USA, UK, Canada, China: where each second passport travels without a visa

A second passport is not a master key. It is a bunch of individual keys. Every destination country decides for itself whom it lets in without a visa, and the four big destinations, the USA, the UK, Canada and China, each do so from their own lists. How passports are rated overall is shown in the passport ranking. How citizenship by investment works in principle is explained in the article buying citizenship.

Which passport gets you into the USA without a visa?

The USA keeps its door particularly narrow. Only citizens of countries that take part in the Visa Waiver Program travel without a visa. According to the US Department of Homeland Security, that is 42 countries, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Their citizens enter with ESTA authorisation for business trips and holidays of up to 90 days.

No country with a citizenship by investment programme is on that list. With a passport from St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, Türkiye or Vanuatu you need a visa for the USA. For the USA, your German passport is therefore the stronger one, and it stays that way when you add a second. What ESTA is exactly and where it differs from a B-1 visa is explained under ESTA or B-1 visa.

ESTA and the question about your second citizenship

With a second passport, you as a German keep travelling to the USA on ESTA. One thing changes, though: the ESTA application asks about every other citizenship you hold. According to the notice of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the Federal Register, this is a mandatory field, while the number of the other passport is optional. Your answer has to be true. What that means on the application in practice is shown in ESTA with a second citizenship.

Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica: Proclamation 10998

On 16 December 2025 the US President signed Proclamation 10998, in force since 1 January 2026. It extends the partial entry restrictions to further countries, including Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica. For both, the text gives as its reason that they have granted citizenship by investment without a residence requirement. Suspended are entry as an immigrant and entry on visas of classes B-1, B-2, F, M and J, in other words business, tourism, study and exchange. Consulates are to issue other visas with shorter validity.

What matters for you as a German is an exception in the same text: the restrictions do not apply to dual nationals travelling on the passport of a country that is not on the list. If you travel on your German passport, the proclamation does not affect you. Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and St Lucia are not mentioned in it at all.

Sierra Leone: entry fully suspended

For Sierra Leone, Proclamation 10998 goes further. Under Section 4(e), entry of nationals of Sierra Leone has been fully suspended since 1 January 2026, both as immigrants and on visas for a temporary stay. Here too the text expressly exempts dual nationals travelling on the passport of a country that is not affected. For the USA, you travel on your German passport.

E-2: the investor route via Grenada, Türkiye and Jordan

For entrepreneurs, what counts in the USA is less visa-free travel than the E-2 investor visa. It is open to nationals of countries that have a corresponding treaty with the USA. According to the US Department of State's list, they include programme countries such as these, and Germany as well:

Since an amendment to US immigration law by Pub. L. 117-263, an extra rule applies to investor passports: anyone who acquired citizenship through a financial investment and has never held E status must have lived in the treaty country for at least three continuous years before applying. The Grenada passport therefore opens the E-2 route only together with a genuine residence on the island. Germans don't need it for this, because Germany is itself a treaty country. It becomes interesting for entrepreneurs whose first passport comes from a country without a treaty. Who counts as a national of a treaty country is explained under treaty country nationality for the E-2 visa, and the route with a Grenada passport in the article Grenada passport and the E-2 visa.

United Kingdom: ETA or visa for your second passport

The UK divides the world into two groups. Citizens of countries on the Visa national list need a visa for every visit. Everyone else, including Germany and the rest of the EU, the USA, Canada and Australia, generally applies for an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) before travelling. Under the UK Immigration Rules it covers visits of up to six months and runs for two years, or until the passport you applied with expires, if that comes first.

For the programme passports, the Visa national list gives a clear picture:

• No visa, with an ETA: Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada.
• Visa required: Dominica, St Lucia, Sierra Leone, Vanuatu, São Tomé and Príncipe, Türkiye, Jordan and Cambodia.

St Lucia has been subject to the visa requirement since March 2026. Anyone who had already received an ETA and booked a trip by 5 March 2026 could still enter on it until 16 April 2026 under a transitional rule.

Important for dual nationals: under the UK Immigration Rules, an ETA is valid only if you travel on exactly the passport you named in the application. If you apply with your German passport, you show your German passport at the border. What you may do on business as a visitor to the UK, and where the work visa begins, is explained in German by St Matthew under Geschäftsreise nach UK, ETA und Besucherregeln.

Canada: eTA, visa and the special rule for Caribbean passports

Canada distinguishes three groups. Germans need an eTA when they fly in; by land or sea a valid passport is enough. Citizens of visa-required countries need a visitor visa. And for some visa-required countries there is a middle way: the eTA under certain conditions.

According to the country list of Canada's immigration department IRCC, this is how the programme passports fare:

• Visitor visa: Dominica, Grenada, Sierra Leone, Vanuatu, São Tomé and Príncipe, Türkiye, Jordan and Cambodia.
• eTA under conditions: Antigua and Barbuda and St Lucia.

The conditions for these countries are narrow. You arrive by air or change planes at a Canadian airport, your stay is temporary, usually up to six months, and you have held a Canadian visitor visa in the last ten years or currently hold a valid US non-immigrant visa. If you come by car, train or ship, you still need a visa.

