A second passport can give people access to two legal and economic systems, but its value depends on whether those systems offer meaningful rights and opportunities. Governments may issue citizenship to attract talent, but people will only use that connection if it improves the lives they are trying to build.
On August 14, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, announced his championing of dual citizenship for Indonesians deemed to have significant talent to contribute to the local economy.
Though in an attempt to retain and recall millions of highly-sought talent in the STEM, AI, and creative industries, Prabowo emphasised the policy’s selective and measurable manner. Eligible candidates will have to undergo a rigorous screening process that includes integrity assessments, to apply for a citizenship policy that had previously only been allowed to foreign-born athletes.
If approved by parliament, this would put Indonesia, the 4th most populous country in the world, in line to be one of the 120 countries that allows its citizens to hold an extra passport.
Dual citizenship, amongst other foreign policies, is believed to have positive effects on a country’s economy. Aside from encouraging foreign direct investment (FDI) and indirectly boosting gross national disposable income (GNDI), it attempts to attack brain drain by growing the workforce.
For a person, a second passport is not only another pocket book to hold, but is often described as a shortcut to more freedom. More mobility, more opportunities, and a stronger connection to more than one country.
Looking inward on paper, the policy serves as a win-win for both parties involved. But the actual legal and practical value of that passport relies on the arrangement, obligations and rules that comes with being recognised as a citizen by two countries.
The creation of two identities
For much of Amara’s life, her second passport felt like a practical travel document. Born into a family with roots in both Malaysia and Thailand, she moved between the countries with little thought about what each passport represented.
Her decision on which passport to travel with, relied on whether the stay would be shorter or longer than the period permitted for foreign visitors. Only when she decided to get married did she realise that her passports were not only a key through immigration, but how it came attached with two legal identities.
Despite being the same person, her passports began to produce two separate identities in the eyes of different governments. There was Amara the Malaysian citizen and Amara the Thai citizen using the same fingerprints, face and personal data.
When the time came to decide on the location of their marriage, Amara realised that she was unable to be married in both identities, within the same circumstances. Ultimately, she chose to register the marriage in Malaysia and stay ‘unmarried’ in Thailand. The decision had been on the basis that Malaysia requires a child’s parents to be legally married for Malaysian citizenship to be established, while Thailand allows children to acquire nationality regardless of whether the parents are married.
“We spent weeks moving between institutions and embassies in Thailand, only to reach the conclusion that my Thai identity would never be married.” Amara told Migrant Times.
The choice was practical, but the process exposed the strange consequences of holding two nationalities. If the marriage had been registered under her Thai identity in one country and her Malaysian identity in another, it could have appeared as though her husband was married to two different women.
For Amara, the decision didn’t come down to choosing between her two countries, but about which legal identity would make their children’s future easiest to establish. A decision that she was forced to make, years before her children ever came into the world.
Amara’s friend, Sonia, experienced the value of a second passport differently. Her acquisition of an Australian citizenship never came in the form of descendant connection, but of migration 5 years prior. Before that, her Bangladeshi passport had determined the way she moved through the world. Travel required more planning, more documentation, more money lost on non-refundable plane and hotel bookings needed to process a visa.
Her Australian passport did not simply give her more destinations to visit, but also gave her a more secure right to remain in the country where she worked, and greater freedom to move through a global labour market.
In Sonia’s case, her Bangladeshi identity became almost redundant, functioning mainly as a connection to family and heritage. For her, the second passport created greater security and mobility. For Bangladesh, however, allowing her to retain her nationality did not automatically produce economic contribution.
The economic infrastructure of a dual citizenship
The Henley Passport Index places Singapore – a small island country that also doubles as a city – at the top of its 2026 rankings, with Singaporean citizens able to enter 192 destinations without obtaining a visa in advance. At the other end of the index is Afghanistan, whose passport holders have access to only 22 destinations under the same measure.
