Panama Residency Visas 2026 by the Numbers: What Official Statistics to July Show

There is plenty of talk about Panama and very little counting. Forums talk of a rush on the Friendly Nations Visa, others of an authority that has suddenly become stricter. Yet one office actually does the counting: the statistics department of the Servicio Nacional de Migración (SNM). It has published its tables on residence permits up to 31 July 2026; the September edition, a PDF on the authority's website with preliminary figures to 30 September 2026, repeats those July figures unchanged. Alongside it are the annual figures for 2025 and the annual figures for 2024. From these three documents you can draw a fairly clear-eyed picture, and that is exactly what you need when you plan your application.

What the statistics actually measure

Before we get to the numbers, a clarification that many readings of them leave out. The SNM counts approvals, not people. The tables contain four kinds of decision: temporary residency (Permiso de Residente Temporal), extensions (Prórrogas), provisional permits (Permiso Provisional) and permanent residency (Permiso de Residente Permanente). Anyone who receives first a provisional and then a final permit within a year can therefore appear twice.

Second, all figures are expressly preliminary. Under every table the authority notes that the figures are preliminar and will still be revised. Anyone deriving percentage changes to decimal places from them is building on sand. The orders of magnitude, on the other hand, are reliable, and they are what matters.

The overall picture: 22,083 approvals in seven months

From January to July 2026, the SNM decided on 22,682 applications. 22,083 were approved and 599 refused. That gives an approval rate of 97%, which the authority itself reports. For the full year 2025 the rate was 95% (33,262 approvals, 1,755 refusals), and in 2024 it was also around 95% (48,194 approvals out of 50,779 decisions).

Broken down by type, the 22,083 approvals to July look like this:

One month stands out immediately: July. Between January and June, approvals were stable at 2,512 to 2,912 a month. In July there were 6,073. The SNM explains this itself in a footnote: in July, an unusually large number of files were approved administratively, above all for humanitarian protection status, six-year extensions, retirees and pensioners and dependants. July is therefore a catch-up month, not a demand boom. This footnote matters, because it changes every comparison with the previous year.

The three routes that matter for you

The biggest block in the statistics has little to do with you: almost 39% of approvals in 2026 relate to humanitarian protection status (8,564). Several other large categories follow, among them regularisations and employees of multinational companies. If you are moving as an investor or retiree, three categories matter.

Approved applications according to the SNM. The half-year figures are the sum of the monthly columns January to June in the 2026 table.

Friendly Nations: below 2024, catching up in July

The Friendly Nations Visa (Países Amigos) is the route many readers from abroad look at first. In 2024 the SNM approved 3,228 applications here, in 2025 only 2,725, around 16% fewer. In the first half of 2026 there were 1,002. If you spread the previous year evenly across the months, the half-year sits about a quarter below the 2025 pace. With the catch-up month of July (456 approvals in that month alone), the gap shrinks to around 8%.

What does that mean in practice? The category is working, but no longer at the 2024 level. The statistics do not reveal whether fewer applications or slower decisions lie behind this, because they only show decisions, not incoming files. How the procedure works in detail, with the economic tie, documents and the path to permanent residency, is in the practical guide to the Friendly Nations Visa.

Pensionado: stable, with a strong July

For the Pensionado programme for retirees, the picture is calmer. In 2024 and 2025 approvals were almost level (1,917 and 1,929). The first half of 2026, at 873, sits about 9% below the arithmetical pace of the previous year. After July, with 366 approvals, the category stands at 1,239 and so around 10% above the 2025 pace. The authority expressly names pensioners as one of the groups for which backlogged files were cleared in July. If you applied in the spring and heard nothing for a long time, do not read that as bad news: processing came in a burst this year. Requirements and procedure are in the guide to the Pensionado visa.

Qualified Investor: small numbers, big swings

The Qualified Investor Visa is the smallest of the three categories and the one with the biggest swings: 327 approvals in 2024, exactly as many in 2025, 135 in the first half of 2026 and 219 by the end of July. July alone added 84; in March there were 41, in April only 13. With numbers this small, one stack of files is enough to turn a minus into a plus: the half-year was around 17% below the previous year's pace, the position at the end of July around 15% above it. The figure says no more than that. How the property threshold has depended on new build or resale since Decree 17/2026 is explained in the article on the Qualified Investor Visa.

