Bolivia

Bolivia sorts nationalities into three groups. The first needs no tourist visa and is admitted on a national identity document or a passport. The second needs a visa. The third needs a visa that a consulate may only issue after the migration directorate has checked the file. A tourist visa is granted for 30 days, and inside Bolivia it can be extended by up to 60 more; but the regulation also caps a tourist at 90 calendar days a year, which is the number that decides how long you can actually stay. Bolivia does not publish which countries sit in which group.

Bolivia has no passive-income route. The migration regulation lists the grounds on which a temporary stay may be granted - study, work, health, family, humanitarian - and living on money from elsewhere is not among them. There is no rentista category, no threshold to meet and no published figure to compare. What Bolivia asks of everyone is different in kind: proof of lawful means of support by sworn declaration with documents behind it, attached to one of the named grounds rather than standing on its own.

There is no pensioner or retiree category in Bolivian migration law. A pension is not one of the grounds on which a stay may be granted, and the migration directorate publishes no procedure for retirees. A retired person moving to Bolivia uses a general ground - most often family, if there are relatives in the country - or the self-employed work route, and shows economic solvency the same way everyone else does. Age brings one benefit, and it comes late: a foreigner over 60 who has held permanent residence for more than fifteen continuous years can get an identity card with no expiry date.

Work is the main way into Bolivia. The temporary stay for work is granted for one, two or three years, and the length follows the length of the activity you are coming to do rather than a category you pick. It covers employment, self-employment and work under a state or private agreement, and the four variants are priced very differently: a year on a state agreement costs 110 UFV and a year of ordinary employment costs 960. After three years the same ground converts into permanent residence.

Bolivia has no investor residency. What it has is the multiple visa: a one-year, renewable entry permit for people doing investment and business, which lets you come and go as often as you like but does not make you a resident. The consular network adds a limit the regulation does not contain - stays of no more than 90 uninterrupted days at a time. An investor who wants to live in Bolivia uses the ordinary work route on the strength of the company, not a separate investor category.

A student visa runs 60 days and is the doorway to a temporary stay of up to three years, renewable in three-year blocks until the course ends. It is the longest first permit Bolivia grants on any ordinary ground - and it is a dead end by design: the regulation says twice, once for the transitory stay and once for the temporary one, that permanent residence cannot be obtained through study. Exchange students on a state agreement get 180 days and pay nothing.

Bolivia has no ancestry visa, and for the closest relatives it does not need one: a child born abroad to a Bolivian mother or father is Bolivian, and the step is registration rather than application. Beyond that, descent gives nothing of its own. A grandchild of Bolivians is a foreigner like any other, and the route that fits is the family ground, which reaches blood relatives of a Bolivian living in Bolivia - a sibling or a child, not an ancestor several generations back.

Marriage to a Bolivian is handled under the family ground rather than as a category of its own. The permit's length follows the reasoned application rather than a fixed term, and the fee is the cheapest of any residence route Bolivia publishes: 260 UFV for a year. Its real advantage shows up later, at nationality: the spouse of a Bolivian can naturalise after two years of uninterrupted temporary residence instead of the three the ordinary route requires.

Bolivia is in both South American blocs at once - a full member of the Andean Community and, since 2024, a full member of Mercosur - and it runs a separate residence route for each. Both give two years of temporary residence converting into permanent residence, and both cost 450 UFV at each stage, against 2510 UFV for ordinary permanent residence after three years. Which one is open to you depends on your nationality, and the lists are narrower than the phrase "Mercosur associated state" suggests: the migration directorate publishes the Mercosur route for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay only.

Bolivia naturalises after three continuous years of residence, or two for the spouse, parent or substitute child of a Bolivian and for anyone who has done Bolivian military service. There is a written examination on elementary Bolivian history, set by the migration directorate and waived only for children up to twelve. The three-year route costs 4050 UFV and is granted by the President by Supreme Resolution; the two-year routes cost 2050 UFV and are granted by the migration directorate itself.

For income tax, Bolivia has no residence test at all. Tax attaches to Bolivian-source income whatever the taxpayer's domicile or residence, and foreign income is simply outside the charge - there is no day count that changes that. One tax does use residence: the tax on large fortunes, where staying more than 183 days in twelve months makes you resident and brings your worldwide wealth into charge. It only bites above thirty million bolivianos, so for most people the practical answer is that moving to Bolivia does not create a residence-based tax liability at all.

Bolivia's free public health system covers foreigners on two different footings. If an international instrument and reciprocity apply to you, you are covered on the same terms as Bolivians. If they do not, you are still covered - but only if you fall into one of five groups: pregnant women and mothers for six months after birth, women needing sexual and reproductive care, children under five, anyone over sixty, and certified disabled people. Migration status is not mentioned in either case. Entry to the system is through a first-level facility; higher levels are reached only by referral.

The document a foreign resident uses for everything in Bolivia is the foreigner's identity card, and holding one is not optional: anyone granted a temporary or permanent stay is required by law to obtain it from the identification service. What we cannot tell you is the banking rule itself. The financial supervisor's compilation of rules sets out what an entity must ask for when an account is opened, and its document server did not respond to us. Rather than put a bank's own page here and call it the law, we are saying where the gap is.

A foreigner resident in Bolivia can get a Bolivian licence, and the identity card is the gate: the licence lasts exactly as long as the card. Exchanging a foreign licence rather than sitting the test is a different matter - the identification service's general page says it is for people with permanent or indefinite residence, which leaves temporary residents to take the full route of medical certificate, driving school and police clearance. Argentina and Chile have their own arrangements, and those pages ask only for a current identity card.

Bolivia lets you bring household goods in free of import duty under a special customs destination, and the qualifying test is time abroad rather than a residence permit: the law reaches non-residents who have spent at least two years outside Bolivia before arriving. The allowance for a foreigner is USD 35,000. The shipment has to arrive in a window running from one month before you do to six months after, through a single customs administration, and the declaration is sworn online and validated by a Bolivian consulate before anything moves. Vehicles are excluded outright.