For some, the number of countries a passport can unlock remains arguably one of the biggest factors in wanting a second citizenship from a country deemed to be stronger. But the economic value of that passport extends beyond visa-free holidays.
Being a citizen of a country means a person has the right to live without immigration restrictions, and, in most cases, to access its labour market without a work permit. For dual citizens, this functions as a safety net or a form of economic insurance, giving them another place to work, invest, return, or rely on when opportunities or conditions change in their country of residence.
It can shape a person’s choices throughout their life, influencing access to education, healthcare, property ownership, business registration and public institutions. But the value of holding two passports is not additive. A person does not automatically receive twice the rights or twice the economic opportunity. It depends on the strength of both countries, the rights attached to each citizenship and whether the two states recognise the arrangement in the first place.
Just as its benefits depend on the access it gives individuals, the success of a dual citizenship policy for governments depends on not what they give their citizens, but what that citizen may give back.
To return and contribute?
A February 2025 YouGov survey of 2,003 Indonesians found that 41 per cent of Generation Z and 31 per cent of millennials were considering moving abroad. A separate Populix survey of 1,000 respondents conducted the following month found that 82 per cent of young Indonesians wanted to leave, with higher incomes cited as the main motivation.
The sentiment was also visible online, with the hashtag #KaburAjaDulu loosely meaning “just escape first,” becoming a popular expression of frustration among youths. Data from Indonesia’s Ministry of Law reportedly shows that nearly 8,000 Indonesians applied to renounce their citizenship over the past five years.
Together, these figures reveal the challenge behind Indonesia’s proposed dual citizenship proposal. The country is not only trying to attract foreign talent, but at the same time trying to maintain an economic relationship with citizens who are increasingly considering or in some cases already choosing a future elsewhere.
The Philippines offers a useful comparison. Republic Act 9225 (more popularly known as the Dual Citizenship Law) allows former natural-born Filipinos who have become naturalised citizens of another country to retain/reacquire their Philippine citizenship. By 2012, nine years after the introduction of the policy, more than 116,000 former Filipinos had reportedly reacquired their citizenship under the law. In 2024, remittances from overseas Filipinos stood at US$38.34 billion, demonstrating the scale of the country’s diaspora economy.
While the data cannot show that dual citizens caused these remittances, dual citizenship may make it easier for people to return, own property, invest or participate in national life without giving up the citizenship they acquired elsewhere.
However, the policy’s success still depends on whether it changes what people actually do. A scientist may be given a clearer pathway to return, but the policy does not create research infrastructure. An entrepreneur may be able to establish a company more easily, but the passport cannot replace access to capital, predictable regulation or a functioning business ecosystem.
Indonesia’s Human Flight and Brain Drain Index score reached 5.4 in 2024, above the global average of 4.98, on a scale where 10 indicates severe brain drain. For Indonesia, a second passport can lower the cost of movement, but it cannot, on its own, make staying more attractive.
Ferdiano Pradipta Salim, who heads an e-commerce and social commerce at a healthcare company in Jakarta after studying and living in Singapore as reported by CNA, said that the country needs to offer attractive jobs and career opportunities to properly recall talent back.
The worth of a second passport in different hands
While there is no precise global total for how many people hold dual citizenship, the benefits of a second passport remain contingent on a number of factors, including the rights attached to each nationality, the strength of the passports involved and the circumstances of the person who holds them.
For Amara and those in her shoes, it can offer greater freedom to travel, and a form of legal and familial security. For Sonia, it provided access to a stronger labour market while allowing her to maintain ties with her family and country of origin. For Indonesia, it is an attempt to keep its diaspora economically within reach.
But a passport can preserve connection without producing a contribution. If Indonesia – and other countries offering dual citizenship – wants the policy to become an economic strategy, it must offer more than legal access. It must give people a reason to return, invest or remain meaningfully involved in the country they left.
Names have been changed for confidentiality.
