Mercosur and its associated states
Mercosur's residence agreement is the closest thing in the Americas to a right to live in a neighbouring country, and it works in a way the European Union's does not: it is not a single instrument applied by everyone, but a treaty each state brought into its own law, at its own pace, in its own words. The result is a regime with one name and ten implementations. What it gives is a temporary residence of two years, convertible to permanent, on nationality and a clean record rather than on a job or an income - and what it asks for, how long it takes and what happens if you miss the conversion window is each country's own answer.
Decided for every member
One instrument, the same answer in each member state. The quotations are on the country records; these rows say which instrument and where to read it.
The route itself: temporary residence for a national of a party, convertible to permanent. Each member's record carries its own implementing instrument and its own conditions.
Argentina
Bolivia
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Paraguay
Peru
Uruguay
VenezuelaLeft to each member
Where the bloc stops. These are the questions a reader has to ask country by country, and the note says what the records here show about the spread.
Entirely national and nothing to do with the agreement. Residence under Mercosur counts towards naturalisation only where the destination's own nationality law counts it.
National. The residence the agreement gives usually carries the right to work, but it is the destination's law that says so, not the treaty.
National, and in most of the region a question of residence or contributions rather than of nationality.
National, and often bilateral: the licence exchanges in this corpus come from treaties between two states rather than from the bloc.
Nationality is the qualification
The agreement's premise is the one this site was built to show: a Bolivian in Argentina and a Bolivian in Spain are asking different questions, because in Argentina the answer begins with the passport. There is no labour market test, no employer, no investment and no means threshold in the route itself - what is asked is that you are a national of a party and that your record is clean.
Associated states are inside the residence agreement and outside the trade bloc
Membership of Mercosur and membership of its residence regime are not the same list, which is why this corpus keeps two origin groups rather than one. Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are associated states; Bolivia acceded as a full member; Venezuela's membership is suspended and its nationals' position under the residence agreement is a separate question from its seat.
Ten implementations, not one regime
Every statement about what the agreement gives has to be read against the country that is giving it. The records here are per destination for that reason, and the differences between them are the point rather than noise: the same treaty produces different documents, different fees and different conversion deadlines in each state that implemented it.
The nationality lists it produces
A bloc is a group of destinations; these are the groups of nationalities it creates, and they are not the same thing.
- Mercosur Full Members · 6 nationalities
- Mercosur Associated States · 7 nationalities