Country-wide policy
The fee schedules are published as pictures, so the law's own amounts cannot be read
Nicaraguan statutes set their fees in tables, and the National Assembly's legal-information service publishes those tables as images rather than as text. In the migration law the schedules for articles 121, 122, 122 bis and 123 are each a line of prose followed by a picture; the traffic law does the same for its licence fees, its eye-test charges and its workshop penalties. The amounts are in the instrument and are not in anything a reader or a machine can quote from it. The practical consequence is that the only published money figures for migration and driving come from the migration directorate's own price lists, in córdobas, which are a statement of what the counter charges rather than of what the law sets.
Topics it changes
- Visiting as a tourist
- Residency through work
- Residency as a student
- Residency through investment
- Residency through marriage
- Driving and licence exchange
What it requires
- Treat any migration fee stated in dollars as unverified unless it has been read somewhere other than the consolidated statute
- Read the migration directorate's córdoba price lists as the agency's charge, not as the statutory amount
- Expect the statutory amounts to be in dollars and the counter's to be in córdobas at the central bank's rate of the day
At a glance
- Where migration fees are set
- The schedules at art. 121, art. 122, art. 122 bis and art. 123 of the migration law
- How they are published
- As images in the consolidated text
- Currency in the statute
- United States dollars, payable in córdobas at the central bank's rate
- Currency on the agency's price list
- Córdobas
- Other laws that do the same
- The traffic law, for licence fees, eye tests and workshop penalties
What the law says
«Se establecen las siguientes tasas por servicios migratorios exclusivos para ciudadanos de otras nacionalidades.»Our translation - not official
The following fees are established for migration services exclusively for citizens of other nationalities.
What follows this sentence in the stored reading is two image references and no text. The same pattern appears at articles 121, 122 bis and 123.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«El monto determinado en moneda dólar de los Estados Unidos de América, se cancelará en moneda nacional córdoba, aplicando la tasa oficial fijada por el Banco Central de Nicaragua a la fecha del pago.»Our translation - not official
The amount determined in United States dollars shall be settled in national currency, córdobas, applying the official rate fixed by the Central Bank of Nicaragua on the date of payment.
The sentence that tells you the figures in the picture are dollars, and that what you pay is a córdoba conversion at the day's rate.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«Las tasas deberán ser proporcionales y equitativas con el costo de los servicios prestados pudiendo tomar como referencia el valor promedio en la región centroamericana.»Our translation - not official
The fees must be proportional and equitable to the cost of the services provided, and may take as a reference the average value in the Central American region.
A benchmarking clause with no mechanism behind it, which is the only guidance the law gives on how the amounts in the pictures were arrived at.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«El valor de este será de sesenta Córdobas netos.»Our translation - not official
Its value shall be sixty córdobas net.
The exception that proves the rule: one of the few amounts in either statute written into the body of an article rather than into a table.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legislature's legal-information service. Under the Digesto Jurídico laws it publishes a consolidated text subject by subject, each approved on a date and gazetted afterwards, together with the integral texts of the Constitution and of the regional customs instruments as Nicaragua gazetted them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text's cut-off date is a hard edge and the page carries no warning that anything has happened since: the migration law's text was closed on 28 February 2023 and still defines a residence category by reference to a statute repealed in August 2024. It must never be cited as evidence that a statute is in force - it serves a repealed law in full with the repeal as a single line at the foot, which is why that route is still sold everywhere. It must not be cited for any amount set in a table, because those are published as images. And where one instrument has two addresses, as the Constitution does, the superseded consolidation stays live with different article numbers.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This is an observation about how the National Assembly's legal-information service renders the statutes, made from the stored readings of 5 October 2026. The amounts exist in La Gaceta; what is missing is any way to quote them from the consolidated text.
Where this site states a Nicaraguan migration fee it is quoted from the migration directorate's price list, in córdobas, and is labelled as the agency's charge.