Political uncertainty, changing tax environments, education planning, and concerns about future mobility are prompting more high-net-worth families to establish rights in other countries. Latitude’s Christopher Willis explains why the best time to secure those rights is actually before circumstances make them urgently necessary.
For high-net-worth families, wealth can provide extraordinary freedom. It can create access to better education, healthcare, property, professional advice… and also, crucially, opportunities across borders. What it cannot always provide at short notice is the legal right to enter, remain, work, study, or build a life in another country.
Over the course of over three decades working in immigration, I have watched second residence and citizenship move from the margins of private-client planning steadily toward the mainstream. Families are no longer looking only for a more convenient travel document – they are seeking options that can protect them against political disruption, economic instability, changing tax environments, conflict, restrictions on mobility, and circumstances that may be impossible to predict today.
The objective is not necessarily to leave home. It is to ensure that remaining at home is a choice rather than an obligation.
From Luxury Purchase to Family Infrastructure
Second residence or citizenship is still sometimes presented as a lifestyle acquisition: another property, another passport, or easier access to desirable destinations. Those benefits may be relevant, but they rarely explain the full decision.
High-net-worth families increasingly treat legal status in another country as part of their long-term infrastructure. It can provide somewhere the family is entitled to live if conditions change, a base from which to conduct international business, an education pathway for children, or a status that may eventually pass to future generations.
This is closer to insurance than consumption. Most people do not purchase insurance because they expect their home to burn down. They purchase it because the consequences of having no protection would be unacceptable.
As the saying goes, it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. A second residence or citizenship can serve a similar purpose. The family may never relocate permanently, but the knowledge that it could do so has value in itself.
Why Families Are Already Acting Now
There is no single profile of a family seeking greater mobility. Some are concerned about elections, political polarization, personal security, or deteriorating institutions. Others are responding to war, currency restrictions, economic volatility, or uncertainty surrounding their businesses and assets. American families may be seeking a European base, while European families increasingly consider options in the Americas, the Caribbean, or the Southern Hemisphere.
For many, the motivation is generational. Parents may be satisfied with where they live but want their children to have access to international universities and employment markets. Families with businesses in several regions may want residence rights that support travel, management, and expansion. Others are planning for retirement, succession, or the possibility that different family members will eventually choose different countries.
Tax can be one consideration, but it should never be the only one. Acquiring residence or citizenship does not automatically change a family’s tax position, and poorly coordinated decisions can create obligations rather than reduce them. Immigration, tax, estate-planning, and family-governance advice must work together.
The common objective is optionality – preserving meaningful choices before external events begin removing them.
Residence and Citizenship Solve Different Problems
Families often begin by asking which country offers “the best passport”. A better starting point is to ask what problem they are trying to solve.
Residence provides the right to live in a country, subject to the conditions attached to the particular permit. It may also provide access to education, healthcare, business activity, or eventual permanent residence. Citizenship creates a deeper and generally more durable legal relationship, often including political rights, consular protection, and the possibility of transmitting status to future generations.
It is essential to note that not every family needs another citizenship.
The Malta Permanent Residence Program, for example, may suit a family seeking permanent status in an English-speaking EU country, Schengen Area mobility, and the flexibility to maintain its principal life elsewhere. The Portugal Golden Visa can appeal to families prepared to maintain a qualifying commitment while working toward longer-term residence possibilities. The Italy Investor Visa offers another route for those attracted to Italy as a genuine future base and willing to consider the required investment and residence framework.
These options are different from citizenship routes available through, for example, Antigua and Barbuda, or Grenada, where qualifying families can secure citizenship without first completing years of residence. Türkiye Citizenship by Investment may appeal to families seeking a substantial regional base and willing to combine citizenship planning with carefully assessed property or other qualifying options.
The anticipated Argentina Citizenship by Investment route could add a notably different proposition – citizenship in a G20 country with considerable geographic scale, established cities, respected universities, and a strong lifestyle offering. Its final requirements remain subject to official confirmation, but the level of early interest illustrates how strongly families value credible options beyond the traditional jurisdictions.
The right answer depends on whether a family wants mobility, a relocation destination, permanent legal status, an intergenerational asset, or some combination of these.
A Passport Alone Is Not a Plan
A second passport may expand travel access, but it does not necessarily provide the practical foundations required during a genuine crisis.
Could the family legally live in the country? Could the principals operate their business from there? Would children have suitable schools? Are healthcare, banking, property ownership, and insurance arrangements workable? Does the family speak the language or have trusted advisers on the ground? A status becomes genuinely useful when it forms part of a practical strategy.
For some families, that means acquiring residence and gradually building a connection with the country. For others, it means securing citizenship while maintaining a separate residence elsewhere. Families with adult children, elderly parents, multinational businesses, or complicated succession arrangements may require more than one jurisdiction because a single solution cannot accommodate every person and objective.
Complexity should not be pursued for its own sake. Collecting residence permits and passports without a clear purpose can create cost, administration, reporting obligations, and false confidence. The goal should be sufficient diversification, not the greatest possible number of documents.
Why Waiting Can Be Expensive
The most common mistake is assuming that an option available today will remain available when the family eventually needs it.
Spain closed its Golden Visa to new applicants in 2025. Portugal removed real estate and capital transfers as qualifying options in 2023, while Greece subsequently increased the minimum property thresholds in its most sought-after locations.
Other countries have tightened eligibility, introduced additional interviews or presence requirements, and changed which family members may be included. Meanwhile, children can exceed dependency age limits, and changes in a family’s health, legal, financial, or reputational circumstances can affect future eligibility. Civil records and evidence explaining historic wealth may also become more difficult to obtain over time.
Most importantly, applications take time. Background checks, source-of-funds documentation, government processing, property transactions, and family records cannot always be accelerated simply because a situation has become urgent.
Wealth can solve many problems, but it cannot reopen a closed route or recover preparation time that has already been lost.
That does not mean families should rush into an unsuitable application. It means they should examine their exposure early, understand the available options, and prepare before urgency weakens their ability to make a considered decision.
The Questions to Ask First
Before comparing countries, high-net-worth families should establish who needs protection and what that protection must accomplish.
Does the family need the right to relocate or primarily greater travel flexibility? Must the status include adult children, parents, or future spouses? Is physical presence realistic? Should citizenship pass to subsequent generations? Would the selected country genuinely function as a home? How would the move interact with tax residence, trusts, companies, succession plans, and existing nationalities? These questions are less exciting than passport rankings, but they lead to better decisions.
The purpose of second residence or citizenship is not to predict the next election, conflict, financial disruption, or family change. It is to ensure that if circumstances do change, the family retains credible alternatives.
For high-net-worth families, the most valuable option is rarely the one acquired in the middle of a crisis. It is the one thoughtfully established before the crisis arrives.
About the Author
Christopher Willis is Co-Founder and Managing Partner – Americas & Caribbean at Latitude Group. He has worked in immigration since 1995, is a member of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants and the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants, and is a Fellow of the Investment Migration Council. He advises private clients and governments on residence and citizenship frameworks.
