The Vatican’s citizenship is issued by the Vatican City State. Traditionally, passport #1 (Bright Side note: The photo above is the Pope’s ID card and the passport from Argentina) is issued to the acting Pope. He can’t have any other citizenship apart from the citizenship of the Holy See. However, there were some exceptions — the acting Pope Francis preserved his Argentinian citizenship and Pope Benedict XVI preserved his German citizenship as well.

Citizenship can be obtained by state workers and their family members. The passport of a citizen of the Vatican is equivalent to a diplomatic one, and, of course, there are very few of them. Upon completion of the service to the Holy See, citizenship is automatically changed to Italian. It’s forbidden to live on the territory of this enclave after you no longer have citizenship. Children lose their citizenship when they reach the age of 18 or when their parents lose it.