An Easy Second Residency And Citizenship Option

A search of “Paraguay history” in Google returns a list of questions people ask about Paraguay, including: “Which country is Paraguay located in?”

Paraguay is its own country. It was wiped almost off the map by Brazil and Argentina during the Triple Alliance War of 1864 and 1870. (Uruguay was the third country in the alliance, operating under a puppet government controlled by Brazil.)

As a result of this devastating experience, Paraguay lost more than a quarter of its territory, as much as 90% of its male population was killed, and it was required to pay restitution for the cost of the war to Brazil and Argentina.

Paraguay was left in deep economic and demographic holes that it is only recently pulling itself out of.

Paraguay has been struggling for decades but today is at a turning point. I like countries at turning points, for they offer opportunity. Paraguay offers tremendous opportunity right now for internationalizing your life and planting flags.

Indeed, Paraguay is one of the best choices in the world for what could be considered the ultimate internationalization experience—that is, disappearing. Paraguay’s remote location makes it ideal for dropping off the world’s radar.

Few people can find the country on a map. Nobody’s going to find you or your assets in Paraguay if you don’t want them to, and there aren’t many places in the world today where that’s true.

Disappearing, dropping out, going off-grid, and living off the land isn’t for everyone, though. If your go-offshore plans are less extreme, Paraguay still has a lot to offer…

Planting a residency flag in Paraguay is about as straightforward as it gets. You don’t need to make an investment or prove any amount of income. You simply apply for residency.

OK, there’s a little more to it than that…

You need a police report from your home country, showing you have a clean record… or at least a relatively clean record.

Small infractions or very old convictions may be overlooked by the Paraguayan authorities. Not that the Paraguayans are looking to attract criminals to their country, but they seem to use some common sense when reviewing residency cases where the applicant doesn’t have a spotless record.

You can manage the residency application process on your own, but the bureaucracy in Paraguay, as in many countries, can be more than you might be up for. For those short on time or patience, using an expediter can make sense. That can be in the form of an attorney or simply one of the handful of people offering residency services.

Once you have your residency approved, you then need to get your cedula (the government-issued ID card used in most of Latin America). That’s a difference process at a different office.

Paraguayan residency and citizenship are easy to obtain. However, Paraguay doesn’t have an economic citizenship program, and no legal shortcuts are available to reduce the already short time periods required for gaining citizenship.

The biggest benefit of using a service is to save time and trips to Paraguay. If you’re getting residency simply as a backup plan rather than because you want to move full-time to Paraguay, you need to make several trips to complete the process if you do it on your own. You should be able to save at least one trip by using a service, but you still need to go at least once to Paraguay.

However, once you have your residency, you aren’t required to spend any specific amount of time in the country. You just need to renew your residency once every four years. Miss your renewal, and you simply have to pay a late fee; you don’t have to start the process all over again.

If you decide to live in Paraguay, you don’t need a permit to work in the country if you have your residency permit and your cedula—an unusual feature of residency in Paraguay.

Paraguay gets five stars for its residency program. With no real requirements other than showing up in the country with your police report, it’s hard to think of another country that makes it easier.

With such an easy residency program, it’s not surprising that Paraguay also has one of the best citizenship options available anywhere. You can apply for naturalization after only three years of residency.

The downside is that you have to prove your assimilation into local society. In other words, to be approved for naturalization, you have to show you have a connection to Paraguay.

While that should be easy enough if you move to Paraguay during the three-year residency requirement, it’s harder if you get your residency but continue to live wherever you came from originally.

Simply put, to qualify for citizenship, you need to put some effort into creating some kind of life in Paraguay to help your case.

Buying property in Paraguay helps… as does having friends, speaking Spanish, and spending time in the country on a regular basis. The more support you can provide to show the effort you have made to establish a connection to Paraguay, the better.

Nevertheless, while you are eligible to apply for naturalization after three years of legal residency, the approval process can take anywhere from 12 to 24 months, depending on the bureaucracy at the time of your application.

The volume of applicants in the queue when you apply as well as the current mood of the Supreme Court (all naturalization applications go through the court) have an impact on how long it takes for your application to get through the system.

Even if it takes two years for your application to be approved, a total of five years to get your second citizenship (three years of residency and two years for the naturalization process) is no longer than the five years of residency requirement for most countries.

Paraguay recognizes dual citizenship, so you don’t have to give up your current citizenship when you acquire Paraguayan citizenship. You have to take a test in Spanish to be approved, but you don’t have to be completely fluent to pass.

A Paraguayan passport gets you visa-free or visa-on arrival travel privileges in 148 countries and territories, including most of Europe, making it a top-notch travel document.

Thanks to the short residency requirement, Paraguay is one of the quickest non-economic citizenship options available.

Stay diversified,

Lief Simon
Editor, Offshore Living Letter