Country-wide policy
The Whole Immigration Rulebook Was Rewritten in 2025
On 21 May 2025 the director of the migration institute issued three new regulations at once - on visas, on residence permits and on the register of ordinary migration status - and the National Migration Authority approved them two days later. In October the fee schedule was rewritten to match. The old visa and residency regulations, from 2022 and 2023, were repealed outright. Nothing written about Guatemalan immigration before the autumn of 2025 is describing the rules that now apply, and the practical consequences are real: the income thresholds for a foreign-employer worker and for a rentista, the hundred-thousand-dollar investor test and the separate Central American price for permanent residence all live in the new texts.
Topics it changes
- Visiting as a tourist
- Residency on passive income
- Residency as a retiree
- Residency through work
- Residency through investment
- Residency as a student
- Residency through marriage
- Residency through ancestry
- Residency under a regional treaty
What it requires
- Visas are governed by Acuerdo IGM-015-2025, approved by Acuerdo de Autoridad Migratoria Nacional AMN 04-2025
- Residence permits are governed by Acuerdo IGM-016-2025, approved by Acuerdo de Autoridad Migratoria Nacional AMN-05-2025
- The register of ordinary migration status is governed by Acuerdo IGM-017-2025, approved by AMN-06-2025
- Fees are governed by the 2023 schedule as rewritten by Acuerdo IGM-039-2025, approved by AMN-012-2025
- The repealed instruments are Acuerdo IGM-044-2023 on visas and Acuerdo IGM-092-2022 on residence
At a glance
- Date the three regulations were signed
- 21 May 2025
From the signature block the director placed on each of the three agreements.
- Date the visa regulation was approved
- 23 May 2025
From the signature block of the National Migration Authority's approving agreement. The residency regulation's approving agreement is not published in the same file, so no comparable date is stated for it.
- When the visa regulation took effect
- 3 months after publication
Three months after publication in the Diario de Centro América. We did not find the publication date, so we do not state the day it began to apply.
- Date the fee reform was signed
- 6 October 2025
From the signature block of Acuerdo IGM-039-2025. It was approved the following day.
A regulation that does not say when it starts
Both 2025 regulations end with the same sentence: the agreement must be sent up to the National Migration Authority for approval and takes effect as that Authority decides. For visas, the approval is printed in the same file, and it sets the delay at three months after publication in the official gazette. For residence permits, it is not: the file the institute publishes contains the director's agreement and stops at his signature. The approving instrument, AMN-05-2025, is named in the file's own title and in the October fee reform, and the institute lists the regulation on its legislation page as current - but we have not read the text that brought it into force, and so we cannot state the date from which it applies.
What changed that a reader would notice
The foreign-employer income test, the investor threshold, the rentista and pensionado amounts, the thirty-day deadline to register as a resident after being notified, the annual tax-clearance duty on temporary residents and the three-month deadline for a migrant worker to produce a work permit are all in the 2025 residency regulation. On the visa side, the category changes that let a United States, Mexican, Canadian or Schengen visa upgrade a nationality, and the rule that three years of residence in a visa-free country does the same, are in the 2025 visa regulation. Older descriptions of Guatemala tend to repeat figures and procedures from the 2022-2023 texts, which no longer exist.
What the law says
«Se aprueba el Acuerdo de Dirección General No. IGM-015-2025 de fecha 21 de mayo de 2025 el cual contiene el Reglamento de Visas Guatemaltecas.»Our translation - not official
Director General's Agreement No. IGM-015-2025 of 21 May 2025, containing the Regulation on Guatemalan Visas, is approved.
About this source
Guatemala's migration institute. It issues the residence, visa and tariff rulebooks, decides applications including consulted visas, and runs a field-verification unit. It also hosts the Código de Migración, which Congress issues and it does not.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the classification of countries into visa categories: the institute publishes that list only as an image, and nothing text-bearing on its sites carries it. Nor for the fee actually payable, since the instrument sets dollars and a separate quarterly resolution sets the exchange rate. Nor, specifically, is its own tariff page a statement of the tariff in force - read on the same day as the instrument it reproduces, it omits the Central American rate for permanent residence entirely. And not for tax, labour or traffic rules, which belong to other bodies.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«El presente Acuerdo entrará en vigencia, tres meses después de su publicación en el Diario de Centroamérica.»Our translation - not official
This Agreement shall enter into force three months after its publication in the Diario de Centroamérica.
