Chile · Passive income
Temporary Residence for Rentistas
Open
Last verified July 2026
Live under art. 57 of Decreto 177. There is no statutory minimum income — sufficiency is benchmarked against Ministry of Social Development indicators and assessed case by case.
The cheapest route into Chile's five-year naturalisation clock and its three-year foreign-income exemption. The absence of a published threshold cuts both ways: nothing stops a modest applicant qualifying, and nothing stops a consulate refusing one.
Qualifying routes
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Periodic income from foreign sources
no published figure. The USD 1,500–2,000/month often quoted is practitioner folklore, not official.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- roughly USD 3–10k in legal and government fees
- Timeline
- 4–12 months — no published service standard
- Physical presence
- No quantified absence limit published for temporary residence
- Family
- spouse or civil partnerdependent children
- Permanent residency
- 24 months, reduced to 12 for qualifying income or pension
- Citizenship
- 5 years from the first Estampado Electrónico
- Language test
- None at present
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- documented periodic foreign income sufficient to support the applicantclean criminal recordapplication generally from outside Chile
What can go wrong
- No statutory minimum means no certainty. Every figure you will be quoted is folklore. Over-document rather than aim at a number.
- The same 5-to-10-year naturalisation bill threatens this route: Cámara unanimously 26 November 2024, Senate approved in general 7 January 2025 (42 votes), then to the Comisión de Gobierno for detailed discussion. Status after early 2025 could not be established.
- Chile has no digital nomad visa — do not let an agent sell you the rentista as one; the qualifying income must be genuine unearned income, not remote work.
- Chile taxes worldwide income after the art. 3 window closes, at rates to 40%, with CFC rules. The three-year shield is a runway, not a destination.