Residence by Investment, and What the Bitcoin Programme Actually Rests On
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Guatemala 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 Guatemala to El Salvador · Residency through investment
There are two real investor thresholds in Salvadoran law and both are small. Ten thousand dollars subscribed and paid as a shareholder in a Salvadoran company, or two thousand five hundred dollars of assets in a sole trader's business, each buying two years of temporary residence renewable. Both are reserved to foreigners who are not Central American by origin - Central Americans reach the same place on easier terms through their own route. A third, open-ended category exists for the investor proper, with no sum in the law at all: the requirement is registration of the foreign capital with the Ministry of Economy's National Investment Office, which decides what counts. Alongside all this sits the programme the country is known for. In 2023 the law gained a naturalisation ground for foreigners who meet the requirements of government programmes to attract investors or donors, and in 2025 a permanent-residence ground for foreigners who join government-promoted programmes, exempt from the two-year absence rule, with its own fee of six hundred and ninety dollars. Those three amendments are the whole of the legal footing we could find. The million-dollar figure, the thousand places a year and the fee for dependants are published by the programme's promoters and by nothing we could read as an instrument.
At a glance
- Shareholder threshold
- USD 10,000 subscribed and paid
Article 109 numeral 13 writes the sum in words, "diez mil dólares de los Estados Unidos de América", rather than in digits.
- Sole trader threshold
- USD 2,500 in business assets
Article 109 numeral 14 writes the sum in words, "dos mil quinientos dólares de los Estados Unidos de América", rather than in digits.
- Investor category threshold
- None stated in the law
Article 109 numeral 1 sets no sum. The regulation makes the test registration of the foreign capital with the Ministry of Economy's National Investment Office, which is where any threshold would live - and we did not read that office's rules.
- Grant
- Up to 2 years, renewable, multiple entry
- Who the two sums are written for
- Foreigners not Central American by origin
- Investor visa fee, categories B and C
- USD 200
- Government-programme permanent residence
- Direct, no prior temporary residenceas of 2025-05-05
- Its fee
- USD 690 for up to one year
- Naturalisation ground for investors
- In the law since 2024as of 2024-01-09
Article 156 numeral 5, added by Decreto Legislativo 918 of 20 December 2023, published in Diario Oficial 5, Tomo 442, of 9 January 2024.
- Stated investment for the promoted Bitcoin programme
- No instrument found
The programme's own terms - a million dollars in bitcoin or dollars, a thousand places a year, a charge per dependant - are published by its promoters. We looked in the migration law, its regulation, the Bitcoin Law as amended and the 2025 tax decree for new investments, and found no instrument stating any of them.
Requirements
- For the shareholder route: a Salvadoran company constituted with at least USD 10,000 subscribed and paid by you as a shareholder, evidenced by the notarised deed registered at the Commercial Registry or the share certificate
- For the sole trader route: a registered mercantile business with assets of at least USD 2,500, evidenced by a certified balance sheet, plus the business and establishment registrations
- For the investor category: registration of the foreign capital with the Oficina Nacional de Inversiones of the Ministry of Economy, certified by a Salvadoran notary
- Not being Central American by origin, for the shareholder and sole trader routes - which are written for foreigners who are not
- A valid passport and a foreign police or criminal record certificate, authenticated or apostilled
- For the government-programme route: meeting the requirements of a programme promoted by the central government, with the directorate running a special procedure for it
Country-level policy
El Salvador adopted the United States dollar as legal tender by a decree of November 2000, and the statutes written since then state money in dollars with no national unit behind it: a thousand dollars of duty-free goods, fifteen thousand dollars CIF of household effects, a seven-hundred-dollar naturalisation fee, a six-thousand-six-hundred-dollar exempt band. Nothing on this country's pages needs converting, and a figure that looks converted has been mishandled. Two residues are worth knowing about. The Social Security Law of 1953 still fixes the State's annual contribution in colones, a currency that no longer circulates, because nobody has amended that sentence. And since 2021 bitcoin has also been legal tender - amended in January 2025 so that acceptance is voluntary and only private persons may accept it, with the obligation to accept, the state conversion mechanism and payment of taxes in bitcoin all repealed.
