Paraguay · Residency by investment
Paraguayan Permanent Residency (Ley 6984/2022)
Reformed under Ley 6984/2022. Permanent residency is immediate for investors through the SUACE Investor Pass. Non-investors qualify after two years of temporary residency.
With capital, the Investor Pass is the better route: it grants permanent residency directly through SUACE, with no temporary phase. This ordinary track is the fallback for non-investors, a Paraguayan spouse, an employer, or a genuine relocation. Either way the route leads to a passport, with naturalisation three years after the permanent-residency resolution.
Qualifying routes
Investors get permanent residency immediately through a SUACE investment, see the Investor Pass. Without investment, you declare a profession or economic means and move to permanent status after two years of temporary residency. There is no deposit requirement.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- Roughly USD 2–5k in legal and government fees.
- Route type
- Residency by investment
- Timeline
- 1–2.5 years (About one year via the fastest route, up to 2.5 years on the ordinary track, where two years of temporary residency is the statutory minimum.)
- Physical presence
- Light for the residency itself. Heavy for the naturalisation that usually motivates it.
- Family
- SpouseDependent childrenDependent parents
- Permanent residency
- Immediate through the Investor Pass and SUACE.
- Citizenship
- 3 years, counted in practice from permanent residency.
- Language test
- A Supreme Court examination in Spanish or Guaraní on Paraguayan history, geography and civics.
- Dual citizenship
- You keep any citizenship you held before naturalising. Paraguay does not require you to give it up.
- Requirements
- Valid passport and apostilled birth certificate.Apostilled criminal record, valid for 90 days.Medical certificate issued in Paraguay.Proof of economic solvency.A Paraguayan address.
- Permanent residency is valid ten years and renewable. Naturalisation is a different matter. It requires arraigo, meaning 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 says 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 Guarani.