American citizens received 80,424 first EU residence permits in 2024, up 1.9% from 78,911 in 2023 and the highest annual total in Eurostat's series going back to 2013. The increase came as overall EU permit issuance declined, making Americans one of the few nationality groups to record year-over-year growth.
US citizens in Iceland reached 1,049 in 2025, up 80% from 583 in 2016, while American long-term permits tripled to 247. What the small-base numbers show.
Sweden enacted legislation on June 15, 2026 authorizing the Swedish Migration Agency to revoke residence permits for non-criminal conduct, including permits already granted. The first measure of its kind since 2005, the law takes effect July 13 and applies to all non-EU migrants, including Americans, on equal terms.
Kuwait's Cabinet Resolution No. 651 of 2026 established a 15-year investor residency permit requiring a minimum investment of $16.3 million through a licensed entity, attaching the permit to an operating business rather than a passive deposit. The pathway is available to Americans and other foreign nationals considering relocation to the Gulf.
Portugal's immigration authority AIMA was working through a backlog of outstanding court decisions in May 2026, slowing residence permit issuance for new applicants. The delays are landing on Americans mid-application at a moment when the U.S. population in Portugal has never been larger.
Americans moving to Brazil now sit among the country’s largest foreign residence cohorts, a slow climb back from the pandemic floor that the permit data only partly explains.
A proposed Bahamas immigration change would authorize the minister to issue residence certificates to citizenship applicants he rejects, for a $500 fee that undercuts the cost of an annual Bahamian work permit. The provision, surfaced during a budget debate, has drawn the most scrutiny of any element in the broader proposal.
The Dominican Republic issued 2,491 residence permits to Americans in 2025, with temporary residence accounting for 64% of the total at 1,591 permits. Every other category trailed by a significant margin.
Spain issued 15,638 first residence permits to Americans in 2024, more than double the 7,383 issued in 2015 and the largest American pipeline in Europe after France. The resident stock stands at 57,379 U.S. citizens with valid permits, alongside 76,180 U.S.-born residents, a gap reflecting decades of dual nationality. Settlement concentrates in Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia.
German citizenship grants to Americans reached a record 1,275 in 2024, up fivefold from 225 the year before, a jump that tracks directly to Germany's reformed Nationality Act taking effect June 27, 2024 and permitting non-EU citizens to retain their original passport for the first time as a general rule.
Portugal issued 4,345 first residence permits to Americans in 2024, up from 550 in 2015, an eightfold increase over nine years with a five-year compound annual growth rate of roughly 31%. The stock figure tracks the same trajectory: 12,443 U.S. citizens held valid Portuguese permits at end of 2024, compared to 2,503 in 2016.
Latin America has long offered Americans the most accessible second-passport landscape in the world, with Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Panama, Costa Rica, and most neighboring countries permitting dual citizenship without renunciation. The region accounts for the bulk of U.S.-citizen naturalizations abroad each year, including more than 125,000 Mexican-American dual citizenships granted in 2025 alone.
Paraguay closed 2025 with 47,687 foreign residency applications, a 63% jump from the prior year and the largest annual increase since the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones began publishing monthly data in 2019. The agency granted 40,600 permits over the same period, up more than 42%, with Americans among the nationalities driving the record intake.
American residence permit activity in Mexico concentrated in three states in 2024, with Mexico City, Jalisco, and Baja California Sur accounting for 40% of national permits issued from January through October, per Instituto Nacional de Migración data. The top six entities together carried 63% of 23,502 recorded events, a distribution that tracks the established American settlement corridors.