For Canada, then, the same applies as for the USA: your German passport is the better choice for the journey. If you want not just to visit Canada but to live there and become a citizen, the route is set out in the article Canadian naturalisation.

China: which second passports enter without a visa

With China the picture turns around. Here it is three Caribbean passports that score, through bilateral agreements China has signed with Grenada, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda. According to the list of China's National Immigration Administration (NIA), they also apply to ordinary passports:

China also has agreements with Sierra Leone, Vanuatu, Cambodia, Jordan, Türkiye and São Tomé and Príncipe, but these cover only diplomatic, service or official passports. With an ordinary passport from these countries you need a visa for China. St Lucia is neither on the list of agreements nor on the list of unilateral exemptions.

According to the NIA, Germans, Austrians and Swiss benefit from a unilateral exemption: with an ordinary passport you can enter without a visa for up to 30 days for business, tourism, visiting family and friends, exchange or transit. The difference lies in the legal form. China can change a unilateral exemption at any time, while an agreement between two states stands on firmer ground. If you travel to China regularly, a passport from Grenada, Dominica or Antigua and Barbuda therefore gives you a second, independent door.

The programme passports compared: USA, UK, Canada, China

The four countries side by side, for the programme passports and, for comparison, the German passport:

"B and F visas suspended" refers to Proclamation 10998: since 1 January 2026, for citizens of these countries who do not travel on another passport, entry on immigrant visas and on business, tourist, student and exchange visas has been suspended. "Entry suspended" refers to Section 4 of the proclamation: for citizens of Sierra Leone who do not travel on another passport, entry has been fully suspended since 1 January 2026. Which other countries the programme passports open without a visa, from the Schengen Area to South America, is shown in travel freedom of CBI passports compared. Amounts, fees and family rules of the programmes are set out in the programme comparison.

Which second passport fits your travel plans?

Which doors are open is settled. Which passport suits you depends on who you are and where you really want to go.

You are German and travel mainly for pleasure and business. Then your German passport already opens all four doors today. A second passport doesn't extend your travel list, it extends your security: a second state that issues you a passport if the first one is lost, stolen or held abroad, and a country you enter as a citizen rather than a guest. How the two passports work together in everyday life is described in CBI passport and German passport.

You travel to China often. Grenada, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda give you an exemption based on an international treaty, independent of the unilateral rule for Germans. In Grenada the contribution to the National Transformation Fund starts at 235,000 USD for the main applicant with up to three dependants, in Dominica the contribution to the Economic Diversification Fund starts at 200,000 USD for a single applicant, and in Antigua and Barbuda the contribution to the National Development Fund starts at 230,000 USD per application.

You are planning a business in the USA, and your first passport comes from a country without an E-2 treaty. Grenada, Türkiye and Jordan are E-2 treaty countries. But factor in the three years of residence that US law requires for investor passports. If you see the island as a second home anyway, you combine both.

The UK matters to you. Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada travel with an ETA; Dominica, St Lucia and the programme passports outside the Caribbean need a visa. In Antigua and Barbuda the contribution to the National Development Fund starts at 230,000 USD per application, in Grenada the contribution to the National Transformation Fund starts at 235,000 USD for the main applicant with up to three dependants.

You want to cover Europe and China with one passport. With a passport from Grenada, Dominica or Antigua and Barbuda you travel today without a visa to the Schengen Area, for up to 90 days in any 180 days, and to China for up to 30 days. How stable the Schengen access of the Caribbean passports is, is described in EU visa suspension.

Travelling the right way with two passports

If you hold two passports, you choose the right one at every border. The basic rule: towards the state whose citizen you are, you use its passport; in third countries, the passport with the better terms. For the four big destinations, that means:

1. USA: German passport with ESTA, and you declare your second citizenship on the application.
2. United Kingdom: apply for the ETA with the passport you will travel on, and show exactly that passport at the border.
3. Canada: German passport with an eTA, when arriving by air.
4. China: German passport for up to 30 days, or the passport from Grenada, Dominica or Antigua and Barbuda under the relevant agreement.

Make sure your booking, check-in and entry all show the same passport. The airline checks before departure whether you may enter at your destination, and it checks this against the data you give it. More on which passport to show at which border in travelling with several passports.

And one limit that applies to every passport: a second passport is the lawful route when the first is lost, stolen or held abroad. It is not a way around an exit ban, a court order or the withdrawal of a passport.

Why a passport is more than its visa list

Each of these visa rules is a permission that another state has granted and can take back. The UK put St Lucia on its visa list in March 2026, the USA suspended visas for Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica and entry on a Sierra Leone passport altogether, and China treats its exemption for Germans as a unilateral rule. That is no reason against a second passport. It is the strongest argument for one.

Because citizenship is not a permission, it is a right. A visa can be refused or revoked; your citizenship cannot. If you hold two passports from different regions, you never depend on a single list. If one door closes for one passport, you travel on the other.

And the investor passport doesn't have to be your last. Citizenship by investment and naturalisation through residence are not an either-or. Naturalisation is the free route and in the end the stronger one, but it takes years and genuine residence. The investor passport buys you exactly that time. How to combine both routes is shown in CBI and naturalisation, and the eight reasons for a second passport are set out under why a second passport.

Frequently asked questions