More Americans seek second passports as Italy tightens citizenship rules

In Florence, Italy, the appetite for escape has taken on a practical edge for Americans who want a backup plan outside the United States. Demand is rising fast: Henley & Partners said U.S. citizens accounted for more than 30% of all investment migration applications submitted through the firm in 2025, and a separate report found inquiries from U.S. nationals about second passports and foreign residency jumped 183% year over year in the first quarter of 2025.

Italy has become central to that rush because it has long offered a major ancestry-based route for Americans with Italian roots. That path narrowed sharply after the Italian Council of Ministers approved amendments to the citizenship law on March 28, 2025. The reform became Law No. 74/2025 and took effect on May 24, 2025. Italian officials said the changes were meant to strengthen the actual link between Italy and citizens abroad, but the move drew concern from the National Italian American Foundation, which warned that tighter rules could shut out families who had expected to qualify through descent.

The appeal of a second passport is not just symbolic. For many Americans, it changes where they can live, work and relocate a family, while offering a legal foothold in another country if politics, burnout or personal uncertainty makes staying put feel riskier. Ireland has become another major destination for that strategy. U.S. applications to the Irish Foreign Births Register, which is a route to citizenship for people with Irish parents or grandparents, rose from 11,601 in 2024 to 18,910 in 2025, a 63% increase and the highest level since digital records began in 2013.

The surge also reflects a more permanent form of exit planning. In 2024, nearly 5,000 people renounced U.S. citizenship, and the Internal Revenue Service publishes quarterly notices of individuals who have chosen to expatriate in the Federal Register. Even so, the boom is far from universal. Investment migration programs can be expensive, and ancestry routes are inherently limited to those with the right family tree. For Americans without those advantages, the option to opt out of America remains more aspiration than escape hatch.