Chile · Residency by investment
Temporary Residence for Investors
Open
Last verified July 2026
Live under Ley 21.325 as art. 10(n) with the amount fixed by art. 62 of Decreto 177 at USD 500,000. Contrary to widespread claims, Chile did not abolish its investor visa — but take-up is minimal.
This is the only route to Chile's 175-destination passport that a UHNW family can buy into, and the naturalisation clock starts from your first temporary residence stamp, not from permanent residency — so five years really can mean five. The catch is that Chile does not want this to be a residency product and has priced and administered it accordingly.
Qualifying routes
$500k
Investment in the production of goods or services
art. 62 Decreto 177 states 'quinientos mil'. Passive real estate holding does not qualify on the face of the text — the investment must fund production.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- $500k
- Total landed cost
- USD 500k investment plus roughly USD 10–25k in legal, InvestChile sponsorship and corporate costs
- Timeline
- 4–12 months — the InvestChile carta de patrocinio is the bottleneck and must be obtained before the visa is granted
- Physical presence
- No quantified absence limit is published for temporary residence — it is discretionary. After permanent residency, more than two years' absence causes tacit revocation, extendable once by a two-year prórroga costing about USD 75.
- Family
- spouse or civil partnerdependent children
- Permanent residency
- 24 months normally, reduced to 12 months for executed investments — so this is a 12-month permanent residency route
- Citizenship
- 5 years, counted from the first Estampado Electrónico of temporary residence rather than from the permanent residency date — a materially favourable detail
- Language test
- None at present — but see watch-outs
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- USD 500,000 into productive activityInvestChile carta de patrocinio (art. 63(b))application filed from outside Chileclean criminal record
What can go wrong
- Take-up is tiny — only 44 cartas de patrocinio were issued through August 2023. The '2,062' figure circulating in marketing material refers to visa-acceleration requests, a different service entirely. You will be a rare case, and rare cases move slowly.
- The investment must fund production of goods or services. Buying an apartment does not qualify. There is no tier or points system, contrary to some descriptions.
- The InvestChile carta de patrocinio is mandatory and discretionary, and the application must be made from outside Chile.
- MAJOR RISK: a bill doubling the naturalisation residence requirement from 5 to 10 years is live and advancing. It passed the Cámara de Diputados unanimously on 26 November 2024; the Senate Sala approved it in general in second trámite on 7 January 2025 by 42 votes, and it passed to the Comisión de Gobierno, Descentralización y Regionalización for discussion 'en particular'. It also adds grounds to refuse or cancel a carta de nacionalización, including repeated incivilities. We could not establish its status after early 2025 despite direct searching. With the Kast government in office since 11 March 2026, assume elevated passage probability: any plan underwritten on a five-year timeline needs the boletín's current status checked first, and a ten-year requirement would roughly halve this route's value.
- Chile has no digital nomad visa and never has. Art. 10 of Ley 21.325 is a closed list. The art. 20 fallback requires a contract with a Chilean counterparty perfected before a consulate, which is useless if you bill only foreign clients.
- Chile's CFC rules (art. 41 G) were tightened by Ley 21.713 effective 1 January 2025, extending the control presumption to spouses, civil partners and second-degree relatives. They bite the moment the art. 3 three-year window closes — the two interact directly and must be modelled together.