2026-10-05Finding
Nicaragua abolished its retirement residence in a tourism law, and everyone is still selling it
The statute that created the pensionado and rentista routes was repealed outright in August 2024. The legislature's own site still serves the whole repealed text, with the repeal noted in one line at the foot.
Nicaragua's retirement residence was created by a law of 2009 and was, for fifteen years, one of the cheapest in the region. On 2 August 2024 the General Tourism Law came into force. Its article 38 is headed Derogaciones - repeals - and lists five statutes. The fourth is the one that created the retirement route.
Nothing replaced it. The whole tourism law mentions a pensioner once and a rentier once, and both occurrences are inside that repeal. Its implementing regulation of October 2024 mentions neither.
What went with it was not only the residence. The same repealed statute carried the duty-free household allowance, the exemption from value-added tax on a vehicle renewable every four years, the building-materials exemption, and release from the migration deposit. All of them were provisions of that law and none survives it.
Three instruments have not caught up, and they are the three a person would check. The migration law still names the category and still defines it by pointing at the repealed statute - its consolidated text was closed on 28 February 2023, eighteen months before the repeal. The migration regulation still requires a tourism-institute resolution confirming the applicant is a pensioner. And the legislature's own legal-information service still serves the repealed law in full, with a one-line observation at the foot recording that it is gone.
The one body that has caught up is the migration directorate. Its permanent-residence page carries specific requirement blocks for exactly two subcategories - investor, and a family link to a Nicaraguan - and names no pensioner or rentier anywhere.
There is a second thing worth knowing for anyone who read about this route before it closed. The figure repeated everywhere is six hundred dollars a month. That was the 2009 wording. By the time of the repeal the consolidated text asked for a thousand dollars for a pensioner and twelve hundred and fifty for a rentier, plus a hundred and fifty per dependant, with a minimum age of forty-five and six months of presence a year. So the programme that is still being advertised was both closed and, for its last years, nearly twice the price it is advertised at.
What the instruments say
«Ley N°. 694, Ley de Promoción de Ingreso de Residentes Pensionados y Residentes Rentistas, publicada en La Gaceta, Diario Oficial N°. 151 del 12 de agosto de 2009 y cuyo texto consolidado está publicado en La Gaceta, Diario Oficial N°. 156 del 21 de agosto de 2020.»Our translation - not official
Law No. 694, Law for the Promotion of the Entry of Pensioned Residents and Income Residents, published in La Gaceta, Diario Oficial No. 151 of 12 August 2009, whose consolidated text is published in La Gaceta, Diario Oficial No. 156 of 21 August 2020.
About this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«RESIDENTE PENSIONADO: Persona natural nacional o extranjera que goza de una pensión o jubilación de gobiernos, instituciones públicas o privadas, equivalente en moneda nacional a la cantidad de Un Mil Dólares de los Estados Unidos de América (US$ 1,000.00) mensuales como mínimo y que deseen residir permanentemente en Nicaragua.»Our translation - not official
PENSIONED RESIDENT: a natural person, national or foreign, enjoying a pension or retirement income from governments or public or private institutions equivalent in national currency to at least One Thousand United States Dollars (US$ 1,000.00) a month, and who wishes to reside permanently in Nicaragua.
Quoted for what the repealed route required. The six-hundred-dollar figure still printed on promotional pages comes from the 2009 text, not from the consolidated one that was in force when the route was repealed.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«Gozar de franquicia arancelaria y de la exención de todos los impuestos de importación vigentes por la introducción del menaje de casa, cuyo valor no podrá exceder de Veinte Mil Dólares de los Estados Unidos de América (US$ 20,000.00) o su equivalente en córdobas.»Our translation - not official
To enjoy tariff franchise and exemption from all import taxes in force on the introduction of household goods, whose value may not exceed Twenty Thousand United States Dollars (US$ 20,000.00) or the equivalent in córdobas.
About this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«Resolución del Comité Técnico del Instituto Nicaragüense de Turismo (INTUR) donde se Ratifica la condición de Jubilado o Pensionado.»Our translation - not official
A resolution of the Technical Committee of the Nicaraguan Tourism Institute (INTUR) ratifying the status of retiree or pensioner.
The regulation still requires this. The committee and its powers were created by the law repealed in 2024.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
- consolidatesLey N°. 1210, Ley General de Turismo
Asamblea Nacional de la República de Nicaragua - Normas Jurídicas de Nicaragua
About this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source