition by declaration.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Natural-born Nordic citizens can claim Finnish citizenship by declaration after five years of residence, and Danish or Norwegian citizenship after seven, processed without the discretion that attaches to ordinary grants.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Cross the Atlantic and the favor gets returned.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Brazil's Article 12 grants nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries naturalization after a single uninterrupted year of residence, plus proof of good moral character against four years on the ordinary track.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Ministry of Justice waves the Portuguese exam for them.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: The route passes through permanent residency, which CPLP citizens also reach faster.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Two years of temporary residence on a CPLP visa against four for real estate investors, notes Francisco Litve of SETI.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Brazil has one of the best passports in the Americas and at the same time has one of the shortest timelines to naturalization, just one year for those citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: El Salvador's construction grants Spaniards and Hispano-Americans of origin a one-year track.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Mexico cuts its five-year requirement to two for natural-born nationals of Latin American countries and the Iberian Peninsula, administered as a dedicated naturalization category.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Nicaragua halves its four-year requirement to two for the same group, and Central Americans by origin may opt for Nicaraguan nationality without renouncing their original one, an exemption the 2025 constitutional amendments preserved.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Costa Rica applies the two-tier logic at a slower tempo.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Five years for Central Americans, Spaniards, and Ibero-Americans by birth, versus seven for everyone else.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Colombia, which typed its rules in 2023, requires five years of domicile on permanent residency, reduced to two where reciprocity applies, as it currently does for Spaniards, Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Hondurans.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Panama has the region's purest reciprocity model.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Its constitution admits natural-born nationals of Spain and Latin American states on whatever terms their home country would impose on a Panamanian.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Practice that means as little as one year for Salvadorans, two for Spaniards and Mexicans, and three for Uruguayans, against five on the ordinary track.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Venezuela halves its ten-year requirement to five for nationals of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Argentina, notably, offers no preference.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Every nationality faces the same timeline.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the English-speaking Caribbean approaches kinship differently.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Procedure instead of speed.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the Commonwealth Caribbean, independence era constitutions allow citizens to acquire nationality by registration, an entitlement style mechanism, while other foreigners face discretionary naturalization.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Vincent and the Grenadines illustrates the model.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Commonwealth citizens ordinarily resident for seven years may register as citizens under the Citizenship Act of 1984, whereas ordinary naturalization contemplates roughly nine years and rests on ministerial discretion.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Comparable provisions survive across the region, though each act sets its own residence period, and several of Titan without much announcement.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: So check the statute in force before you play around one.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: One point is often misunderstood though.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: CARICOM free movement confers no citizenship rights.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Trinidad and Tobago's foreign ministry states plainly that a CARICOM national wishing to settle permanently must apply under the host state's ordinary residency or citizenship law.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to the fine print about citizenship by investment we promised at the top.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Most of these preferences attach to nationality by origin, acquire a qualifying passport through a citizenship by investment program, and the discount does not reliably follow.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Brazil is an example.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: The constitutional wording covers those natural from Portuguese-speaking countries, which Litve reads as citizens by origin only.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: His firm has fielded multiple inquiries about using Sautome and Principe's citizenship program as a shortcut to the one-year track and has told every one of them it would not survive on paper.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Some people have connected the dots.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Francisco, can someone get some to me in CBI and then go live in Brazil for a year and apply for citizenship?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So if you go to the Brazilian Constitution on Chapter 3, Article 12, inciso number two, it says that the citizenship path for Portuguese originated citizens is one year.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it specifically says citizens of origin, citizens originarios of pays de lingua portuguesa.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: No CBI citizen has tested it yet.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: The discounts also compound with settlement blocks.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Colombian who naturalizes in Spain after two years acquires EU-wide free movement.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: A Portuguese national in Brazil reaches one of Latin America's strongest passports in a single year.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: For anyone born with a qualifying nationality, the fastest second citizenship available requires nothing beyond time in the country.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all these routes require time in the country to naturalize.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: But in the European Union, there are four more ways to get a passport without spending a cent.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the video on your screen now where we cover all five.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And subscribe with notifications on so you catch every rule change and new program announcement as we report it.