The change that makes everything else out of date
Decreto de Necesidad y Urgencia 366/2025, published in the Boletín Oficial on 2025-05-29, substituted more than twenty articles of the Migration Law, added a new one, and rewrote the Citizenship Law, with knock-on amendments to the higher education and national education laws.
It is a decree, not a statute passed by Congress. It has been operative since 2025-05-29 and has since been built on by two further decrees: one in November 2025 that moved every reference from the Interior Ministry to the Ministry of Security, and one at the end of July 2026 adding new grounds under two articles. We are not going to tell you it can never be struck down or repealed — we are telling you it is the law being applied now.
The routes, one at a time
Rentista — passive income
The official page states three requirements, and the second is the one that disqualifies most of the people who ask about it:
- Income at least equal to five times the Salario Mínimo Vital y Móvil (the statutory minimum wage).
- That income must come from assets — “instrumentos financieros, inmuebles, participaciones en empresas”. The page expressly excludes “retribuciones obtenidas por el trabajo personal”.
- The funds must enter Argentina through banking or financial institutions authorised by the central bank.
Granted for one year, renewable.
Learn the formula, not the figure. The minimum wage is reset by resolution and is currently stepping up monthly. The rate in force for September 2026 was ARS 383,800, rising through October, November and December — so the rentista threshold that month was ARS 1,919,000. That is about USD 1,240 to 1,255 at 2026-09-13 rates. Next month it is a different number. Take today’s minimum wage from the wage council’s own page and multiply by five.
And note the exclusion above carefully: freelance invoicing does not qualify. If your income is your own work, this is not your category, whatever a forum told you. Rental income from property you own does qualify, because real estate is named as a qualifying asset. Buying an apartment is not itself a residency category.
Digital nomad — and the thing everyone gets wrong about it
- Up to 180 days, renewable.
- Only for nationals of countries that do not need a tourist visa for Argentina.
- Documents: a signed application describing the remote work, a CV, proof of the remote activity (a contract, a company letter, income or fee records), a criminal record certificate, proof of address, and proof of regular entry.
- Processed in person, not remotely.
It is a transitory residency. It does not accumulate toward permanent residency or citizenship. That is the single most important fact about it and the one most often stated wrongly.
Work
The burden sits with the employer, not with you. The employer must be registered in the immigration directorate’s register of foreign-worker requesters, and must produce a pre-labour contract stating your personal data, tasks, hours, duration, salary under the applicable collective agreement and its own tax number — with signatures notarised or certified. It must also register you as an employee within thirty days of the declared start date. One year, renewable.
Practically: this is not a route you can self-serve. If no Argentine employer will do the paperwork, this route does not exist for you.
Student
Regular enrolment at an officially recognised secondary, tertiary or university institution, with an electronic enrolment certificate from the institution. One year, renewable. Whether it carries work rights is not stated on the official page, so we are not going to assert either way.
Mercosur nationality — bury the lede, this is the cheapest route on the board
Open to nationals of Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname — and also to non-Mercosur nationals naturalised for five or more years in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador or Peru.
Two years rather than one, renewable, no income or investment test, half the government fee, and only two years of temporary residency before permanent rather than three. If you hold one of those passports, including as a second nationality, stop reading the other sections.
Family of an Argentine — and this is the big reversal
The reunification page, citing the article as amended by the 2025 decree, covers a spouse, parent or child of an Argentine, or a spouse, parent or unmarried under-18 child of a temporary or permanent resident. Where the sponsoring relative is Argentine or holds permanent residence, it grants “una autorización de permanencia por un plazo máximo de hasta tres años”.
Read that again: it is TEMPORARY residency, up to three years. It is no longer permanent residency. We confirmed that three ways — the reunification page itself, the decree’s own new article text, and the permanent-residency page’s eligibility list, which no longer includes spouses and parents of Argentines. Every English guide promising “marry an Argentine, get permanent residency” is describing the pre-May-2025 rules.
Still permanent, directly: foreign-born children of Argentine nationals.
Permanent residency, and what was added to it
The official page sets out the test:
- Arraigo — having held temporary residency for two years as a Mercosur national, three years otherwise.
- Physical presence in the country for at least 50% of the period granted, and no absence of six consecutive months or more.
- New under the 2025 decree: proof that you have “los medios económicos suficientes para subsistir en el país” — an economic-means test that did not previously gate permanent residency — plus a clean-record test.
So “do your two or three years and permanent residency is automatic” is now incomplete in three separate ways.
