Residency Through Marriage
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Ecuador on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
81 exceptions recorded across 33 countries · none match Ecuador to Bolivia · Residency through marriage
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.
At a glance
- Category used
- Temporary stay for family
- Length
- 1, 2 or 3 years, set by the reasoned application
- Fee, one year
- 260 UFVas of 2026-09-27
The cheapest first residence permit in Bolivia's published catalogue outside the treaty routes.
- Fee, three years
- 460 UFVas of 2026-09-27
- Permanent residence after
- 3 years, at 2510 UFV
- Naturalisation after
- 2 years of uninterrupted temporary residence
- Effect of widowhood or divorce
- Nationality once acquired is not lost
- Unmarried partners
- A judicially recognised free union counts
Requirements
- A sworn declaration form applying for the temporary stay
- A valid passport
- An entry or admission stamp for exempt nationalities, or a consular visa, or a current transitory stay - or your existing permit if renewing
- A marriage certificate: the original, duly legalised, if the marriage took place abroad; or one issued by the civil registry service if it took place in Bolivia
- A simple copy of the Bolivian spouse's identity card, with the original for checking
- Yellow fever vaccination if relevant, and a current photograph
- Where the couple are not married, a judicial ruling recognising the free union serves instead
In detail
The saving is a year of nationality, not a year of residence
Marriage does not shorten the road to permanent residence: that is three years whatever the ground. What it shortens is naturalisation, from more than three years of uninterrupted residence to two. Someone married to a Bolivian who wants a passport rather than a card should be counting to two, not to three.
Country-level policy
Bolivia does not set migration fees in money. It sets them in Unidades de Fomento a la Vivienda, an inflation-indexed unit whose value in bolivianos is published daily, and you pay the boliviano equivalent on the day you pay. Every figure on this country's pages is therefore a number of UFV: quoting it in bolivianos without saying so would be publishing a number that goes quietly stale.
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.
Whatever route you take, the migration directorate attaches the same condition to it: you have to file a sworn statement of your current address on its online platform. The notice appears word for word on every residence procedure Bolivia publishes, from a 30-day tourist extension to naturalisation, and it names the decree that introduced it.
On 30 March 2026 Bolivia created a government-wide deregulation programme called Tranca Cero. It builds a single national catalogue of procedures and provides that, once that catalogue is fully in place, no requirement outside it may be demanded. The migration directorate has put a notice at the top of its own procedures page saying its published requirements are the ones currently in force and that the changes coming out of the programme will be added when the implementing rules appear. Everything on Bolivia's pages should be read against that.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Ecuador
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«Permanencia temporal por familia, dirigida a personas extranjeras que se encuentren en territorio boliviano por vínculos de parentesco consanguíneo, civil o de adopción, por dependencia económica, afinidad o por matrimonio, cuya vigencia se otorga de acuerdo a la solicitud debidamente fundamentada;»Our translation - not official
Temporary stay for family, directed at foreign persons who are in Bolivian territory by ties of blood, civil or adoptive kinship, economic dependence, affinity or marriage, whose validity is granted in accordance with the duly reasoned application;
Marriage is the last item in a list, not a category. There is no separate spousal permit.
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
«Que tengan cónyuge boliviana o boliviano, hijas o hijos bolivianos, o padres sustitutos bolivianos. La nacionalidad no se perderá en caso de viudez o divorcio.»Our translation - not official
Who have a Bolivian spouse, Bolivian sons or daughters, or Bolivian substitute parents. Nationality shall not be lost in the event of widowhood or divorce.
The second sentence is the one that matters in practice, and it is frequently dropped when this rule is summarised.
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
«Demostrar la permanencia temporal de dos (2) años ininterrumpida en el país. En los casos que la Dirección General de Migración autorice expresamente la salida del territorio boliviano, la permanencia se considerará ininterrumpida;»Our translation - not official
To demonstrate two (2) years of uninterrupted temporary stay in the country. Where the Directorate General of Migration expressly authorises departure from Bolivian territory, the stay shall be considered uninterrupted;
Uninterrupted, with an express exception for authorised absences. Two separate rules and they need reading together.
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
«Certificado de matrimonio original debidamente legalizado o copia legalizada, o resolución judicial de reconocimiento de unión libre o copia legalizada, y copia simple de la cédula de Identidad boliviana de la o el cónyuge.»Our translation - not official
Original marriage certificate duly legalised or a legalised copy, or a judicial ruling recognising a free union or a legalised copy, and a simple copy of the Bolivian identity card of the spouse.
