Country-wide policy
The 2022 Migration Law and the Two-Stage Residency It Created
Ley N° 6984/2022 replaced the migration law Paraguay had used since 1996, and it changed the single thing the country is best known for. Permanent residency is no longer something a newcomer can be granted on arrival: temporary residency, granted for up to two years, is now a prerequisite for it, and the only exemptions are investors under the SUACE business regime and the foreign family of a repatriated Paraguayan. The old law was repealed outright rather than amended, so guidance written before October 2022 describes procedures that no longer exist - including, on the revenue authority's own pages, the definition of who counts as a tax resident.
Topics it changes
- Residency on passive income
- Residency through work
- Residency as a retiree
- Residency through investment
- Residency as a student
- Residency through marriage
- Residency through ancestry
- Residency under a regional treaty
- Becoming a citizen
- When you become a tax resident
- Visiting as a tourist
What it requires
- Temporary residency first, for up to two years, renewable for the same period
- A change of category to permanent residency, filed in the three months before the temporary card expires
- Economic solvency proved only at the permanent stage
- Exemption from the temporary stage only for SUACE investors and for the foreign family of a repatriated national
At a glance
- Law
- Ley N° 6984/2022 de Migraciones
- Sanctioned
- 6 September 2022
Fecha Sanción 06/09/2022 in the Sistema de Información Legislativa's record for Ley 6984.
- Promulgated
- 17 October 2022, automatically
Fecha Promulgación 17/10/2022 in the same record. Six weeks after sanction, which is what automatic promulgation looks like.
- Published
- 18 October 2022
Fecha Publicación 18/10/2022 in the same record, the day after promulgation.
- Law repealed
- Ley N° 978/1996 de Migraciones
Repealed outright by article 107, not amended
- Temporary stage
- Mandatory before permanent residency
- Exemptions from the temporary stage
- SUACE investors; spouse, children and grandchildren of a repatriated national
What changed
Before October 2022 Paraguay was marketed across the internet as the country where a newcomer could obtain permanent residency in a single step. Ley 6984 made temporary residency a prerequisite for permanent residency and defined permanent residency as something granted after the temporary period has been completed. The change is structural rather than procedural: it is in the definition of the status, not in a document list.
What survives from the old regime
Nothing, formally. Article 107 repeals Ley 978/1996 outright. In practice fragments survive in other bodies' paperwork - the tax regulation that defines an individual tax resident still cites the repealed law, and a municipal licence form still calls the directorate by its old name. Those are drafting lags rather than surviving rules, but they are worth recognising when a document you are handed does not match the law.
Who still gets a shortcut
Two groups. Investors who avail themselves of the SUACE one-stop business regime are expressly exempted from the temporary stage by article 46, and the directorate runs a dedicated permanent-residency procedure for them. The spouse, children and grandchildren under eighteen of a repatriated Paraguayan national, and the spouse of that national's child, accede directly to permanent residency under article 48, and are exempt from the fees as well.
What the law says
«Derógase la Ley Nº 978/1996 “DE MIGRACIONES”.»Our translation - not official
Law No. 978/1996 on Migration is hereby repealed.
Repealed, not amended. Anything that still cites Ley 978/1996 as a live instrument - including Decreto N° 3181/2019, which defines tax residence by reference to it - is pointing at something that no longer exists.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The migration directorate. Administers residency under Ley 6984/2022 and issues its own resolutions under arts. 78, 79 and 82. Publishes the law as a PDF booklet, per-route requirement pages, the migration fee schedule and a resolutions index.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not the gazette: it reproduces Ley 6984 but did not make it. Its requirement pages restate the law and sometimes diverge from it - art. 100's fee figures against the schedule in force is the live example, and the schedule wins. Cannot be cited for the SUACE investor threshold, which is the industry ministry's, nor for the tax consequences of a migration status. The law booklet is a justified-column PDF, so extracted text breaks words across lines.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«De hasta 2 (dos) años, prorrogables por igual período. La residencia temporal será requisito previo al otorgamiento de la Residencia Permanente.»Our translation - not official
Up to 2 (two) years, extendable for an equal period. Temporary residency is a prerequisite for the grant of Permanent Residency.
This single sentence is what separates the current system from the one most published guidance about Paraguay still describes.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The migration directorate. Administers residency under Ley 6984/2022 and issues its own resolutions under arts. 78, 79 and 82. Publishes the law as a PDF booklet, per-route requirement pages, the migration fee schedule and a resolutions index.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not the gazette: it reproduces Ley 6984 but did not make it. Its requirement pages restate the law and sometimes diverge from it - art. 100's fee figures against the schedule in force is the live example, and the schedule wins. Cannot be cited for the SUACE investor threshold, which is the industry ministry's, nor for the tax consequences of a migration status. The law booklet is a justified-column PDF, so extracted text breaks words across lines.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«Es la autorización otorgada por la Dirección Nacional de Migraciones para residir indefinida-»Our translation - not official
It is the authorisation granted by the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones to reside indefinitely...
The sentence continues across a line break in the published PDF and ends: luego de haber cumplido el plazo de Residencia Temporal - after having completed the period of Temporary Residency. The condition is in the definition of permanent residency itself, not in a procedural rule that could be waived.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The migration directorate. Administers residency under Ley 6984/2022 and issues its own resolutions under arts. 78, 79 and 82. Publishes the law as a PDF booklet, per-route requirement pages, the migration fee schedule and a resolutions index.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Not the gazette: it reproduces Ley 6984 but did not make it. Its requirement pages restate the law and sometimes diverge from it - art. 100's fee figures against the schedule in force is the live example, and the schedule wins. Cannot be cited for the SUACE investor threshold, which is the industry ministry's, nor for the tax consequences of a migration status. The law booklet is a justified-column PDF, so extracted text breaks words across lines.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«Fecha Sanción:06/09/2022 Fecha Promulgación:17/10/2022 Fecha Publicación:18/10/2022»Our translation - not official
Sanction date: 06/09/2022. Promulgation date: 17/10/2022. Publication date: 18/10/2022.
Promulgation is recorded as automatic. We use the publication date as the effective date throughout and did not find a separate commencement clause in the law.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The legislature's bill-tracking system. Carries the legislative history of each act: dates, chamber steps and file links.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: Cannot be cited for the content of a law - its record is metadata and attachments, not text - nor for whether a law is in force today. Useful for establishing when something was passed and what amended it.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The law told the executive to issue implementing regulations within 180 days of publication. We searched the directorate's resolutions index, the legislative information system and the gazette for a single implementing decree and did not find one; what the directorate has published instead is a series of its own resolutions under articles 78, 79 and 82. That absence is worth knowing, because it means the operative detail sits in administrative resolutions that can change without a decree.
The version of the law used throughout this country's pages is the text published by the migration directorate itself as a PDF. It is a typeset booklet with justified columns, so long quotations from it sometimes break across a line and end mid-word; where that happens the continuation is given in the note.
We read the law's articles on transitory stay, residency, documentation, cancellation, penalties and fees. We did not read its chapters on transport companies, expulsion procedure or the directorate's internal organisation beyond what the fee and penalty articles required.