El Salvador writes its qualifying incomes as multiples of the monthly minimum wage for the commerce and services sector, not as sums. Three wages for a pensioner, four for a rentista, six for a rentista with two or more people in tow, and four again as the monthly ceiling on a simplified bank account. The sector named is the highest-paid of the published rates, which matters: the same multiple of the agricultural rate would be a third lower. Nothing has to be amended when the Ministry of Labour reissues the wage decree, so every dollar figure on these pages is arithmetic rather than law, and it moves on a date no migration instrument announces. The rate in force since 1 June 2025 is $408.80 a month. The fees are the opposite case: the migration law's own schedule states them in dollars and they change only when the law does.
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.
Most countries in this region put their migration fees in a ministerial schedule that can be reissued without anyone noticing, and several of them write the amounts in an index unit rather than in money. El Salvador does neither: article 325 of the migration law is a fee schedule running to several dozen lines, stated in dollars, and it can only be changed by amending the law. That has a second consequence worth knowing. The schedule charges a non-Central American roughly twice what it charges a Central American for the same service, line after line - a hundred and forty dollars against seventy for a year of temporary residence, three hundred and forty-five against a hundred and thirty-five for first-time permanent residence, sixty against a hundred for permission to be absent. Humanitarian cases may be exempted from the fees altogether.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Guatemala
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
«Las personas extranjeras no centroamericanas de origen que constituyan sociedades salvadoreñas y que hayan suscrito y pagado como accionista en dicha sociedad no menos de diez mil dólares de los Estados Unidos de América, podrá concederse residencia con ingreso y salida múltiple por un plazo de hasta dos años prorrogables.»Our translation - not official
Foreign persons not Central American by origin who constitute Salvadoran companies and who have subscribed and paid as a shareholder in that company not less than ten thousand United States dollars may be granted residence with multiple entry and exit for a term of up to two years, renewable.
'No centroamericanas de origen' is a condition, not an aside: the route is written for everyone else, because Central Americans have their own and better one.
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
«Las personas extranjeras no centroamericanas de origen que sean comerciantes individuales titulares de empresas mercantiles cuyos activos no sean inferiores a dos mil quinientos dólares de los Estados Unidos de América, podrá concederse residencia con ingreso y salida múltiple por un plazo de hasta dos años prorrogables.»Our translation - not official
Foreign persons not Central American by origin who are sole traders owning mercantile businesses whose assets are not less than two thousand five hundred United States dollars may be granted residence with multiple entry and exit for a term of up to two years, renewable.
Two and a half thousand dollars of business assets is the lowest investment threshold for residence anywhere in the twelve countries covered here.
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
«Fotocopia certificada por notario salvadoreño del registro del capital extranjero emitida por la Oficina Nacional de Inversiones (ONI) del Ministerio de Economía.»Our translation - not official
A photocopy, certified by a Salvadoran notary, of the registration of the foreign capital issued by the National Investment Office (ONI) of the Ministry of Economy.
The whole of the investor category's substance sits in this document, and the law delegates the standard for it.
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
«Los extranjeros que se adhieran a los programas que promueva el gobierno central, de la clase que fueren, sin necesidad de obtener previamente la residencia temporal. La Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería definirá un Procedimiento Especial para tales efectos. Dichas personas estarán exentas de cumplir con lo regulado en el artículo 154 de la presente ley.»Our translation - not official
Foreigners who join the programmes promoted by the central government, of whatever kind, without needing to obtain temporary residence first. The Directorate General of Migration and Immigration shall define a Special Procedure for that purpose. Those persons shall be exempt from complying with article 154 of this law.
Reform (2) in the consolidated text's legend: Decreto Legislativo 286 of 30 April 2025, published in Diario Oficial 81, Tomo 447, of 5 May 2025. Article 154 is the two-year absence limit on permanent residents, so this grants permanent residence that does not lapse through living elsewhere. The programme is not named and no sum is stated.
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
«Los extranjeros que cumplan con los requisitos establecidos en los programas gubernamentales destinados a la atracción de inversionistas o donantes que busquen apoyar el desarrollo económico, social y cultural de El Salvador mediante inyección de capital en moneda de curso legal o mediante proyectos de inversión sostenible.»Our translation - not official
Foreigners who meet the requirements laid down in government programmes aimed at attracting investors or donors seeking to support the economic, social and cultural development of El Salvador through an injection of capital in legal tender or through sustainable investment projects.
