Paraguay Residency Visa Income Test Changed 6 July 2026

PARAGUAY · RESIDENCY

Paraguay’s permanent residence no longer turns on a bank deposit. Since 6 July 2026 it turns on income that can be traced, month by month. The two-year temporary permit that comes first is unchanged.

Paraguay rewrote its migration law in 2022 and, in 2026, the money test for permanent residence. That permit now rests on income a clerk can follow back to its source.

Two Doors, and Only the Narrow One Opens First

Paraguay issues two residence permits to foreigners. Temporary residence comes first, and permanent residence is built on top of it.

Law 6984 of 2022 grants temporary residence for up to two years. It can be extended once for the same period.

Permanent residence is not normally granted to someone who has never held the temporary card. That sequence is the spine of the whole system.

The law makes exceptions for spouses, children and grandchildren of Paraguayans. A separate 2021 law gives Uruguayans their own direct route.

One more route skips the queue. The Investor Pass sends qualifying investors straight to permanent residence.

The programme was launched on 17 April 2026 under Resolution MIC No 283/2026, which sets four routes. A productive investment starts at US$70,000, with an approved business plan and at least five formal jobs.

Tourism projects start at US$150,000, and property or stock-market investments at US$200,000. The ministry’s own resolution keeps the lower productive tier in place.

Jorge Kronawetter, who heads the migration directorate, told ABC Color on 21 May 2026 that US$150,000 was the programme’s floor. The resolution that created the programme lists a lower tier.

Everyone else waits out the two years before the change of category. ABC Color noted that the programme removes the two-year residence requirement that applies to every other foreign applicant.

The Deposit That Disappeared in October 2022

For years the Paraguayan route had a price rather than a process. An applicant placed roughly US$5,000 in a Paraguayan bank and received permanent residence outright.

Law 978 of 1996 carried that arrangement, as a solvency deposit held to the order of the migration authority. IMI Daily put the sum at 32 million guaraníes, about US$4,500 at the time.

That law is gone. Ley 6984 of 2022 repealed it in full and took effect on 18 October 2022, the day after the president signed it.

EY Paraguay told clients that month that Law 978 of 1996 had been wholly repealed. Migraciones stopped accepting deposit-based files from that point.

Nothing replaced the deposit with another payment. What replaced it was time, and now proof of earnings.

The Paper Chain Starts Where You Are Leaving

None of this begins in Asunción. It begins at a records office in the country the applicant is leaving.

Migraciones set out the temporary-residence list through the state news agency IP on 4 May 2026. It reads as a chain, not a pile.

The file needs a birth certificate, an Interpol criminal-record certificate and a police certificate for foreigners issued inside Paraguay. Minors need parental authorisations and proof of kinship.

Sworn declarations carry the rest. The applicant promises to obey Paraguayan law, names the activity to be pursued and gives an address in the country.

Every foreign document must be apostilled or legalised at a consulate. Migraciones states that without qualification, and a file without the stamp does not move.

The agency’s own residence checklist adds a second step. Documents in another language need a sworn public translator, and that translation needs legalisation of its own.

What the Permanent Permit Now Asks For

The change that matters most in 2026 carries a number instead of a name. Resolución DNM 407, signed on 28 May 2026, governs how solvency is proved for permanent residence.

Migraciones announced on 25 June 2026 that the criteria apply to files entered from 6 July. RSM Paraguay, the audit firm, summarised the shift in a single line.

Income must be real, consistent with the declared activity and fully verifiable. Documents on their own no longer carry an application.

The resolution sorts applicants into twelve categories, each with its own evidence. A pensioner, a salaried employee and a freelancer are no longer treated as one kind of person.

The two-year temporary permit is untouched by all of this. Someone applying for it in September 2026 meets the same requirements as in 2025.

GoParaguay put the practical effect plainly in June 2026. A qualification alone stopped counting.

A Paraguayan tax number became part of the proof for applicants who declare self-employment, trade or services. Everyone else proves earnings a different way.

Polystate wrote in July 2026 that the test also reaches the Mercosur route to permanent residence. A Brazilian or Argentine passport exempts nobody from showing income.

No published figure ties solvency to a fixed multiple of the minimum wage. Paraguay raised that wage by five percent on 1 July 2026, to 3,044,000 guaraníes a month (about US$510).

The Fee Rose Five Percent on 1 July 2026

Paraguay indexes its migration fees to the minimum daily wage, so they move when the wage does. Permanent residence costs 25 daily wages, and that figure changed in the middle of 2026.

The fee was 2,787,550 guaraníes (about US$467) until 30 June 2026. Decree 6225 of 17 June 2026 raised the minimum wage by five percent.

Migration Resolution 478/2026 carried the increase into the fee table. From 1 July 2026 permanent residence, change of category included, costs 2,926,925 guaraníes (about US$490).

The Mercosur route to permanent residence moved by the same step. It cost 2,230,040 guaraníes (about US$373) before that date and 2,341,540 guaraníes (about US$392) after it.

Payment method moves the total as well. On the migration directorate’s own table, temporary residence under Law 6984/2022 costs 2,787,550 guaraníes in cash.

