Country-wide policy
How Much Time You Have to Spend in the Country, by Status
El Salvador applies four different presence tests and they do not agree with each other, so which one binds depends on the status held. A temporary resident must be in the country at least ninety calendar days a year, consecutive or added up - a presence quota introduced in March 2026 and the newest rule of the four. A pensioner or rentista loses the status after six months away, consecutive or cumulative in a calendar year. A permanent resident may be away two years outright, then up to one more with permission and further extensions on application. And someone trying to regularise after ten years of irregular stay has their clock broken by six months' absence. For tax, two hundred consecutive days make you domiciled, and once domiciled for more than a calendar year you may be away a hundred and sixty-five days without losing it. A plan built on one of these figures is not safe against another.
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
- When you become a tax resident
What it requires
- Temporary resident: at least ninety calendar days a year in the country, consecutive or cumulative
- Pensioner or rentista: absences under six months, consecutive or cumulative in a calendar year
- Permanent resident: up to two years' absence, then permission for up to one more year, then extensions of up to a year applied for sixty days ahead
- Permanent residence through a government programme: exempt from the two-year rule entirely
- Tax domicile: more than two hundred consecutive days in a calendar year, then absences of up to a hundred and sixty-five days
- Naturalised Salvadoran: not more than two consecutive years in the country of origin and not more than five years abroad
At a glance
- Temporary resident
- 90 days a year minimum
- Pensioner or rentista
- 6 months' absence cancels
- Permanent resident
- 2 years' absence, extendable
- Government-programme permanent resident
- Exempt from the absence rule
- Tax domicile
- 200 consecutive days
- Absence allowed once tax-domiciled
- 165 days
- Ten-year regularisation route
- 6 months' absence breaks it
- Naturalised Salvadoran
- 2 years in the old country, 5 years anywhere
Constitution article 94 ordinal 1 and article 279 of the migration law, both quoted in full on the citizenship record.
What the law says
«Toda persona con residencia temporal deberá permanecer en el territorio salvadoreño un mínimo de noventa días calendario dentro de cada año, ya sean estos consecutivos o acumulados»Our translation - not official
Every person with temporary residence must remain in Salvadoran territory for a minimum of ninety calendar days within each year, whether consecutive or cumulative
Reform (3): Decreto Legislativo 531 of 17 March 2026, Diario Oficial 57, Tomo 450, of 23 March 2026. A quota of presence, not a cap on absence - the two fail in different circumstances.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The judiciary's legislative repository, and the only place that publishes Salvadoran statutes as consolidated texts with a numbered reform legend naming every amending decree by number, date, Diario Oficial issue and volume. Article-level markers tie each amended paragraph to the decree that changed it, which is what makes an amended article citable here at all.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Its /R/ branch holds **amending acts, not amended laws**, and they read convincingly like the law they reform - a search for the financial inclusion law returns a decree that merely reforms it. Check the opening for Refórmase before quoting anything from that branch. File paths are opaque content hashes with no title and are filed under the decade and month of the **original** act, so a 2026 reform lives under a 2019 path and a document has to be identified from its own text. It also carries no statement of currency: the reform legend is the only evidence of how recently a text was rebuilt.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«perderá su calidad migratoria si su ausencia excediere de seis meses consecutivos o por ese período en intervalos dentro de un mismo año calendario, salvo causas justificadas»Our translation - not official
shall lose their migration status if their absence exceeds six consecutive months or that period in intervals within the same calendar year, except on justified grounds
Both limbs in one sentence: a continuous-absence rule and a cumulative one, applied together to the pensioner and the rentista.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The judiciary's legislative repository, and the only place that publishes Salvadoran statutes as consolidated texts with a numbered reform legend naming every amending decree by number, date, Diario Oficial issue and volume. Article-level markers tie each amended paragraph to the decree that changed it, which is what makes an amended article citable here at all.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Its /R/ branch holds **amending acts, not amended laws**, and they read convincingly like the law they reform - a search for the financial inclusion law returns a decree that merely reforms it. Check the opening for Refórmase before quoting anything from that branch. File paths are opaque content hashes with no title and are filed under the decade and month of the **original** act, so a 2026 reform lives under a 2019 path and a document has to be identified from its own text. It also carries no statement of currency: the reform legend is the only evidence of how recently a text was rebuilt.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«El residente definitivo tendrá libertad de salir y entrar al país y ausentarse hasta por dos años, pero si desea permanecer en el extranjero por más tiempo, deberá solicitar permiso a la Dirección General, la cual lo concederá por un plazo no mayor a un año adicional, previo pago del permiso y de los derechos de refrenda.»Our translation - not official
The permanent resident shall be free to leave and enter the country and to be absent for up to two years, but if they wish to remain abroad for longer they must apply for permission to the Directorate General, which shall grant it for a period of no more than one additional year, on payment of the permission and the renewal fees.
