CBI passports compared: which doors the programmes open

Anyone comparing second passports soon ends up staring at country counts. They sound precise, but they tell you very little about whether a passport gets you to Paris, London, Toronto or Shanghai. It is far more revealing to line up the passports of the best-known programmes accepting applications today in front of the same doors. How passport rankings do their sums, and why your German passport still remains your strongest travel document, is explained in the guide to passport rankings.

Which CBI passports travel to the Schengen Area without a visa?

The answer is in the German Federal Foreign Office's list of countries: citizens of Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Lucia and Dominica enter Germany without a visa.

Two conditions come with it, and you should know them:

• 90 days in any 180. Without a visa you may, as a rule, stay for no more than 90 days within a 180-day period.
• No work. You may not take up employment during that stay.

For six passports the Federal Foreign Office marks the visa requirement with a "yes": Vanuatu, Sierra Leone, São Tomé and Príncipe, Türkiye, Jordan and Cambodia. Anyone travelling to Europe on one of these passports needs a Schengen visa first.

For you as a German, Austrian or Swiss national, none of this matters at Europe's borders. You travel around Europe on your EU or Swiss passport, freely and without counting days. The Schengen question becomes important when family members without an EU passport are meant to travel with you, when one day you travel on your second passport alone, or when you deliberately want the passport as a fallback for Europe. How to show the right passport at the border is covered in travelling with several passports.

The passports compared: Schengen, the UK, Canada, China

Outside the USA, four doors separate the programme passports most clearly. The authorities are the Federal Foreign Office's list of countries, the British visa national list, the entry requirements list of Canada's immigration department and the Chinese immigration authority's list of mutual visa exemptions for ordinary passports.

What lies behind the entries:

United Kingdom. Citizens of Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada are not on the visa national list. Since 8 January 2025 they have needed an electronic travel authorisation (ETA), just like Germans. Dominica, St Lucia, Vanuatu, Sierra Leone, São Tomé and Príncipe, Türkiye, Jordan and Cambodia are on the list of visa-required countries. What an ETA costs and what it lets you do in the UK is explained in the article on business trips with an ETA on stmatthew.de (in German).

Canada. All the countries compared here are, in principle, visa-required. For Antigua and Barbuda and St Lucia, Canada's immigration department names an exception: their citizens can apply for an eTA instead of a visa if they meet certain requirements and arrive by air. Anyone coming overland or by sea, cruise ship included, needs a visa.

China. Ordinary passports from Grenada, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda are exempt from the visa requirement. For Dominica this has applied since 19 September 2022 for stays of up to 30 days; for Antigua and Barbuda since 11 May 2024, for 30 days per stay and no more than 90 days in any 180. Grenada has had the exemption since 2015. St Lucia is missing from the list. For Vanuatu, Türkiye, Jordan, Cambodia, São Tomé and Príncipe and Sierra Leone, the exemption covers diplomatic and service passports only.

The deeper look at these four countries, with every condition set by the USA, the UK, Canada and China, is in USA, UK, Canada, China: which second passport travels where without a visa.

Caribbean passports: what the five islands open beyond visas

The Caribbean is where the passports for Europe are. Yet what binds the five islands together reaches further than any visa rule. All five belong to the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), and within it to the innermost circle, the Protocol Member States of the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union. That circle consists of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Free movement in the Eastern Caribbean

The economic union was founded on 18 June 2010 with the Revised Treaty of Basseterre. According to the OECS, it gives its citizens three concrete rights:

• Entry with an ID card. Citizens travel within the area on a government-issued ID such as an identity card or a driving licence.
• Indefinite stay. Citizens can settle indefinitely in any Protocol Member State with their spouse and dependants, and receive a stamp to that effect on entry.
• Work without a permit. They work in any Protocol Member State without a work permit, and their families have equal access there to employment, education and healthcare.

In practice, this means a passport from St Lucia doesn't just open St Lucia for you, but a whole arc of islands from Antigua to Grenada. This is the part of travel freedom no passport ranking counts, because it isn't about a visa but about a right. How the Caribbean passports work together as a package of tax and free movement is explored in the article on Caribbean second passports on perspektiveausland.com (in German).

Where the islands differ

Within the Caribbean, two doors separate the passports:

Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda therefore cover Europe, the UK and China at once. Dominica brings China, St Lucia the conditional eTA for Canada. Which Caribbean island suits your budget and your family is shown on the programme pages, with every amount and fee, and in the overview of costs.

How many visa-free countries does each passport have?

The question about the number always comes up. The honest answer: there is no official world list, and every figure depends on who is counting and what counts as visa-free. Visa on arrival, electronic authorisations and regional agreements are included by some sources and left out by others.

Some countries of origin and programmes publish figures themselves:

Treat figures like these as a guide, not a verdict. A passport with 93 destinations can be worth more to you than one with 140 if it covers exactly the countries you travel to or do business in. The classic indices and their league tables are presented in the passport ranking on wohnsitzausland.com (in German).

Vanuatu, São Tomé and Sierra Leone: strengths beyond Schengen

Three programmes stand for the lean route to a second passport, with some of the lowest minimum amounts of all. None of the three passports opens Europe without a visa, and that is precisely why it pays to look at what they offer instead.