Citizenship: rebuilt, and much harder than the internet says
The rewritten Citizenship Law says foreigners over 18 qualify by naturalisation on proof of having “residido en la REPÚBLICA ARGENTINA en forma continua y legal durante los DOS (2) años anteriores a la solicitud”. And then it defines “continuous” in a new article, which is the sentence to read twice:
“Se entenderá que un extranjero residió continuamente en el país cuando hubiere permanecido en el territorio durante todo el plazo … sin haber realizado ninguna salida al exterior.”
Three old articles of the citizenship law were derogated. There is also a second route: investment of a relevant scale, “cualquiera sea el tiempo de su residencia” — the amount being set by regulation. You will find a specific dollar figure circulating for that route; we could not retrieve the decree that sets it from any primary source, so we are not printing it.
The venue moved too. Since October 2025 the application is made to the immigration directorate through its online system, not to a federal court. The directorate’s own notice says the process “es personal y no requiere la intervención de gestores”. What it asks for: 18 or over, foreign-born, holding temporary or permanent residency, a valid DNI, an up-to-date national criminal record certificate, documentation of occupation and income, a CUIT or CUIL, and physical presence in Argentina.
Two honest caveats. First, we could not verify whether the “no exits at all” wording is applied literally in practice — whether a weekend in Colonia breaks the clock, or whether the directorate reads in a tolerance. Nothing published says. Plan as if it means zero. Second, requiring legal residence plus a DNI plus a tax number is the real break from the past, when federal judges routinely naturalised people whose two years included irregular or precarious status.
In practice the binding constraint on citizenship is now physical presence, not paperwork — and that is brutal for anyone with family abroad. Say that out loud to yourself before you plan around it.
Documents, apostilles and what it costs
The document chain is the same for every category:
- A valid passport, or a Mercosur travel document.
- An Argentine criminal record certificate for anyone 16 or over — pulled automatically into the online application, so you do not upload it.
- A foreign no-conviction certificate from every country you lived in for more than a year within the last three years, for anyone 16 or over.
- Proof of an address in Argentina.
- Proof of regular entry — your entry stamp. Which is precisely why you can change category from inside the country.
- Foreign documents need an Argentine consular legalisation from the issuing country, or a Hague Apostille if that country is a party.
- Anything not in Spanish needs a traducción pública by a registered public translator, legalised by the translators’ college. Originals required.
The government fee is trivial. Under the current migration fee schedule, denominated in a unit the schedule prices at $1,000:
| Item | Units | ARS |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent or temporary residency, non-Mercosur | 100 | 100,000 |
| Permanent or temporary residency, Mercosur | 50 | 50,000 |
| Extension of a transitory residency, non-Mercosur | 40 | 40,000 |
| Change of subcategory from “Tourist” | 100 | 100,000 |
| Urgent processing, added | +100 | +100,000 |
Fee schedule read 2026-09-13; the unit value is set administratively and must be re-checked. At that day’s exchange rate a non-Mercosur filing is roughly USD 65.
A DNI for a foreigner was priced at $20,000 for a first identification and the same for a new copy, including a category change or extension, on the identity registry’s own fee list read 2026-09-13. Temporary residency entitles you to a temporary DNI; transitory residency does not.
So the real cost is not the fee. It is apostilles, certified translations, and time. We deliberately publish no processing times: we could find no official service standard for residency or citizenship decisions, or for DNI issuance after approval, and repeating forum numbers would be inventing one.
The precaria, the tourist stamp, and working while you wait
The residencia precaria is now 90 days, not 180. The rewritten article says its validity is “de hasta NOVENTA (90) días corridos”, renewable by reasoned resolution — and that it “habilitará a sus titulares a permanecer, egresar, ingresar, trabajar y estudiar” while it is valid. So yes, you may work while your residency is pending.
Tourist: up to three months, extendable by another three. If you overstay and present yourself voluntarily within thirty days of the deadline there is a 50% surcharge on the extension or category-change fee. If your stay has already expired you need an exit authorisation, valid ten calendar days.
Applying from inside the country: every category page requires proof of regular entry, which a tourist stamp is, and there is an explicit fee line for changing subcategory out of “Tourist”. So yes, in principle.
Appeals were cut. The administrative reconsideration and hierarchical appeal routes were eliminated. What remains is a single judicial appeal, filed with the issuing authority within fifteen business days of notification.
Expulsion grounds were broadened, reaching cases merely under prosecution or elevated to trial, offences carrying penalties under three years, and founded suspicions. The re-entry ban is a minimum of five years, and permanent where the expulsion follows a criminal conviction.