Article 152 numeral 13, added in 2025, exempts holders of programme-based permanent residence from this article altogether.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The judiciary's legislative repository, and the only place that publishes Salvadoran statutes as consolidated texts with a numbered reform legend naming every amending decree by number, date, Diario Oficial issue and volume. Article-level markers tie each amended paragraph to the decree that changed it, which is what makes an amended article citable here at all.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Its /R/ branch holds **amending acts, not amended laws**, and they read convincingly like the law they reform - a search for the financial inclusion law returns a decree that merely reforms it. Check the opening for Refórmase before quoting anything from that branch. File paths are opaque content hashes with no title and are filed under the decade and month of the **original** act, so a 2026 reform lives under a 2019 path and a document has to be identified from its own text. It also carries no statement of currency: the reform legend is the only evidence of how recently a text was rebuilt.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Se considera que se interrumpe la permanencia de la persona extranjera cuando su ausencia excede de los seis meses consecutivos o acumulados en un mismo año.»Our translation - not official
The stay of a foreign person is considered interrupted where their absence exceeds six consecutive or cumulative months in the same year.
The test for the ten-year irregular-stay route to permanent residence at article 152 numeral 9, which also asks for uninterrupted presence, absence of police record, family, social or educational roots, and employment and socio-economic conditions.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The judiciary's legislative repository, and the only place that publishes Salvadoran statutes as consolidated texts with a numbered reform legend naming every amending decree by number, date, Diario Oficial issue and volume. Article-level markers tie each amended paragraph to the decree that changed it, which is what makes an amended article citable here at all.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Its /R/ branch holds **amending acts, not amended laws**, and they read convincingly like the law they reform - a search for the financial inclusion law returns a decree that merely reforms it. Check the opening for Refórmase before quoting anything from that branch. File paths are opaque content hashes with no title and are filed under the decade and month of the **original** act, so a 2026 reform lives under a 2019 path and a document has to be identified from its own text. It also carries no statement of currency: the reform legend is the only evidence of how recently a text was rebuilt.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«por más de doscientos días consecutivos durante un año calendario. Las personas que hayan sido consideradas como domiciliadas durante más de un año calendario, podrán ausentarse del país hasta por ciento sesenta y cinco días sin perder su calidad de domiciliadas;»Our translation - not official
for more than two hundred consecutive days during a calendar year. Persons who have been considered domiciled for more than one calendar year may be absent from the country for up to one hundred and sixty-five days without losing their status as domiciled;
The tax test is the loosest of all of them, which is the reverse of the usual arrangement where tax residence arrives before migration obligations do.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The judiciary's legislative repository, and the only place that publishes Salvadoran statutes as consolidated texts with a numbered reform legend naming every amending decree by number, date, Diario Oficial issue and volume. Article-level markers tie each amended paragraph to the decree that changed it, which is what makes an amended article citable here at all.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Its /R/ branch holds **amending acts, not amended laws**, and they read convincingly like the law they reform - a search for the financial inclusion law returns a decree that merely reforms it. Check the opening for Refórmase before quoting anything from that branch. File paths are opaque content hashes with no title and are filed under the decade and month of the **original** act, so a 2026 reform lives under a 2019 path and a document has to be identified from its own text. It also carries no statement of currency: the reform legend is the only evidence of how recently a text was rebuilt.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source