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What percentage of Israel's population holds dual citizenship with the US, Canada, or a European country?
Executive Summary
Most reliable estimates place about 10–17% of Israelis holding at least one foreign passport, but the share holding specifically U.S., Canadian, or European citizenship is smaller: roughly 5–6% for U.S. plus EU citizenship combined, with Canada unspecified and included in the broader total. The data vary by methodology and date; the strongest recent figures come from polling and demographic counts that report overall dual‑passport prevalence and country‑specific tallies for the U.S. and EU [1] [2] [3].
1. A surprising headline: “Up to one in six Israelis has a foreign passport” — what the polls actually say
A 2023 Shiluv/iPanel poll reported that 17% of Israelis said they hold a foreign passport, a figure widely cited in media coverage about mobility and emigration interest [2]. That poll measures declared possession of any foreign passport without breaking out which countries are involved, so the 17% figure cannot be read as the share holding U.S., Canadian, or European citizenship specifically. Polls capture self‑reports and can overstate or understate legal citizenship depending on respondents’ interpretations of residency, passports held by family members, or dual national status. Polling provides an up‑to‑date snapshot of passport possession and sentiment but lacks the administrative granularity needed to isolate citizenship by country [2].
2. Administrative counts: concrete numbers for U.S. and EU citizenships, not Canada
More recent compilations of administrative and journalistic research converge on a smaller, concrete tally: about 200,000 Israelis with U.S. citizenship and about 344,000 with EU citizenship, figures that together imply roughly 5–6% of Israel’s ~9.9 million population hold U.S. or EU citizenship [1]. These counts are derived from nationality records, diaspora registration, and reporting on naturalization and retained foreign citizenship. Those country‑by‑country tallies are more precise than polls but still imperfect: they can miss unregistered claims, naturalizations not recorded in Israeli datasets, and people who maintain de facto foreign nationality without formal documentation recorded in Israeli sources [1] [3].
3. Reconciling the gap: why overall dual‑citizenship rates (~10%) differ from country‑specific totals
Multiple sources report an overall dual‑citizenship prevalence of about 10% in Israel, higher than the combined U.S. and EU share because it includes Latin American, former Soviet, African, and other nationalities [4] [3]. This explains the discrepancy between a 10% administrative estimate and the 5–6% attributable to U.S. and EU citizenships: a substantial portion of dual citizens hold passports from countries other than the U.S., Canada, or EU states. Methodological differences matter—polls record passport possession at the individual level, administrative tallies aggregate citizenships, and some sources count passports held by residents who are not Israeli citizens, producing variation in headline numbers [4] [3].
4. Canada’s unknown share and why it’s often omitted from country breakdowns
Existing summaries and journalistic counts provide specific figures for the United States and EU but do not give a reliable, up‑to‑date number for Israelis with Canadian citizenship [1]. Canada’s share is likely smaller than the U.S. or EU totals because historical migration patterns show larger Israeli diasporas in the U.S. and Europe; however, without administrative disclosure or targeted research, Canada’s contribution remains part of the residual “other” category included in the ~10% overall estimate. Absence of Canada‑specific data in the available sources is a data gap, not evidence of zero prevalence, and should caution readers against firm conclusions about the Canadian component [1] [4].
5. Competing narratives and possible agendas behind different figures
Different actors emphasize different numbers depending on narrative goals: advocates for greater emigration infrastructure cite the 17% poll to argue for expanded services abroad, while journalists examining diaspora ties use the 200k U.S. and 344k EU figures to quantify specific connections [2] [1]. Governmental and academic sources that favor caution point to the ~10% overall administrative estimate to contextualize dual citizenship as significant but not dominant [4]. Readers should treat higher poll figures as indicators of passport possession sentiment and lower administrative counts as conservative country‑level tallies, recognizing that selection of one number over another can reflect an agenda to dramatize mobility or to downplay its scale [2] [1] [4].
6. Bottom line and recommended next steps for precision seekers
The best current synthesis is that about 10% of Israelis hold more than one passport, with roughly 5–6% holding U.S. or EU citizenship combined; Canada’s share is not specified in the available datasets [1] [4] [3]. For a definitive breakdown by country, the recommended next step is targeted research using Israeli civil‑registry exports, immigration ministry records, and consular registers from the United States, Canada, and EU member states—datasets that would yield precise, contemporaneous counts and resolve the remaining uncertainty about Canada’s role and recent trends [1] [4].