Wise people have always said that the only constant is change. That’s certainly true for international migration in the last few years.
And change keeps on coming… which is why you need our expertise more than ever.
For many of us, expectations for a life abroad were set in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of the early 2010s. That’s when countries in Mediterranean Europe decided to raise cash by selling residency, which could lead to citizenship. At the same time, countries in Latin America were offering instant permanent residency with no time-in-country requirement.
For more than a decade… a time when many of us were winding down our work careers and planning for the future… a foreign plan B came with predictable rules. Those rules still apply in some places, but there’s no telling for how long… and the latest raft of changes is coming to Latin America.
Paraguay’s rapid shift from “$5,000 in the bank and you can stay” to $200,000 instant permanent residency shows the trend. So do steps by Colombia and Argentina to tighten the requirements for getting temporary residency and converting that into permanent status. These suggest that Latin America is traveling a path already trod by Europe.
That path has four recognizable stages:
- Permanent residency, no investment required: Show income or means, receive permanent status, visit occasionally. This has long been the case in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Paraguay. The big advantage is that you can have a Plan B without having to use it until you’re ready.
- Temporary first, convert to permanent with minimal presence: Permanent status after two to five years of periodic visits, without full-time residence. All the countries in the previous paragraph allowed people who got a temporary residence permit to qualify for permanent residency even if they hardly ever visited the country.
- Invest for permanent status, move for temporary status: Investors get permanent status directly; everyone else must live there first. This is what’s happening in Paraguay right now.
- No investor route to permanent status; you must live there: A few years back Colombia decreed that residency based on owning property in the country no longer counted toward permanent residency. Argentina looks likely to adopt the same approach. Could Central America be next?
This adds up to a “life cycle” of migration policy that can be used to predict where a country might be headed. Again, the European example sets the pace. In country after country, residency by investment—AKA a Golden Visa—has gone from a relatively cheap residential property purchase to half a million euros or more in business or technological investment. Some countries, like Spain, have abolished residency by investment altogether.
At the same time, European countries have continued to offer means-based visas like Portugal’s D7, Italy’s Elletiva, and Greece’s Financially Independent Persons Permit. But they are rapidly increasing the time required to naturalize as a citizen, and in some cases, making it altogether impossible if residency status didn’t involve investment or work.
I think these changes are entirely predictable based on the evolving market logic of global migration. Countries that offer residency to foreigners realize that this is an increasingly hard commodity and are raising their prices and tightening their conditions. In other words, it’s becoming a seller’s market.
That’s why, when people approach me for advice in my consulting service, I’m careful to warn them that their targets are continually moving. Even countries that have shown no outward intention of changing their immigration frameworks can surprise by announcing a sudden tightening of conditions or a reduction of benefits.
Sometimes those changes benefit a particular class of people—for example, investors looking for Paraguayan residency—while others limit your options, like Colombia’s changes to its rentista visa.
If only we had a crystal ball to predict what changes might be coming! If you sign up for my consultation service, you’ll get the next best thing. I might not be psychic, but I’ve got a clear-headed understanding of the migration life cycle…
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