Country-wide policy
How long you may be out of the country before your status is cancelled
Bolivia cancels a residence permit for absence, and the test is different at each level. A temporary permit allows 90 days a year out of the country, counted whether the days are consecutive or scattered. A permanent permit allows two continuous years. The two are not the same kind of rule: the temporary one is an annual quota, so four separate trips of a month each breach it, while the permanent one only bites on an unbroken absence.
Topics it changes
- Residency on passive income
- Residency as a retiree
- Residency through work
- Residency through investment
- Residency as a student
- Residency through marriage
- Residency under a regional treaty
- Becoming a citizen
What it requires
- On a transitory permit: stay away no longer than a quarter of the period you were granted
- On a temporary permit of one, two or three years: no more than 90 calendar days abroad per year, whether continuous or broken up
- On a permanent permit: no more than two continuous years abroad
- Express authorisation from the migration directorate lifts the limit, and for naturalisation purposes an authorised departure does not break continuity
At a glance
- Transitory permit
- No more than a quarter of the authorised period
- Temporary permit (1, 2 or 3 years)
- 90 calendar days per year, continuous or broken up
- Permanent permit
- Two continuous years
- Effect of breaching it
- The migration directorate cancels the permit
- Escape hatch
- Express authorisation from the migration directorate before leaving
An annual quota and a continuous absence are different rules
Two trips of five months each keep you inside the permanent-residence rule and blow through the temporary one twice over. Read the level you actually hold: the quota resets each year, the continuous limit does not reset until you come back.
What the law says
«La Dirección General de Migración cancelará la permanencia transitoria, temporal o definitiva de las personas extranjeras que sin autorización expresa de autoridad migratoria, excedan los plazos para ausentarse del territorio boliviano, establecidos a continuación:»Our translation - not official
The Directorate General of Migration shall cancel the transitory, temporary or permanent stay of foreign persons who, without express authorisation from the migration authority, exceed the periods for being absent from Bolivian territory established below:
About this source
A labour-law database that holds national gazettes' own PDFs. Used here only where a country's gazette and consolidator were both unreachable, so that the artefact quoted is still the gazette's own file even though the host is not the gazette.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the law as currently in force. A record is created once and holds the text as enacted; later amending instruments are not reflected in the file, so anything taken from it must be checked against a consolidator before being treated as current. Its own page rendering also splits words inside sentences, so quotations must come from the attached PDF rather than from the page.
We re-read it every 365 days. More about this source
«Permanencia Temporal de un (1), dos (2) o de tres (3) años. Por un plazo máximo de noventa (90) días calendario, continuos o discontinuos por año;»Our translation - not official
Temporary stay of one (1), two (2) or three (3) years. For a maximum period of ninety (90) calendar days, continuous or discontinuous, per year;
"Continuos o discontinuos" is what makes this an annual quota rather than a rule about a single long trip.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
A labour-law database that holds national gazettes' own PDFs. Used here only where a country's gazette and consolidator were both unreachable, so that the artefact quoted is still the gazette's own file even though the host is not the gazette.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the law as currently in force. A record is created once and holds the text as enacted; later amending instruments are not reflected in the file, so anything taken from it must be checked against a consolidator before being treated as current. Its own page rendering also splits words inside sentences, so quotations must come from the attached PDF rather than from the page.
We re-read it every 365 days. More about this source
«Permanencia Definitiva. Por un plazo máximo de dos (2) años continuos.»Our translation - not official
Permanent stay. For a maximum period of two (2) continuous years.
Continuous, with no annual quota attached - the opposite shape of rule from the temporary permit above it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
A labour-law database that holds national gazettes' own PDFs. Used here only where a country's gazette and consolidator were both unreachable, so that the artefact quoted is still the gazette's own file even though the host is not the gazette.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the law as currently in force. A record is created once and holds the text as enacted; later amending instruments are not reflected in the file, so anything taken from it must be checked against a consolidator before being treated as current. Its own page rendering also splits words inside sentences, so quotations must come from the attached PDF rather than from the page.
We re-read it every 365 days. More about this source
«Por ausentarse del territorio nacional por más tiempo del establecido en el reglamento de la presente Ley, sin contar con la autorización de la Dirección General de Migración.»Our translation - not official
For being absent from the national territory for longer than the period established in the Regulation to this Law, without holding the authorisation of the Directorate General of Migration.
The statute delegates the actual number to the regulation, which is why the periods have to be read from Decreto Supremo 1923 rather than from the law.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
A labour-law database that holds national gazettes' own PDFs. Used here only where a country's gazette and consolidator were both unreachable, so that the artefact quoted is still the gazette's own file even though the host is not the gazette.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the law as currently in force. A record is created once and holds the text as enacted; later amending instruments are not reflected in the file, so anything taken from it must be checked against a consolidator before being treated as current. Its own page rendering also splits words inside sentences, so quotations must come from the attached PDF rather than from the page.
We re-read it every 365 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The regulation speaks of authorisation "from the migration authority" without saying how it is applied for or on what grounds it is given. We found no published procedure for it.
For naturalisation the same idea appears with a different consequence: a departure the migration directorate expressly authorised does not break the continuity of residence being counted.