Health cover and university are no longer assumed
Two changes buried in the same decree that newcomers should know about.
A sworn statement of health insurance. The rewritten article says applicants under any migratory category must declare that they hold health cover. Whether it is enforced at the border is undocumented — but the requirement is in the text.
Charging at nationally-run health facilities. The rewritten article says routine care at facilities administered by the national state is provided against presentation of health insurance or prior payment for the service. State universities may set fees for those not covered.
Here is the honest limit of what we know: that text covers facilities run by the national state. Most of the public hospitals a Buenos Aires resident actually uses are run by the City or the Province, not the nation, and we found no source at all on how either implemented this. So do not conclude that public hospitals in Buenos Aires now charge you — and do not conclude that they do not. Our healthcare guide covers what the private side actually guarantees you, which is more concrete.
Commonly repeated, and now wrong
| You will read | The position as of 2026-09-13 |
|---|---|
| “Marry an Argentine or have an Argentine baby and get permanent residency” | Wrong since 2025-05-29. A spouse or parent of an Argentine now gets temporary residency, up to three years. |
| “Citizenship after two years; trips home are fine; a judge decides” | Two years continuous and legal residence, with the law defining continuous as no exits abroad at all, decided by the immigration directorate online since October 2025. |
| “The precaria lasts 180 days” | Up to 90 calendar days, renewable by reasoned resolution. It still permits work and study. |
| “Rentista needs about ARS 30,000 a month” | Five times the minimum wage — ARS 1,919,000 a month in September 2026, and rising with the wage. |
| “Rentista works for freelancers and remote income” | No. The income must come from assets, and the official page expressly excludes income from personal work. |
| “The digital nomad visa is a path to residency” | No. Transitory, 180 days, visa-exempt nationals only, in person only, and it does not accumulate toward anything. |
| “Do your two or three years and permanent residency is automatic” | Incomplete. You also need at least 50% physical presence, no absence of six consecutive months, and proof of sufficient economic means. |
| “You can appeal a migration decision several times administratively” | Removed. A single judicial appeal, within fifteen business days. |
| “Migraciones is under the Ministry of the Interior” | Moved to the Ministry of Security by a decree published 2025-11-11. |
| “The blue dollar means USD 1,000 goes a long way” | The gap was about one percent on 2026-09-13. It also removes the old reason people avoided the bank channel that the rentista category requires. |
Common questions
Can I apply for Argentine residency from inside the country on a tourist stamp?
In principle yes. Every category page requires proof of regular entry, which a tourist stamp is, and the fee schedule has an explicit line for changing subcategory out of "Tourist".
How much passive income does the rentista visa require in 2026?
Five times the statutory minimum wage. The minimum wage in force for September 2026 was ARS 383,800, making the threshold ARS 1,919,000 a month — roughly USD 1,240 at that month exchange rate. The wage is reset by resolution, so take the current figure from the wage council and multiply by five.
Does the Argentine digital nomad visa lead to permanent residency?
No. It is a transitory residency of up to 180 days, open only to nationals of countries that do not need a tourist visa, processed in person, and it does not accumulate toward permanent residency or citizenship.
Does marrying an Argentine give you permanent residency?
Not since the May 2025 decree. A spouse, parent or child of an Argentine now receives temporary residency for up to three years. Foreign-born children of Argentine nationals still qualify for permanent residency directly.
Can I leave Argentina during the two years before applying for citizenship?
The law as rewritten defines continuous residence as having remained in the territory for the whole period without any exit abroad. We could not find published guidance on whether the immigration directorate applies that literally, so plan as if it means zero trips.
Can I work in Argentina while my residency application is pending?
Yes. The residencia precaria expressly permits its holder to remain, leave, enter, work and study while it is valid. It now runs up to 90 calendar days and is renewable by reasoned resolution.
How much does Argentine residency cost in government fees?
Under the current migration fee schedule, 100 units for a non-Mercosur temporary or permanent residency and 50 for a Mercosur one, with the unit priced at 1,000 pesos — so 100,000 or 50,000 pesos, roughly USD 65 or USD 33 at September 2026 rates. Urgent processing adds 100 units. The real cost is apostilles, certified translations and time.
Do I need a lawyer or a gestor for Argentine residency?
Not required. The immigration directorate says the citizenship process is personal and does not require intermediaries, and the residency pages describe self-service online filing. Many people still use help for the document chain.