Latvia reinstated conscription in 2024 and Croatia voted to follow from 2026. Germany’s parliament cleared a hybrid voluntary-and-mandatory military service law on December 5, 2025, with the first mandatory questionnaires going out in January.
Between roughly 60 and 85 countries currently conscript at least part of their citizenry, depending on whether de jure unenforced systems are counted, from Israel and South Korea to Greece, Türkiye, Brazil, and most of the post-Soviet space. France, Belgium, and Poland announced new voluntary national service tracks in 2025, and Sweden and Denmark are expanding their gender-neutral models.
For globally mobile families, the practical question is whether a second passport offers a clean exit. The answer depends on three variables that most investors do not think about until they have to: How the origin country treats its dual nationals, what the destination country actually requires of its citizens, and the timing of acquisition relative to a son’s conscription age.
A Second Passport Is Not an Override
Most countries’ conscription laws follow citizenship, not residence. Holding a passport from a country that does not conscript citizens does not extinguish the obligation of citizenship in a country that does.
Germany illustrates the point cleanly. The Wehrdienstmodernisierungsgesetz that the Bundestag approved on December 5, 2025 amended the German Conscription Act to require that males between 17 and 45 obtain permission from a Bundeswehr Career Center before leaving Germany for more than three months.
As IMI reported in April 2026, Section 1 of the Conscription Act makes military service obligations attach to all men aged 18 and older who are German within the meaning of the Basic Law. A German-American, a German-Italian, or a German-Turkish man living in Munich is subject to the same obligation as one who holds only the German passport.
South Korea applies the principle even more strictly. Under the Nationality Act, male dual nationals must renounce Korean citizenship by March 31 of the year they turn 18.
If they miss that deadline, they cannot renounce until they have completed military service or aged out of military obligation in their late thirties. There are documented cases of Korean-American dual nationals living in the United States who were called up after registering births in Korea or visiting the country.
Russia conscripts its dual citizens. Israeli citizens, including those holding additional passports, are equally subject to IDF service. Greece extends its military obligation to all male citizens between 19 and 45, including those who naturalize through descent.
The destination country’s lack of conscription is a feature of the destination, not an exemption from origin-country obligations.
What the Second Passport Does Do
A second passport from a non-conscripting country accomplishes three things that genuinely matter, none of which is automatic exemption.
It removes the practical exposure for anyone who can credibly establish life outside the origin country. Greek law allows male citizens who have lived continuously abroad for at least 11 years, or worked abroad continuously for at least seven, to apply through a Greek consulate for a Certificate of Permanent Resident Abroad, which postpones conscription indefinitely until the age of 45.
The certificate is issued once and does not require annual renewal under current rules, although a new law slated to enter implementation in 2028 may revise the filing requirements. A Greek-American who never repatriates can hold the certificate, visit Greece for up to six months a year, and reach 45 without ever serving.
Germany applies a similar logic in reverse. Men who already live permanently abroad and have established their livelihood outside Germany have their conscription obligation rest under §1(2) of the Conscription Act, which removes them from the new exit-permission requirement under §3(2).
The carve-out works only if the move predates the obligation. Relocating after the questionnaire arrives does not retroactively suspend it.
The second passport also creates a destination for that relocation. If the goal is to remove a son from the conscription pipeline of a country that drafts at 18, building durable ties to a non-conscripting jurisdiction before he turns 18 is what creates the exemption.
The passport is the entry ticket to the alternative life, not the exemption itself.
Finally, a second passport opens the renunciation option. Countries differ on how willing they are to accept renunciation from men of conscription age, but most require that the renouncing citizen demonstrate citizenship of another country first. Without the second passport, renunciation is closed.
How the Major Conscription Countries Treat Dual Nationals
The country-by-country picture matters because the rules vary considerably.
Germany
All men who are German citizens are subject to the modernized law. The exit-permission rule applies regardless of second nationality, although permanent expatriates are exempt under the long-standing dormancy provision.
Greece
All male citizens between 19 and 45 are subject. Permanent residents abroad qualify for indefinite postponement, and those who have served in an allied military, including the United States, can apply for partial or full credit under Article 15 of Law 3421/2005.
Türkiye
Compulsory service applies to male citizens between 20 and 41. Citizens residing abroad can discharge the obligation through dövizle askerlik, a foreign-currency payment made through Turkish consulates.
The fee is set semi-annually. For the first half of 2026 it was fixed at TRY 333,089.04, payable in euros at the central bank rate, and eligibility requires three consecutive years of legal residence abroad.
Naturalized citizens who acquire Turkish citizenship after age 22 are typically exempt. Those who acquire it before 22 follow the standard rules.
South Korea
Male dual nationals must renounce by March 31 of the year they turn 18 to avoid conscription. After that, renunciation is not permitted until military service is completed or the citizen ages out of military obligation in his late thirties.