Fewer approvals overall since 2024

A look at the total puts the categories in context. In 2024 the SNM granted 48,194 residence permits, in 2025 33,262, around 31% fewer. The first half of 2026 brought 16,010 approvals, just under 4% below the arithmetical pace of 2025. Including July, the position at the end of July is around 14% above it.

So the decline from 2024 to 2025 is not a matter of individual nationalities or individual visas; it affects the whole system. At minus 16%, the Friendly Nations category has actually shrunk less than the total. For the retiree category it is worth looking at the age groups too: of the 22,083 approvals to July 2026, 3,810 went to people aged 55 to 79 and 131 to people aged 80 and over. Panama remains a country that actively takes in newcomers in later life.

How strict is Panama?

The overall rate of 97% sounds like rubber-stamping. But it is an average across all categories, and the differences are large. The 2026 table does not break refusals down by category; the 2025 table does. This is what it shows:

The three routes relevant to you are therefore among the categories with low refusal rates. An obvious explanation: for Friendly Nations, Pensionado and Qualified Investor, the requirements can be checked objectively. Pension yes or no, investment proven or not, nationality on the list or not. If you arrive with a complete, properly apostilled file, these numbers say your chances are very good. Where an objective criterion is missing, as with study places, the authority has to make more of a judgement, and that is exactly where refusal rates are much higher.

Conversely, an approval rate of over 95% is no reason to take your file lightly. The statistics only count applications that reached a decision. Whatever gets stuck earlier on missing documents shows up in no column at all. Which documents the SNM requires for which category is set out in our overview of Panama residence permits.

Nationalities in the statistics

The SNM also breaks approvals down by nationality. The large groups come from the region: Colombia (6,619 approvals to July 2026), Venezuela (3,801), Nicaragua (2,291), plus the United States (1,738). For readers from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, these are the figures the SNM lists:

Approvals. The SNM lists British nationals as "Gran Bretaña". In 2025, 97 applications from US nationals were refused, 24 from Canadians and 3 from British nationals. The 2026 column adds up the monthly columns January to July of the SNM table with preliminary figures to 30 September 2026.

US nationals are the fourth-largest group in the whole table. Their approvals rose by around a fifth from 2024 to 2025, and the position at the end of July is about 5% below the arithmetical pace of 2025. Canadians are about the same distance below that pace. British approvals, practically flat from 2024 to 2025, are almost 30% above it, but on numbers this small one busy month moves the result. The SNM does not show in which category these approvals were granted. The table separates either by category or by country, not by both.

What the numbers do not say

Three things people like to read into these statistics, although they are not in them.

Waiting times. The tables show when a file was decided, not when it was filed. July only proves that many files were finished at the same time. How long they had been waiting before remains open.

Demand. Fewer approvals can mean fewer applications, but also a backlog. Without figures on incoming files, the two cannot be separated. Anyone who reads a collapse in interest in Panama into the first half-year overlooks that July alone delivered almost half the half-year volume again.

People. Because one person can receive several decisions, the number of approvals is not the number of newcomers. For population statistics, this PDF is the wrong tool.

What to take from this for your application

The statistics confirm what you know from the procedure, and they correct a few legends. In the categories relevant to you, Panama approves well over 95% of applications. Processing comes in bursts, not evenly, and July 2026 shows that a long silence from the authority says nothing yet about the outcome. The Friendly Nations Visa remains the most important route, even if its numbers sit below 2024.

If you are planning your own application, the usual order applies: first choose the category that fits your life, then make the file complete, then file. An overview of tax, costs and quality of life is on our Panama country page. And if you want to tackle the Friendly Nations Visa in concrete terms, the page Friendly Nations Visa Panama shows how we carry out the procedure with lawyers on the ground, from the economic tie to permanent residency.

Carpe Diem. Life is short and fleeting. One shot. Make it count.