Paraguay · Residency by investment
Paraguayan Permanent Residency (Ley 6984/2022)
Ley 6984/2022 replaced the old migration law and abolished the famous route to near-instant permanent residency on a USD 5,000 bank deposit. Since then, non-investors must hold temporary residency for two years before applying for permanent status.
This is the route the market still talks about as if 2022 never happened. It did: the deposit is gone, but so is the speed. For anyone with capital the Investor Pass supersedes this entirely; this track now suits people with a Paraguayan spouse, employer or genuine relocation plan.
Qualifying routes
the USD 5,000 deposit requirement was eliminated; applicants declare a profession or economic means rather than proving a deposit. Temporary residency runs two years and yields a cédula.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- roughly USD 2–5k in legal and government fees
- Timeline
- 24–30 months — two years of temporary residency is the statutory minimum before permanent residency can be requested
- Physical presence
- Light for the residency itself; heavy for the naturalisation that usually motivates it
- Family
- spousedependent childrendependent parents
- Permanent residency
- 2 years of temporary residency
- Citizenship
- 3 years, counted in practice from permanent residency
- Language test
- Supreme Court examination in Spanish or Guaraní on Paraguayan history, geography and civics
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted — you would have to renounce
- Requirements
- valid passport and apostilled birth certificateapostilled criminal record valid 90 daysmedical certificate issued in Paraguayproof of economic solvencyParaguayan address
- Marketing material describing Paraguayan permanent residency in a week for USD 5,000 is describing the pre-2022 law. It no longer exists.
- Permanent residency is valid ten years and renewable, but naturalisation requires arraigo — real presence of roughly six months a year, a RUC with actual filings, and demonstrable economic integration. The cédula alone does not produce a passport.
- Article 150 of the constitution: naturalisation is lost by unjustified absence over three years (judicially declared, and justifiable in advance by notice to the competent civil court) or by voluntarily acquiring another nationality. Naturalised Paraguayans do not enjoy the multiple-nationality protections that Ley 7052/2023 gives natural-born Paraguayans — so Paraguay should be the last citizenship you take, not the first.
- Paraguay's Supreme Court naturalisation exam is a genuine hurdle conducted in Spanish or Guaraní.