Israel
Citizens, including new immigrants under the Law of Return, are subject to Israel Defense Forces service. Some categories of olim receive deferments based on age at aliyah, but a foreign passport does not override the obligation.
Russia
Male citizens between 18 and 30 are conscripted, after the upper age limit was raised from 27 effective January 1, 2024. Russian citizens who hold a second passport remain liable, and mobilization measures during the war in Ukraine expanded the practical risk for citizens of fighting age.
The investor planning around any of these jurisdictions has to map the specific rule before assuming that a second passport solves anything.
Where Conscription Genuinely Does Not Reach
A handful of citizenships sit cleanly outside the conscription question because the country does not conscript anyone.
The five Caribbean Citizenship by Investment countries, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, and Grenada, do not operate conscription systems. Saint Kitts and Nevis, the oldest CBI program in the world, continues to grant citizenship through a $250,000 contribution to the Sustainable Island State Contribution fund or a $325,000 real estate investment, with the program now incorporating a residency requirement under reforms scheduled for 2026.
Vanuatu, Nauru, and São Tomé and Príncipe operate CBI programs and do not conscript. São Tomé’s program launched in September 2025 with a $90,000 donation threshold. Nauru’s Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Program processes applications in three to four months, with a standard contribution of $115,000 currently reduced to $90,000 under a limited-time offer running through June 30, 2026.
Mauritius, an African country offering RBI and a long-discussed CBI track, has no conscription. So does Ireland, which combines no military draft with EU citizenship and unique rights under the UK Common Travel Area, and which IMI’s best citizenship combo analysis ranks among the cleanest single passports in the world.
Latin America offers a different angle. Argentina suspended active conscription in 1995 and now operates on a de jure framework that has not been activated since, Uruguay has no compulsory service, Costa Rica abolished its military in 1948, and Panama operates without one.
Paraguay’s new Investor Pass, launched during an official mission to Brazil, grants permanent residency from $150,000 and citizenship eligibility after three years, in a country with selective and largely unenforced conscription rules.
For families looking to relocate sons before conscription age, the Caribbean and the Southern Cone offer the most reliable insulation. The former delivers speed of citizenship acquisition; the latter offers residency-to-citizenship pathways inside Mercosur, which lacks meaningful military service obligations across its members.
The Timing Variable
The single most important factor in conscription planning is when the alternative status is established.
Most conscription regimes use age 18 as the trigger. Germany’s questionnaire goes to all men born in 2008 or later, South Korea closes its renunciation window on March 31 of the year a male citizen turns 18, Greek liability begins at 19, and Turkish at 20.
For a family with a son aged 14, a five-year residency-to-citizenship pathway in a non-conscripting jurisdiction completes before he becomes liable. For a family with a son aged 17, only a CBI program with a six-week to six-month processing time works, and the CBI passport on its own does not solve origin-country obligations unless the family is willing to renounce.
This is why the 28 rules for sovereign individuals framework treats time as the binding constraint on Plan B execution. The optionality has to exist before it is needed.
Acquiring a second passport in the year a son turns 18 is, on the conscription dimension, too late to matter unless renunciation is part of the plan.
The Renunciation Question
For families willing to fully exit the origin country, renunciation is the cleanest mechanism. It is also the most consequential.
Renouncing an EU citizenship to escape a conscription regime forfeits the broader settlement rights of EU membership. Giving up American citizenship triggers the US exit tax for covered expatriates. Surrendering Korean citizenship after the March 31 deadline closes most categories of long-term Korean visa until age 40, even for ethnic Koreans seeking to return for work or family reasons.
The narrower choice, holding the second passport while maintaining permanent-resident-abroad status with the origin country, preserves the option to return after conscription liability ends. For Greek dual nationals, that means the difference between visiting Athens for six months a year through the certificate route and surrendering Greek citizenship entirely.
Most investors who take the conscription dimension seriously do not actually renounce. They build the second citizenship, document permanent residence abroad, and let the clock run out.
What Investors Should Take Away
A second passport from a non-conscripting country does not, by itself, exempt a holder from the military obligations of any other citizenship he carries. That is the single most common misunderstanding in the Plan B conversation about conscription.
What the second passport does is widen the menu of legal options. With a Saint Kitts, Vanuatu, Paraguay, or Irish passport in hand, a German, Greek, or Korean dual national can credibly relocate, document permanent residence abroad, and qualify for the dormancy or postponement frameworks his origin country offers.
Without that second citizenship, the relocation is harder to execute and the renunciation option is closed.
The investors who execute well on this dimension share three habits. They map the exact rule for each citizenship in the family before assuming a second passport solves the problem. Their timing tracks the conscription age of their sons rather than the next geopolitical headline. And they treat the second passport as the entry ticket to a longer plan, not as a substitute for one.
The European conscription expansion is unlikely to reverse in the current decade. The investors planning around it now will have options the ones who wait will not.