Reform (1) in the consolidated text's legend: Decreto Legislativo 918 of 20 December 2023, published in Diario Oficial 5, Tomo 442, of 9 January 2024. 'Moneda de curso legal' is the phrase that connects this to the Bitcoin Law, under which bitcoin is legal tender - but the requirements themselves are left to the programme and are not in the law.
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
«Definitiva para personas extranjeras según el numeral 13) del Art. 152, hasta por un $ 690.00»Our translation - not official
Permanent for foreign persons under numeral 13 of article 152, up to one year, $690.00
The line is marked (2) in the consolidated text, which is Decreto Legislativo 286 of 2025 - the same decree that created the category. A fee in the statute is the clearest evidence that the route is operating, and it is double the $345 charged for ordinary permanent residence for a non-Central American.
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
«Visa de inversionistas, de negocio o representante comercial para categoría B y C $ 200.00»Our translation - not official
Investor, business or commercial representative visa for categories B and C, $200.00
One of the few lines in the fee schedule that does not split the rate between Central Americans and everyone else.
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
«La presente Ley tiene como objeto la regulación del Bitcoin como curso legal, definido por su poder liberatorio ilimitado, con aceptación voluntaria por las personas naturales o jurídicas con total participación privada únicamente, en cualquier transacción y a cualquier título que requieran realizar.»Our translation - not official
This Law has as its object the regulation of Bitcoin as legal tender, defined by its unlimited discharging power, with voluntary acceptance by natural or legal persons with wholly private participation only, in any transaction and on any basis they need to carry out.
Reform (1) in the legend: Decreto Legislativo 199 of 29 January 2025, Diario Oficial 21, Tomo 446, of 30 January 2025. The same decree repealed articles 4, 8 and 9 - compulsory acceptance, the state conversion mechanism and payment of taxes in bitcoin. What survives is legal tender that nobody is obliged to accept.
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
Practical notes
The Freedom Visa is the clearest case in this country of promotion outrunning the instrument. What exists in law is three amendments: a naturalisation ground in 2023, a permanent-residence ground in 2025, and a fee line for the latter. None of them names a programme, a sum, a currency or a number of places. We looked in the migration law and its regulation, in the Bitcoin Law as amended in January 2025, and in Decreto Legislativo 374 of 2025, the special regime for staff of entities making new investments - and found no instrument stating the published terms.
The two stated investment sums, ten thousand and two thousand five hundred dollars, are in the law as enacted in 2019 and have not been amended since. They are not indexed to anything, so unlike the rentista thresholds they fall in real terms every year.
The investor category at article 109 numeral 1 has no sum at all. Reading the regulation's requirement list is what shows why: the test it sets is registration with the Ministry of Economy's National Investment Office, and we have not read that office's own rules, so we do not state a threshold for it.
- consolidatesLey Especial de Migración y de Extranjería, consolidated text with reform legend
Centro de Documentacion Judicial, Corte Suprema de Justicia (El Salvador)
About 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
- consolidatesReglamento de la Ley Especial de Migración y de Extranjería, arts. 162, 173 and 174
Centro de Documentacion Judicial, Corte Suprema de Justicia (El Salvador)
About 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
- consolidatesLey Bitcoin, consolidated text with reform legend
Centro de Documentacion Judicial, Corte Suprema de Justicia (El Salvador)
About 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
- administersResidencias temporales - formularios
Direccion General de Migracion y Extranjeria (El Salvador)
About this source
Decides every Salvadoran migration application and publishes the numbered application forms applicants work from.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for anything about the law. Its service pages are a sentence and a link, and the law, the regulation, the visa-required country list and all forty-five forms sit on Google Drive - which cannot be stored or compared, so a change there is invisible to us. Its own copy of the migration law is a 2020 snapshot predating three reforms, and every service page read carries a 2020 date while the statute has moved in 2023, 2025 and 2026. It cannot be cited for the visa-required nationalities at all.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source