Vanuatu. The Pacific nation was once visa-free in the Schengen Area. The EU has revoked that access, and today the Federal Foreign Office lists Vanuatu with a "yes" for the visa requirement. The UK requires a visa as well. The passport's value now lies in the citizenship itself: a second country that issues you a travel document, at one of the lowest minimum amounts of any programme. All programme details are under Vanuatu.

São Tomé and Príncipe. The island state's Citizenship by Investment Unit cites more than 93 visa-free destinations for its passport, including South Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong. A visa is required for Schengen, the UK and Canada. If you travel in Africa and Asia and are looking for a fast second passport, you'll find a young programme here with a clear legal basis.

Sierra Leone. According to sierraleonepassport.com, the passport travels to more than 65 countries visa-free or with visa on arrival, and on top come the rights of ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, in eleven further countries. For the Schengen Area, a Sierra Leonean citizen usually needs a visa. As for the USA: since 1 January 2026, Proclamation 10998 has suspended entry on a Sierra Leonean passport; dual nationals travelling on the passport of a country that is not affected are expressly exempt. For the USA, you travel on your German passport. The passport is biometric, and the process runs entirely remotely. For entrepreneurs with an eye on West Africa, the ECOWAS package is the real lever; more on this under Sierra Leone.

Türkiye, Jordan, Cambodia: passports with weight of their own

These three programmes are not travel passports for Europe. They are citizenships of large, independent states with their own markets, their own diplomacy and their own weight in their region.

Türkiye. Holders of an ordinary Turkish passport need a visa for Germany and the other Schengen states. In return, according to the list of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the passport opens around 70 countries without a visa. A few examples from that list:

• Japan for up to 90 days without a visa,
• Brazil for up to 90 days without a visa,
• South Korea for up to 90 days, with prior online registration via K-ETA,
• Singapore without a visa, initially for 30 days,
• Georgia for up to a year without a visa, also on an identity card, with mandatory travel insurance.

How far the Turkish passport reaches and what role it plays for entrepreneurs is shown in Turkish passport: visa-free countries. The programme itself, with every investment route, is under Türkiye.

Jordan and Cambodia. Both passports need a visa for Schengen, the UK and Canada, and for China with an ordinary passport. Their programmes are aimed at investors who are, or want to become, economically rooted in the region: Jordan through productive projects and the Amman stock exchange, Cambodia through investment in promoted sectors or a donation to the state budget. If you naturalise here, you aren't buying a travel passport for Europe but a firm place in a market. The routes are under Jordan and Cambodia.

USA: why you enter on your German passport

When it comes to the USA, the comparison is quickly done. According to the US Department of Homeland Security, 42 countries take part in the Visa Waiver Program, among them Germany, Austria and Switzerland. None of the programme countries is among them, and there is no ESTA with any of these passports.

On top of that comes a proclamation by the US President of 16 December 2025, in force since 1 January 2026, which restricts entry from a number of countries. For Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica, it suspends immigrant visas as well as visitor, student and exchange visas in categories B-1, B-2, F, M and J. What matters for you is the exception in the same text: dual nationals travelling on the passport of a country that is not affected do not fall under it.

For you as a German, this means you fly to the USA as before, on your German passport with an ESTA. The ESTA form asks about every other citizenship, and you state it truthfully. What that means for your application is shown in ESTA with a second citizenship. What ESTA allows and where the visa begins is explained on the ESTA or B-1 visa page.

Visa-free access is not a possession: how stable the doors are

Every visa exemption is a permission. It is granted by the destination country, and that country can change it. Two examples: the EU has revoked visa-free access for Vanuatu, and the UK now lists Dominica and St Lucia among its visa-required countries.

That isn't an argument against a second passport but one for seeing it the right way. Citizenship is a right. It gives you a country you can enter at any time and live in, and a state that issues you a passport if your first one is lost, stolen or withheld. No third country can take that right away from you by changing its visa rules.

Three principles protect you here:

• Choose programmes with rigorous vetting. States with thorough due diligence and a clear legal basis stand on firmer ground with their partner countries.
• Keep your German passport as your main document. For Europe and the USA it remains your passport. What applies to Germans with two citizenships is explained in dual citizenship for Germans.
• Know the situation before you decide. What the debate in Brussels means in concrete terms for the Caribbean passports, and how to protect yourself, is explained in the EU visa suspension.

Holding two passports also gives you a simple safeguard: if a destination changes its rules for one, you travel on the other. That is exactly why many people consider a third passport, for example a Caribbean passport alongside a later naturalisation abroad.

Which CBI passport fits your destinations?

The best choice comes from your travel profile, not from the longest list. Here is how the programmes line up against what matters most to you:

Then come the questions that go beyond travel: who in your family should come along, how much do you want to invest, how quickly do you need the passport? The rules for spouses, children and parents are under family, and every amount is in the programme comparison. How citizenship by investment works in principle, and which types of investment exist, is explained in the guide to buying citizenship.

In the end, the strongest second passport isn't the one with the most countries. It's the one that opens exactly the door your first passport can't guarantee you.

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