How many nationalities can you have?

Question

How many nationalities is it legal to have?

Answer 1

Several dozen in theory

However, it would be very difficult to determine the actual theoretical limit, and even then, the practical limit is likely to be considerably lower.

It is fair to say that citizenship law in every country in the world is ... complex. How and when you acquire it, how, when, and if you can lose it, and whether you can hold more than one at a time are all domestic law matters for each nation. In addition, just because the law of Nation X says you are (not) a citizen doesn't mean that the laws of Nation Y agree.

For example:

• In some countries, being born there automatically confers citizenship regardless of the parents' citizenship. However, others confer citizenship on children born there if they remain residents for a certain time.
• Some countries allow unrestricted multiple nationalities
• Others take active steps to avoid this. For example, if an Austrian takes out Australian citizenship, they immediately lose their Austrian citizenship. Similarly, when an Australian takes out Austrian citizenship, they must renounce their Australian citizenship. However, a child born to an Australian father and an Austrian mother has both citizenships and doesn't have to choose between them, but a child of an Australian mother and an Austrian father only gets Austrian citizenship if the father (or a court) recognizes his parenthood within 8 weeks of the birth.
• Or to avoid this in certain cases. For example, Spanish citizenship is lost three years after acquiring another nationality unless Spain has a dual-nationality treaty with that other country.
• Or deal with things unilaterally. For example, China doesn’t recognise that a Chinese citizen can have another nationality.

If one had the time and inclination, they could work out the theoretical maximum. I suspect it would start with parents who already had inheritable multiple nationalities at birth, birth in a country that gave nationality automatically and then the acquisition of others that didn't invalidate the ones already held.

However, since most countries require minimum residence periods before granting citizenship, the human lifetime is going to put a practical limit on the theoretical maximum.

Answer 2

The current limit could be computed by finding all of the countries that preclude dual citizenship, subtracting from the number of countries that exist. Japan and Iran do not allow dual citizenship, but the US and Norway so. The math is a bit more complex because Lichtenstein only allows dual citizenship by descent, meaning that if your family migrated from Lichtenstein to the US you could regain Lichtensteinian citizenship, but otherwise you would have to renounce US citizenship. You also have to decide whether to include countries that are not universally recognized, for example not all nations recognize Israel, Cyprus, North Korea or Abkhazia. A ballpark number is "over 100"

Answer 3

There is no law saying how many nationalities you can have. Every country individually has their own rules whether you can have their nationality while you have another nationality or nationalities, or not.

Three nationalities is not unusual; I personally know someone who has the nationality of her father, her mother, and the country she was born, and that’s three.

Four is tricky. You can probably gain another nationality, but in some countries you automatically lose their nationality if you voluntarily get another one.

One rather bizarre way for a woman who wants another nationality is to marry someone from a country where you automatically get their nationality due to marriage, refuse to accept it, and get that nationality anyway - since it wasn’t voluntarily you may be able to keep your old nationalities and now you have four.

Some countries just don’t recognise other nationalities. They say “you are citizen of x and X only”, and if you get another nationality they just don’t care. So going beyond four is probably not impossible, but highly impractical.

On the other hand, I have no idea what happens if your parents already have multiple citizenships. Say mum and dad with three citizenships each and you are born in the USA.