1. One official decides. And suddenly you are stuck.
Imagine you are standing at the airport.
Your family is waiting for you. Perhaps in Dubai. Perhaps in Switzerland. Perhaps on the other side of the world.
But you cannot leave.
Your German passport has been confiscated.
Because an authority believes you want to evade your tax obligations.
You may not even have received a final tax assessment yet.
You want to sort it out. You want to fight back. You have lawyers.
But your passport is gone.
Sounds like an unlikely extreme case?
Sebastian Sauerborn personally knows at least four people whose German passport was withheld or declared invalid over tax matters.
The German Passport Act expressly permits such measures.
Under § 7(1) no. 4 of the Passport Act (PassG), a passport is refused if facts justify the assumption that someone intends to evade their tax obligations.
§ 8 PassG allows a passport that has already been issued to be withdrawn.
A final tax assessment is not required for this. Administrative courts have confirmed it, for example the Berlin Administrative Court (VG Berlin), 23 L 410.14.
And now comes the point every entrepreneur should be aware of:
The passport authority decides by administrative act. No judge has to approve it first.
You own companies in several countries. Perhaps homes. Perhaps assets worth millions.
But your only passport hangs on a decision by that authority.
Your wealth is international. Your freedom of movement hangs on a single state.
A second passport gives you another citizenship and a second travel document.
And that knowledge alone changes how you think about your personal freedom.
2. Your own country. Your own door. Your own right.
You may know the feeling.
You have a residence permit abroad. Perhaps a golden visa. Perhaps a long-term residence permit.
You feel secure.
But in the end, it remains a permission.
A state granted it to you. The same state may refuse it, decline to renew it or revoke it. And politics changes the conditions.
You are welcome as long as you meet the requirements.
With citizenship, your position changes fundamentally.
You are a citizen.
You have the right to enter. To stay. To work. To come back.
No new visa application. No renewal. No hoping that some official is well disposed towards you today.
Imagine landing in your second home country.
You walk up to passport control. Hand over your passport.
You belong.
That is the difference between a permission and a right.
And that is exactly why a second passport is worth so much more than the next residence card.
3. Yesterday you were free. Tomorrow different rules apply.
You grew up in a country where you take your freedom to travel for granted.
You book a flight. You pack your case. You leave.
Nobody asks whether you have to stay.
But laws change. And sometimes the decisive provisions have long been on the statute book before most people even hear about them.
Since 1 January 2026, the Military Service Act (Wehrpflichtgesetz) has stated that men between 17 and 45 must have stays abroad of more than three months approved by the Bundeswehr careers centre (§ 3(2) WPflG).
For now, this approval is deemed granted by a general order (Allgemeinverfügung) as long as conscription is suspended.
But the law itself remains in force.
A general order is changed far more quickly than a law.
And the Passport Act allows a passport to be refused to men liable for military service who lack this approval.
Think about that for a moment.
Today a general approval applies. Tomorrow, politics may decide differently.
For entrepreneurs who live internationally, and for families with sons of the relevant age, this is no abstract debate.
It comes down to a very personal question:
Who decides, in the end, whether you may leave your country?
You?
Or your state?
A second passport creates another bond of citizenship, independent of your German citizenship. Your legal obligations in Germany remain. But your entire identity and your prospects for the future no longer hang solely on Germany.
If you love your freedom to travel, you should know how quickly its legal foundations can change.
4. One day your children will understand what you did for them.
Picture your children twenty years from now.
Perhaps they live in another country. Perhaps they run your company. Perhaps they already have families of their own.
The world will look different from today.
Which countries will thrive economically? Which states will close their borders? Where will your children want to live?
You do not know.
But you can give them something today that opens extra doors for them later.
A second citizenship.
In many cases, you pass it on to your children.
You acquire a right today that the next generation benefits from too.
A visa cannot do that.
Your visa is your permission. Your citizenship is part of your legal identity.
You have spent your life building wealth so that your children will one day be better off.
Give them, on top of that, the freedom to choose between two home countries.
Perhaps they will never urgently need that second passport.
Perhaps one day it will be exactly what makes the difference.
And then they will know that you were already thinking of their future today.
5. Keep your homeland. Gain a second one.
For many Germans, a second citizenship long meant a difficult choice.
Keep the German one? Or take the new one?
Since 27 June 2024, the legal position has changed fundamentally.
Germany generally allows multiple citizenship.
If you take on another citizenship, you no longer lose your German one.
You do not have to give up where you come from.
You do not have to choose between Germany and a second country.
You keep your German passport. Your bond with your homeland. Your existing rights as a citizen.
And you gain a second citizenship on top.
