Ecuador

A tourist is admitted for up to 90 days and can extend once by up to 180 further days, and South Americans start at 180 days with another 180 available - numbers that were rewritten on 14 July 2025 by a protected-areas law that also amended the migration statute. Most of the ministry's own pages still quote the old rule of 90 days within a year extendable by 90, so the published guidance and the statute disagree, and the statute is the one that governs. Most Western nationalities need no visa; a published ministry list names the nationalities that do.

Ecuador's income route is the rentista visa: two years of temporary residence, renewable without limit, against proof of monthly lawful income of at least three minimum wages - USD 1,446 a month in 2026. Unusually for the region, the regulation lets that income come from Ecuadorian as well as foreign sources, so an Ecuadorian rental contract counts. A separate sub-category, the rentista para trabajo remoto that the ministry markets as the Visa Nómada, applies the same three-wage test to foreign-source earnings and lets you satisfy it annually instead of monthly. Both require health insurance valid for the whole visa period.

The work category covers both employment and self-employment, and the two halves are asked for entirely different things. An employee needs a registered contract and a clean compliance certificate from their employer covering tax, social security and the companies regulator - the burden is on the employer's standing, not on a salary threshold, and no minimum salary appears anywhere in the rules we read. The self-employed and consultants instead show a notarised services contract, a tax registration, or a municipal operating permit, and must already hold tourist, residence or business-visitor status when they apply from inside Ecuador. Enrolment in social security is checked at renewal.

The day count is 183 days in a tax year, and Ecuador adds a second, less familiar limb: 183 days across twelve months spanning two tax years also makes you resident unless you can show tax residence somewhere else and that your economic centre is there. Beyond the day counts, the law reaches people whose main economic interests are in Ecuador, with a rebuttable presumption triggered by more than USD 1 million of Ecuadorian assets in the hands of someone with a past Ecuadorian connection. Against all that sits a genuine opt-out: a five-year temporary fiscal residence regime that taxes Ecuadorian-source income only, for newcomers who invest USD 150,000 or prove USD 2,500 a month from abroad.

Three separate things are true at once. Emergency care cannot be refused to anyone on grounds of nationality or migration status, and the Constitutional Court has since read the statute as meaning that irregular status or the absence of a visa cannot block medical attention at all. Residents have a right to the health systems and to social security, and a foreigner holding an Ecuadorian identity card can enrol in the IESS voluntarily. But the immigration rules push in the other direction: a rentista, a pensioner or a remote worker must hold private or public health insurance covering Ecuador for the whole life of the visa before it is granted.

Ecuador has a dedicated pension category. It asks for an official document from the foreign institution paying the pension, certifying a monthly pension of at least three minimum wages - USD 1,446 in 2026 - and it will not accept savings or investment income in its place: the money has to be a pension, and it has to come from abroad. Health insurance covering Ecuador is required for the whole visa period, USD 250 of extra monthly income is needed per dependent, and the fee is halved for applicants aged 65 and over.

Ecuador's investor visa is priced at 100 minimum wages - USD 48,200 in 2026 - and takes several shapes: a two-year term deposit, a property purchase, shares in an Ecuadorian company, or a contract signed with the State. Whatever the form, the asset is locked while the visa runs: a property is annotated at the land registry so it cannot be sold, shares are flagged with the companies regulator, and letting the investment go is grounds for cancellation. The same category quietly covers legal representatives and commercial agents of companies with at least 100 minimum wages of share capital, a route that asks for an appointment rather than money of one's own.

The student category runs from basic schooling to postgraduate study and covers professional internships as well as classroom study, including language schools teaching Ecuador's official languages. The visa is cut to the length of the programme, with a floor of six months in the statute and a ceiling of two years in the regulation, so a longer degree is renewed rather than granted in one piece. Proof of means may come from a parent for students up to 21, or from a scholarship letter covering tuition and living costs.

Ecuador has no ancestry visa in the European sense, but it has something that does much of the same work and is faster: a relative up to the second degree of consanguinity or affinity of an Ecuadorian citizen goes straight to permanent residence, with no waiting period and no temporary stage. Second degree reaches parents, children, grandparents, grandchildren and siblings, and by affinity the equivalents through a spouse. What is asked for is documentary proof of the relationship; the Ecuadorian relative shows lawful means and, for adult dependants beyond the first degree, USD 250 of extra monthly income each.

Marriage or a legally recognised de facto union with an Ecuadorian, or with a foreigner who already holds permanent residence, is a direct ground for permanent residence with no waiting period. A de facto union counts on the same footing as a marriage provided it is registered with the civil registry. The application is backed by the civil registry certificate and an interview, and a marriage entered into to obtain status is punished by revocation of the visa. Naturalisation on the back of the marriage is a separate step and needs two years.

Naturalisation by carta needs three years domiciled in Ecuador while holding permanent residence - which in practice means about four years and nine months from arrival, because permanent residence itself takes 21 months to earn. The tests are a general knowledge examination on Ecuadorian history, geography, culture and current affairs, spoken and written Spanish, lawful means of support, being up to date with the State, and an interview about your motives. A degree completed in Ecuador in Spanish excuses both the knowledge test and the language test; being over 65 excuses the knowledge test but not the language. Marriage is a separate and much shorter route: two years, with a statutory ninety-day deadline on the decision. Recognised refugees and stateless people qualify after two years.

Ecuador is unusual in operating several parallel treaty routes at once. The migration law creates a general category, residente por convenio, for anyone entering under a visa set by an international instrument Ecuador is party to, and the ministry's catalogue then runs separate procedures for the Mercosur Residence Agreement, for the Andean Migration Statute, and for the bilateral migration statute with Venezuela. The Andean route is the cheapest of all: the grant itself is free. Whichever instrument applies, its own terms govern - including the proof of means, which the ministry's rules expressly hand back to the treaty.

The transit agency will convert a foreign licence, professional or not, into an Ecuadorian one. What makes the file heavy is the authentication: besides the licence itself, the agency wants a separate certificate confirming the licence is valid, issued either by your country's diplomatic mission in Ecuador or by the issuing transit authority and apostilled. It also wants a blood-type card from the Ecuadorian Red Cross and a certificate of your migration movements. The exchange costs USD 142 under the 2024 tariff, is done in person, and produces a licence valid for five years - or for the length of your stay, if that is shorter.

Ecuador's household-goods exemption is open to foreigners, not only to returning Ecuadorians, but it is a different regime for each. A foreigner needs a temporary or permanent residence visa to claim it - or, if the visa is still in process, a guarantee covering the full duty on the shipment - and must use a licensed customs agent, which returning Ecuadorians may avoid. Work equipment up to 160 minimum wages comes in free of import duty, and above 80 minimum wages an investment plan has to be filed. Two things a foreigner cannot do: bring a car or a motorcycle as part of the shipment, and leave within two years without unwinding the exemption.

Ecuador answers this the way Colombia does and then adds a condition nobody repeats. The supervisor's rule for the basic deposit account asks a bank to verify identity against an Ecuadorian cédula: the cédula de ciudadanía for Ecuadorians, the cédula de identidad for foreigners. A passport is not named. That puts the identity card before the account, and the visa before the identity card. BanEcuador, the state development bank, then publishes which cards it will actually accept, and the answer is a card held on a temporary visa of at least two years, or a permanent one. Someone lawfully resident on a one-year temporary visa holds a valid Ecuadorian cédula and is still outside that door.