By card the same permit costs 2,864,208 guaraníes (about US$480). The Mercosur temporary permit costs 2,291,366 guaraníes (about US$384) by card.

Rates move, so the dollar figures here rest on one day. All conversions use 5,972 guaraníes to the US dollar, the mid-market rate on 16 September 2026.

The Cédula Is the Card That Actually Works

Residence is a status. The cédula de identidad, Paraguay’s national identity card, is the object that opens doors.

The Departamento de Identificaciones of the National Police issues it, not Migraciones. Two offices, two queues, one file.

Banks ask for the card before they ask for anything else. So do mobile operators, utility companies and most landlords.

The identification department publishes the price. A first cédula for a foreigner with temporary or permanent residence costs 8,500 guaraníes (about US$1.40).

The department states a processing time of 60 working days. That clock starts after the residence is granted, not before.

The migration directorate’s own guidance puts the permanent card at ten years, renewable. For temporary residents the card runs as long as the residence does.

How Long It Takes, and Who Is Waiting

Migraciones has not published a binding deadline for a residence decision. The law sets the categories, not the calendar.

Practitioners describe a range instead of a date. Paraguay Sovereign, a residency firm, put the full path at sixteen to thirty-two weeks in September 2026.

That span runs from filing to cédula in hand. There is a reason behind the range, and the reason is volume.

IP reported on 30 July 2026 that Migraciones granted 29,765 residences in the first half of the year. The same period of 2025 produced 16,456.

An office handling eighty-one percent more files does not get faster while it does so. Nothing in the process runs in parallel.

The apostille waits for the certificate, and the translation waits for the apostille. The cédula waits for the residence.

Staying Is Part of the Permit

Residence in Paraguay is not a document to file away. Migraciones treats prolonged absence as grounds to cancel it.

The agency reminded foreigners on 8 April 2026 that more than three consecutive years of unjustified absence can end permanent residence. Cancellation comes by reasoned resolution.

The temporary permit is stricter. Article 54 of Law 6984/2022 sets its limit at more than one continuous year of unjustified absence.

Since everyone starts on the temporary card, that shorter clock is the one that bites first. Entries and exits are logged at the border.

The practical effect is plain. Someone who buys residence as an insurance policy and never returns will eventually lose it.

The rule cuts the other way for people who actually live there. Time in the country is the cheapest evidence anyone can accumulate.

Three Years, and a Court at the End

Citizenship sits three years past permanent residence. Paraguay’s constitution sets that minimum in Article 148.

The decision does not belong to the migration directorate. The Corte Suprema de Justicia, Paraguay’s supreme court, grants naturalisation.

Applicants show a profession, trade, science, art or industry, and good conduct. Those are the constitutional words, and they leave the court room to judge.

Guides also mention a Spanish or Guaraní language element. The court has not published a language test, a syllabus or a pass mark for one.

Paraguay asks nobody to surrender a first nationality. That silence is part of why a three-year clock draws attention abroad.

What the Next File Will Look Like

The direction of travel in Paraguay is toward evidence, not away from it. The 2022 law removed the deposit, and the 2026 resolution put earnings in its place.

That trade has two sides. A retiree with a traceable pension files more easily than in 2021, and a buyer with a one-off balance files less easily.

IMI Daily wrote in July 2026 that Paraguay has tied long-term residence to active income, unless the applicant invests. The Investor Pass is the door that capital still opens directly.

Fees will move again, and the published tables will lag behind the counter. The number that binds is the one a cashier quotes on the day.

For most people the timetable is the real cost. Two years of temporary residence, then a solvency file, then a court three years after that.

What follows the counter is an ordinary life, with a rent, a language and a summer above forty degrees. We set that out in our guide to moving to Paraguay and the first year there.

Correction, 16 September 2026: an earlier version of this article said Paraguay’s residency rules changed in July 2026. The change applies to permanent residence only.

The article has been corrected.

More: Paraguay news in English

Sources: Dirección Nacional de Migraciones, Agencia IP, ABC Color, EY Paraguay, RSM Paraguay, IMI Daily, Infobae. https://www.ip.gov.py/ip/2026/05/04/the-paraguayan-migration-authority-details-requirements-and-procedures-for-temporary-residency/ and https://migraciones.gov.py/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/RESOLUCION-DNM-Nro-407-28.05.2026-ACREDITACION-DE-SOLVENCIA-ECONOMICA-PARA-RESIDENCIA-PERMANENTE-1.pdf and https://www.abc.com.py/nacionales/2026/06/25/atencion-extranjeros-estos-son-los-cambios-para-acceder-a-la-residencia-permanente-en-paraguay/ and https://www.ip.gov.py/ip/2026/07/30/paraguayan-directorate-of-migration-granted-nearly-30000-residencies-to-foreign-nationals-in-the-first-half-of-2026/ and https://www.ip.gov.py/ip/2026/04/08/unjustified-absence-from-the-country-leads-to-revocation-of-residency-for-foreigners-officials-remind/ and https://www.imidaily.com/latam-linc/paraguay-ties-long-term-residency-to-active-income-unless-you-invest/ and https://www.abc.com.py/economia/2026/05/21/investor-pass-residencia-permanente-en-paraguay-para-inversores-extranjeros/