One home country becomes two.
One national allegiance becomes two.
One passport becomes two.
For Austrians, one important condition still applies: they need a permit to retain their citizenship (Beibehaltungsbewilligung) in advance.
So for Germans, the decisive question today is no longer which passport they would have to give up.
It is this:
Why would they voluntarily limit their entire future to a single citizenship?
6. Thousands of kilometres from home. And your passport is gone.
You are on a business trip.
An important meeting. A new project. Perhaps a country you are visiting for the first time.
Then something happens.
Your passport is stolen.
Or you lose it.
Or an authority holds on to it.
It may even be taken from you in connection with an arrest.
Suddenly the document you were going to travel home with has vanished.
You call the embassy. You explain your situation. You wait for documents and decisions.
Weeks go by. Sometimes months.
Your schedule carries on. Your family is waiting. Your business commitments do not simply disappear.
And you depend on the goodwill of the embassy and the local authorities.
Now picture the same situation with two citizenships.
You hold a second passport. Another way to prove your identity and citizenship. Another way to use valid travel documents.
That does not mean you may get round official restrictions or a lawful exit ban.
But losing a single document no longer has to mean you have no valid passport at all.
Sometimes the greatest luxury is the certainty of having a second option.
7. When it gets serious, two states stand behind you.
You travel a lot.
You know the world. You know that a German passport is highly regarded in many countries.
But the world is not only friendly airports, good hotels and international business hubs.
There are crises. Political tensions. Countries where German citizenship is far from always an advantage.
And there are situations in which you need help.
Fast.
With one citizenship, you have one home country you can turn to.
With two citizenships, you have two.
Two states whose citizen you are. Two diplomatic networks. Two ways to seek consular support, as far as the law in each case and the situation on the ground allow.
Imagine being in a country where you would rather not appear solely as a German.
With a second citizenship, you hold another state-recognised identity.
You do not decide how the world develops politically.
But you do decide today how many bonds of citizenship you build for your future.
Two home countries are extra protection in a world whose political direction nobody can guarantee.
8. Your identity is going digital. Who holds the key tomorrow?
Your identity used to be something tangible.
A passport. An ID card. A document you could hold in your hand and put in your pocket.
Today that relationship is changing.
States are digitising their citizens' identities. More and more processes are meant to run on central digital credentials.
By the end of 2026, every EU state must offer its citizens a digital identity wallet.
The German wallet is due to launch on 2 January 2027.
From 24 December 2027, banks must accept the wallet for identification.
For now, using it is voluntary.
But the direction is unmistakable: identity, access to banking and digital payments are becoming ever more tightly linked to state-recognised digital proof of identity.
Imagine a future in which more and more areas of your life are accessed through the same digital identity.
Your account. Your contracts. Your dealings with the authorities.
If you hold only one citizenship, you also have only that one civic identity as the basis for your official documents.
A second passport gives you a second, independent citizenship.
Issued by another state. Legally independent of your first.
This creates another official proof of identity, even if it does not automatically give you access to all of that country's digital services.
You do not have to fear this technological shift to understand what it means for your personal independence.
Because the more digital the world becomes, the more valuable it is to be able to fall back on more than one state identity.
Your future deserves more than a single key.
Some people buy another property. Others buy a piece of freedom.
Some people build themselves a bunker.
Others buy a farm in New Zealand.
And others again acquire a second passport.
Three completely different decisions. One shared thought:
I want to be prepared when the world changes.
Of course, a second citizenship by investment costs money.
And of course, it is not the right decision for everyone.
If you would have to scrimp and save for a second passport, your money is better spent elsewhere.
There is also a free route: you move to another country, live there and naturalise once you meet the requirements.
That takes time.
Years of your life that you have to spend in that country.
Perhaps you want that.
Perhaps you found your home long ago and do not want to live anywhere else.
Perhaps you have a company, a family and a lifestyle you do not want to give up.
Then a different question arises: what is a second citizenship worth to you if you can acquire it without giving up the life you have built?
You are not buying a guarantee against every political crisis.
You are buying an additional legal bond. A second home country. Another passport.
And with it, options you will never have with only one citizenship.
Perhaps one day your second passport will simply lie in a drawer.
Year after year.
You do not need it. You do not take it out. You hardly think about it.
But you know it is there.
And every time you read news of new laws, tighter controls or political tensions, you remember:
You acted in time.
You put your family on a broader footing.
You secured a second citizenship.
And you do not have to start looking for a solution only once you urgently need one.
The best time to secure a second passport is when you do not need it yet.
Which route is right for you and your family is something you discuss personally with Daniel Taborek.