The easiest countries to get citizenship in are Argentina and Peru, which both allow naturalization after just two years of legal residency. If you can’t relocate that long, three other routes can be faster or skip residency altogether: citizenship by descent (Italy, Ireland, Poland), citizenship by investment (St. Kitts and Nevis, Malta, Turkey), and marriage to a citizen (Brazil and Spain each drop the wait to one year). The right path depends on your ancestry, your budget, and how much time you can spend abroad.
Fastest Naturalization by Residency
A handful of countries let you naturalize after two or three years of legal residency, well below the five-to-ten-year wait typical elsewhere.
Argentina — Two Years
Argentina’s Citizenship Law No. 346 sets the timeline at two years of legal residency. You need continuous physical presence during that period, a clean criminal record, and a regular source of income. Decree 366/25, issued in 2025, moved the entire procedure online through the National Immigration Department’s website. The process previously ran through federal courts.
Peru — Two Years, for Now
Peru allows applications after two consecutive years of legal residency, with physical presence of at least 183 days per calendar year during the qualifying period. There is a caveat: Peru passed Law No. 32421 in 2025, which will raise the general naturalization requirement to five years once implementing regulations are published. Until then, the two-year rule remains in force.
Dominican Republic — Two Years
The Dominican Republic requires two consecutive years of residency for ordinary naturalization under Law No. 1683. You must hold a valid residency permit throughout and spend the bulk of your time in the country. The government also evaluates your ties to the local economy and community.
Paraguay and Ecuador — Three Years
Paraguay and Ecuador both grant citizenship after three years of permanent residency. Paraguay’s permanent residency permit is itself easy to obtain, sometimes issued in as few as 20 days through the country’s one-stop-shop procedure. You’ll need to show ties such as property ownership or a local business, along with basic Spanish and knowledge of Paraguayan history. Ecuador follows a similar three-year timeline.
Citizenship by Descent
If you have ancestors from certain European countries, you may already qualify for citizenship without ever living there. These programs turn on bloodline rather than residency. The paperwork is intense, but the wait to relocate disappears.
Italy
Italy recognizes citizenship by descent with no generational limit, provided the chain of Italian citizenship was never broken. Under Law No. 91 of 1992, you qualify if your Italian ancestor was still an Italian citizen when their child was born. If that ancestor naturalized elsewhere before the next generation arrived, the chain snaps and the claim fails. Claims that pass through a woman who had a child before January 1, 1948, must go through a court proceeding in Rome rather than the standard consular process, because Italian law didn’t recognize equal transmission through mothers until that date. Expect to gather birth, marriage, and death certificates for every person in the lineage, plus proof your ancestor never renounced.
Ireland
Ireland grants citizenship to anyone with at least one grandparent born on the island of Ireland. You claim it by registering on the Foreign Births Register through the Department of Foreign Affairs. The registration fee is €270 plus an €8 handling charge. Once your name appears on the register, you’re an Irish citizen from that date forward and can apply for an Irish passport. You’ll need original birth, marriage, and death certificates for every person in the direct line back to your Irish-born grandparent.
Poland
Poland allows you to confirm citizenship by descent if your ancestor held Polish citizenship and never lost it. The process traces back to the 1920 Citizenship Act. There’s no hard generational limit, but the citizenship chain must be intact through every generation. Proving it requires documents like birth certificates, baptism records, marriage certificates, or copies of ancestors’ Polish identity papers. The provincial governor’s office in Poland handles these determinations, and the review can take many months.
Citizenship by Investment
If you have capital but not the ancestry or the time for a long residency, several countries sell a direct path.
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Kitts and Nevis runs one of the oldest citizenship-by-investment programs in the world. The Sustainable Island State Contribution option requires a non-refundable donation of at least $250,000 for a single applicant or a family of up to four. Alternatively, you can invest a minimum of $325,000 in an approved real estate development, or buy private property for at least $600,000. Processing generally takes three to six months.
Malta
Malta offers a route to European Union citizenship through its Exceptional Services by Direct Investment program. You contribute either €600,000 with a three-year residency requirement or €750,000 for a faster one-year track. On top of that, you must purchase a residential property worth at least €700,000 or lease one for a minimum of €16,000 per year for five years. The total outlay is steep, but the result is an EU passport with freedom of movement across the bloc.
Turkey
Turkey grants citizenship to foreign investors who purchase real estate worth at least $400,000 and agree to hold the property for a minimum of three years. Processing typically takes three to four months. The Turkish passport provides visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to over 110 countries.
Citizenship through Marriage
Marrying a citizen of another country usually cuts the residency wait significantly, though every country demands proof the marriage is genuine.
Brazil offers one of the shortest timelines: one year of residency if you’re married to or in a stable partnership with a Brazilian national, against four years for everyone else. Your marriage or partnership must be legally recognized in Brazil, and you cannot be separated at the time of application.
Spain drops its standard ten-year naturalization requirement to one year for spouses of Spanish citizens. You must be legally residing in Spain and not separated, either legally or in practice. That makes Spain one of the fastest marriage-based pathways in Europe.
Mexico requires two years of legal residency for spouses of Mexican citizens, with the condition that you’ve lived together throughout. The application goes through the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores.
Documents You’ll Need
Whichever pathway you pursue, expect to spend real time gathering and authenticating paperwork. Most countries require birth certificates and marriage licenses bearing an Apostille stamp, which confirms the document’s authenticity for use in countries party to the Hague Convention. Apostille fees vary by state but typically run between $2 and $26 per document.
Any document not in the target country’s official language will need a certified translation. The translator must attest in writing that they are competent in both languages and that the translation is complete and accurate, including their name, signature, address, and the date. Some countries also require that certification to be notarized.
Criminal background checks are standard across nearly every naturalization pathway. For U.S. citizens, this typically means an FBI Identity History Summary. Many countries accept fingerprint-based FBI checks, though some also require clearance letters from local police. These documents have a limited shelf life, so time the request close to your application date.
Several countries also require proof of language proficiency, often at a basic conversational level. Spain expects applicants to demonstrate Spanish skills, and Paraguay tests basic knowledge of the country’s history and geography alongside language ability. Descent-based claims in Italy and Ireland generally skip the language requirement entirely, which is one reason those pathways remain so popular.
What a Second Passport Won’t Do if You’re American
A few boundaries are worth knowing before you start.
The United States currently permits dual citizenship with no restrictions. There is no requirement to renounce your U.S. citizenship when you naturalize elsewhere, and holding a second passport does not jeopardize your American one. The bigger concern runs in the other direction: Japan, China, India, and Singapore are among the countries that generally do not permit dual nationality, and naturalizing in one of them may require you to renounce your U.S. citizenship. Check the target country’s rules before you start.
A second passport also does not reduce your U.S. tax obligations by a single dollar. The United States taxes citizens on worldwide income regardless of where they live or what other citizenships they hold. The foreign earned income exclusion lets qualifying expats exclude up to $132,900 in earned income for the 2026 tax year, but only if you meet strict residency or physical-presence tests abroad, and investment income, rental income, and capital gains don’t qualify. Separate reporting rules apply once your foreign financial accounts cross certain thresholds: the FBAR (FinCEN Form 114) is triggered at $10,000 in combined foreign account value at any point during the year, and FATCA Form 8938 applies at higher asset levels that depend on filing status and residence. Penalties for missing either filing start at $10,000 per violation.
If you do decide to renounce U.S. citizenship, the State Department charges a $450 processing fee for the Certificate of Loss of Nationality. Renunciation can also trigger a final exit tax on unrealized capital gains for certain high-net-worth individuals, and you lose the right to live and work freely in the United States.