About this source
The migration directorate. Runs the migration system and publishes the requirement and fee catalogue for every procedure, differentiated by the applicant's nationality - which is how the difference between an Andean, a Mercosur and an ordinary applicant becomes visible at all.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the text of any instrument: it paraphrases and mis-titles them, calling SEGIP's counterpart the "Dirección Nacional de Migración". Cannot be cited for the visa-group lists, which it never publishes, nor for how tourist requirements differ by nationality - its tourist rows are identical for every country and demand a consular visa even of visa-exempt ones, which contradicts Decision 878. Two of its requirement fields ship with developer placeholder text still in them. The citable text is a JSON feed on a non-standard port, so a publisher-origin match will not find it.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«costo: 1 año: 260 UFVS
2 años: 360 UFVS
3 años: 460 UFVS»Our translation - not official
cost: 1 year: 260 UFV, 2 years: 360 UFV, 3 years: 460 UFV
About this source
The migration directorate. Runs the migration system and publishes the requirement and fee catalogue for every procedure, differentiated by the applicant's nationality - which is how the difference between an Andean, a Mercosur and an ordinary applicant becomes visible at all.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the text of any instrument: it paraphrases and mis-titles them, calling SEGIP's counterpart the "Dirección Nacional de Migración". Cannot be cited for the visa-group lists, which it never publishes, nor for how tourist requirements differ by nationality - its tourist rows are identical for every country and demand a consular visa even of visa-exempt ones, which contradicts Decision 878. Two of its requirement fields ship with developer placeholder text still in them. The citable text is a JSON feed on a non-standard port, so a publisher-origin match will not find it.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«costo: 2510 UFVs»Our translation - not official
cost: 2510 UFV
The same figure the work route carries for permanent residence: it is the general price, not a family-specific one.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The migration directorate. Runs the migration system and publishes the requirement and fee catalogue for every procedure, differentiated by the applicant's nationality - which is how the difference between an Andean, a Mercosur and an ordinary applicant becomes visible at all.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the text of any instrument: it paraphrases and mis-titles them, calling SEGIP's counterpart the "Dirección Nacional de Migración". Cannot be cited for the visa-group lists, which it never publishes, nor for how tourist requirements differ by nationality - its tourist rows are identical for every country and demand a consular visa even of visa-exempt ones, which contradicts Decision 878. Two of its requirement fields ship with developer placeholder text still in them. The citable text is a JSON feed on a non-standard port, so a publisher-origin match will not find it.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«cuenten con una permanencia mínima de tres (3) años»Our translation - not official
hold a minimum stay of three (3) years
Quoted so that the three years this record compares the two-year naturalisation period against sits on the same record.
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 migration directorate also publishes a separate procedure for confirming Bolivian nationality by marriage, but it is limited to people who married a Bolivian before a 1996 decree was repealed. It is not a route for anyone marrying today.
Where the Bolivian spouse's identity card details do not match the identification service's records, the directorate asks for a certification from that service instead.
- reportsDecreto Supremo N° 1923 - Reglamento de la Ley N° 370 de Migración (Gaceta Oficial, via ILO NATLEX)
Gaceta Oficial del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia (copy held by ILO NATLEX)
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
- reportsLey N° 370 de Migración de 8 de mayo de 2013 (Gaceta Oficial, via ILO NATLEX)
Gaceta Oficial del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia (copy held by ILO NATLEX)
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
- administersTrámites Migratorios Internacionales - catálogo general para personas extranjeras
Dirección General de Migración (Bolivia)
About this source
The migration directorate. Runs the migration system and publishes the requirement and fee catalogue for every procedure, differentiated by the applicant's nationality - which is how the difference between an Andean, a Mercosur and an ordinary applicant becomes visible at all.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the text of any instrument: it paraphrases and mis-titles them, calling SEGIP's counterpart the "Dirección Nacional de Migración". Cannot be cited for the visa-group lists, which it never publishes, nor for how tourist requirements differ by nationality - its tourist rows are identical for every country and demand a consular visa even of visa-exempt ones, which contradicts Decision 878. Two of its requirement fields ship with developer placeholder text still in them. The citable text is a JSON feed on a non-standard port, so a publisher-origin match will not find it.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source