About this source
Guatemala's migration institute. It issues the residence, visa and tariff rulebooks, decides applications including consulted visas, and runs a field-verification unit. It also hosts the Código de Migración, which Congress issues and it does not.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the classification of countries into visa categories: the institute publishes that list only as an image, and nothing text-bearing on its sites carries it. Nor for the fee actually payable, since the instrument sets dollars and a separate quarterly resolution sets the exchange rate. Nor, specifically, is its own tariff page a statement of the tariff in force - read on the same day as the instrument it reproduces, it omits the Central American rate for permanent residence entirely. And not for tax, labour or traffic rules, which belong to other bodies.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Se deroga el Acuerdo número IGM-044-2023 de fecha 16 de agosto de 2023.»Our translation - not official
Agreement No. IGM-044-2023 of 16 August 2023 is repealed.
About this source
Guatemala's migration institute. It issues the residence, visa and tariff rulebooks, decides applications including consulted visas, and runs a field-verification unit. It also hosts the Código de Migración, which Congress issues and it does not.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the classification of countries into visa categories: the institute publishes that list only as an image, and nothing text-bearing on its sites carries it. Nor for the fee actually payable, since the instrument sets dollars and a separate quarterly resolution sets the exchange rate. Nor, specifically, is its own tariff page a statement of the tariff in force - read on the same day as the instrument it reproduces, it omits the Central American rate for permanent residence entirely. And not for tax, labour or traffic rules, which belong to other bodies.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Se deroga el Acuerdo número IGM-092-2022 de fecha 25 de octubre de 2022.»Our translation - not official
Agreement No. IGM-092-2022 of 25 October 2022 is repealed.
About this source
Guatemala's migration institute. It issues the residence, visa and tariff rulebooks, decides applications including consulted visas, and runs a field-verification unit. It also hosts the Código de Migración, which Congress issues and it does not.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the classification of countries into visa categories: the institute publishes that list only as an image, and nothing text-bearing on its sites carries it. Nor for the fee actually payable, since the instrument sets dollars and a separate quarterly resolution sets the exchange rate. Nor, specifically, is its own tariff page a statement of the tariff in force - read on the same day as the instrument it reproduces, it omits the Central American rate for permanent residence entirely. And not for tax, labour or traffic rules, which belong to other bodies.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Que las presentes reformas al Reglamento de Tarifas por servicios migratorios del Instituto Guatemalteco de Migración tienen relación con los Reglamentos de Visas Guatemaltecas, Residencias Guatemaltecas y del Registro del Estatus Ordinario Migratorio del Instituto Guatemalteco de Migración emitidos mediante los acuerdos IGM-015-2025, IGM-016-2025 e IGM-017-2025 y aprobados por medio de los acuerdos AMN 04-2025, AMN 05-2025 y AMN 06-2025, respectivamente;»Our translation - not official
That these amendments to the Regulation on Fees for migration services of the Guatemalan Migration Institute relate to the Regulations on Guatemalan Visas, on Guatemalan Residence Permits and on the Register of Ordinary Migration Status of the Guatemalan Migration Institute, issued by agreements IGM-015-2025, IGM-016-2025 and IGM-017-2025 and approved by agreements AMN 04-2025, AMN 05-2025 and AMN 06-2025 respectively;
This recital is our authority for the set of three. It is also where the fee reform of October 2025 says what it is for.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guatemala's migration institute. It issues the residence, visa and tariff rulebooks, decides applications including consulted visas, and runs a field-verification unit. It also hosts the Código de Migración, which Congress issues and it does not.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the classification of countries into visa categories: the institute publishes that list only as an image, and nothing text-bearing on its sites carries it. Nor for the fee actually payable, since the instrument sets dollars and a separate quarterly resolution sets the exchange rate. Nor, specifically, is its own tariff page a statement of the tariff in force - read on the same day as the instrument it reproduces, it omits the Central American rate for permanent residence entirely. And not for tax, labour or traffic rules, which belong to other bodies.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The fee schedule in force is not a single document. The institute publishes a consolidation prepared by a commercial legal service that strings together the 2023 schedule, its 2023 amendment on refused-entry charges, and the October 2025 reform that substitutes articles 3 and 8 wholesale. Where this record cites a fee, the citation is to the article of the 2023 schedule as substituted, not to the numbering of the amending agreement.