Latin America now wants your capital or your time. Either you invest an amount the country can see, or you actually live there. The middle way, a little money in an account, a residence card in your wallet and back home again, is disappearing country by country. Harley Bieder summed up the shift in his video of 3 November 2026 (in German). Here are the rules behind it, country by country, with the articles and amounts from the official sources, as of 6 November 2026. And because a large bank collapsed in Paraguay that same week, the end of this piece covers what that means for the capital side of your Plan B.
If you are still planning with an old forum post in which a small bank deposit was enough for immediate permanent residency, you are planning with a product that no longer exists in that form.
Paraguay: two years of time or an investment
Since the migration law, Law 6984/2022, the standard route has two stages. Article 46 says it plainly: temporary residency is granted for up to two years and is a prerequisite for permanent residency. Article 50 asks for no proof of means for temporary residency itself; your economic basis is checked when you switch to permanent residency. Which documents the authority wants for each category is set out in our guide [Paraguay residency step by step](/en/insights/paraguay-residency-step-by-step). One point matters on the time side: under Article 55 No. 2 the authority can cancel a temporary residency if you have been out of the country for more than one year without justification.
The capital side is called the Paraguay Investor Pass. Since April 2026 it takes investors straight to permanent residency, without the temporary stage. According to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC), these are the routes:
For real estate, the investment counts, not your own home. The details are in our guide to the [Paraguay Investor Pass](/en/insights/paraguay-investor-pass).
Panama: Friendly Nations becomes permanent only after two years
The Friendly Nations programme, popular with Europeans, no longer leads straight to permanent residency. According to the requirement sheet of the National Migration Service (SNM), Panama first grants a provisional residency for two years, and permanent residency follows with a second application. You show your economic tie in one of three ways:
The way to immediate permanent residency in Panama is the Qualified Investor route. Under Executive Decree 17 of 8 September 2026, the minimum for a new property bought first hand is 300,000 balboas, while a resale property stays at 500,000 balboas. A fixed deposit at the state banks Banco Nacional de Panamá or Caja de Ahorros from 500,000 balboas is new as well. More in our article on [Decree 17/2026](/en/insights/panama-qualified-investor-decree-17).
Uruguay: 183 days or a large investment
Uruguay is where the change hurts many people most, because the tax argument hangs on it. For everyone who becomes tax resident from 1 January 2026, Article 24-BIS of Title 7 of the tax code (inserted by Law 20.446) sets a new regime for newcomers: you can elect to pay the non-resident tax on your foreign capital income, which only reaches Uruguayan-source income, for the year you arrive and the ten following years. You get that election only with one of three keys:
What the amounts look like in dollars and what comes after the eleven years is worked through in our guide to [Uruguay's new tax holiday rules](/en/insights/uruguay-tax-holiday-2026-new-rules). In short: if you want the tax holiday without a large investment, you have to spend more than half the year in the country. Time or capital, exactly the formula.
Colombia: the rentista visa does not count towards residency
Colombia set the course with Resolution 5477 of 2022. The rentista visa sits there as a V visa, a visitor visa (Article 56). Permanent residency, the R visa, is granted under Article 90 for time spent as the holder of an M visa, the migrant visas. Time on a rentista visa therefore takes you neither to the R visa nor towards a passport. If you want a long-term future in Colombia, plan from the start with an M category, for example as a pensioner or an investor.
El Salvador: the counter-model with 90 days
One country is going the other way. Under Legislative Decree 531, passed on 17 March 2026 and published in the Diario Oficial of 23 March, temporary residents have had to spend a minimum of 90 calendar days a year in the country since 31 March 2026, in one stretch or spread out (new Article 119 of the migration law). The only exception is force majeure that you justify to the migration authority. For entrepreneurs with an international life, that is a quarter of the year you can plan around.
An example: Thomas, 55
Take Thomas, 55, with around EUR 150,000 of free capital and dividends from his portfolio. In the past he would have been told to buy a flat in Uruguay, spend a few weeks a year there and take the tax holiday. Today his capital covers neither the 12.5 million UI in Uruguay nor the USD 200,000 for real estate under the Paraguay Investor Pass. His realistic routes are temporary residency in Paraguay with real presence, or Uruguay with more than 183 days a year. Both mean he has to live there. For Thomas, it is time.
Whether Latin America is now following Europe for good, where golden visas are being closed or made more expensive, is an assessment, not a certainty. El Salvador shows that things can get easier too. The rules above are as of November 2026.
What happened in Paraguay that same week
In the week the video came out, Paraguay's central bank put ueno bank under resolution because its solvency had fallen below half of the legal minimum. Deposits are frozen, an emergency law pays depositors an advance from the deposit guarantee, and President Peña faces impeachment. What is established and what to do is set out in our article [Bank collapse in Paraguay: what the ueno case means for your money and your residency](/en/insights/ueno-bank-collapse-paraguay-residency).
For the capital side of your Plan B, the main lesson is this: where your money sits is part of the plan. Paraguay's deposit guarantee covers up to 75 minimum wages per person and per institution, currently 228,300,000 guaraníes. That is only part of what an Investor Pass or a project ties up. Paraguay's migration law also accepts a bank deposit of the investment amount as proof for investors (Article 52 No. 9), and Panama's Friendly Nations fixed-deposit route requires a three-year term at a bank in the country. If your proof is a deposit, choose the bank as carefully as the country.
And at home?
What to do now
1. Decide honestly whether you bring capital or time. Without either, you rarely have a Plan B that holds today.
2. Keep to the presence rules on a temporary residency and document your entries and exits carefully.
3. Choose the category you can prove later already in your first application.
4. Before you invest, check that the investment counts for the programme, and which bank holds your capital and your proof.
5. Plan your departure from your home country first, not as an afterthought.
Which country fits your capital and your calendar, which category you choose in your first application and how it fits with a clean departure from home is precision work. Our [services page for Paraguay](/en/services/paraguay) shows every route with its price.