Moving to Paraguay with a Spouse
Marriage to a resident does not produce a residency of its own. A spouse applies for the same temporary residency as anyone else and, at the permanent stage, answers the solvency question as a dependant: the marriage certificate, legalised or apostilled, and a copy of the other spouse's Paraguayan identity card or residency card. The only marriage-based shortcut in the law is narrower than it first looks - it runs through a returning Paraguayan national, not through any Paraguayan spouse. Both spouses signing, and both holding or applying for residency at the same time, is also what the directorate asks when children are involved.
At a glance
- Dedicated spouse visa
- None
- How a dependent spouse proves solvency
- Marriage certificate plus the supporting spouse's Paraguayan identity or residency card
- Shortcut to permanent residency for a spouse
- Only through a repatriated Paraguayan national
Article 48 runs through a connacional repatriado holding a repatriation certificate, not through any Paraguayan spouse
- Fee for the spouse of a repatriated national
- Exempt
Article 101 exempts the spouse, children and grandchildren of a repatriated national from the directorate's fees
- Two-year temporary stage
- Applies to a spouse like anyone else, outside the repatriation route
Requirements
- Temporary residency under Ley 6984, on the ordinary document list, including a civil-status certificate - the marriage certificate where the applicant is married
- For most nationalities, a consular visa obtained before travelling if the purpose is residency
- At the permanent stage, for a spouse maintained by the other: the marriage certificate legalised or apostilled, and a certified copy of the supporting spouse's Paraguayan identity document or residency card
- Where children are applying: both parents signing, and both holding current residency or one applying in the same act
- Where only one parent is present: a court order or a notarial authorisation from the absent parent
In detail
Marriage is evidence, not a route
In Argentina, Colombia and Chile marriage to a national or resident opens a category of its own. In Paraguay it does something smaller: it answers the solvency question at the permanent stage, by showing that someone else is maintaining you. The temporary residency, the two-year wait, the police certificates and the fee are all the same as for an unmarried applicant. The marriage certificate is asked for anyway as the civil-status document at the first stage.
The repatriation route is not the Paraguayan-spouse route
Article 48 does give the foreign spouse of a Paraguayan direct access to permanent residency, with no temporary stage and no fee. But it is written for the family of a connacional repatriado - a Paraguayan who lived abroad and has returned - and article 53 puts a repatriation certificate at the top of the document list. A Paraguayan who never left has no repatriation certificate to produce, and nothing we read extends the article to that situation.
Applying as a family
Where children are included, the directorate requires both parents to sign and both to hold current residency, or at least one to apply in the same act as the child. Where only one parent is present there has to be either a court order authorising the child's residence in Paraguay or a notarial authorisation from the absent parent. A death certificate replaces this where one parent has died.
Country-level policy
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.
Paraguay expresses migration fees and fines not in guaranies but in jornales - day-wage units tied to the legal minimum wage. A figure in guaranies is therefore only meaningful next to the jornal it was converted at and the date that conversion took effect. There is a second trap on top of it: the numbers written into article 100 of the migration law are not the numbers being charged. The law says permanent residency costs 15 jornales and temporary residency 10; the schedule in force since 1 July 2026 charges 25 for each.
Paraguay's visa table answers two questions per country, and the second one decides whether the country is as easy as its reputation. Visiting is visa-free for most of Europe, the Americas, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Extending that stay, applying for residency or carrying out any paid activity is a separate permission, and for most of those same nationalities the table says a visa is required. Four European countries - the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Liechtenstein - are exempt from both. Spain needs the visa but gets it free.
Two different clocks, one of them made by the migration directorate rather than by the law. Permanent residency is lost after more than three years of unjustified absence, which is in the migration law itself. Temporary residency is cancelled after more than one year of absence without authorisation, which is not in the law at all: it comes from a 2026 directorate resolution that also sets up a procedure for asking permission to be away for longer. Cancellation is checked twice a year against the entry and exit register, and the directorate notifies the police, the Supreme Court and the revenue authority when it happens.
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«En el caso de los Cónyuges y si uno de ellos cuenta con la manutención del otro, el interesado que invoque esta categoría deberá presentar:»Our translation - not official
In the case of spouses, where one of them is maintained by the other, the person invoking this category must present:
What follows is two items: the marriage certificate duly legalised or apostilled, and a certified copy of the spouse's Paraguayan identity document or residency card. The same category covers parents and grandparents maintained by children or grandchildren, and people with disabilities maintained by a relative within defined degrees.
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
«A través del connacional repatriado accederán directamente a la Residencia Permanente: su cónyuge, hijos y nietos extranjeros, estos últimos hasta los dieciocho años.»Our translation - not official
Through the repatriated national, the following shall accede directly to Permanent Residency: their spouse, children and foreign grandchildren, the latter up to the age of eighteen.
The sentence continues that the spouse of the national's child may do so as well. The route is conditional on repatriation: article 53 requires a Certificado de Repatriación among the documents, so it is not open to the foreign spouse of a Paraguayan who never emigrated.
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
«Certificado de Repatriación.»Our translation - not official
Certificate of Repatriation.
The first document on the list for the direct permanent residency of foreign family members, and the condition that narrows the route.
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
«El pago de aranceles percibidos por la Dirección Nacional de Migraciones para los si-»Our translation - not official
The payment of fees charged by the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones for the following...
The article exempts from fees the foreign spouse, children and grandchildren of a repatriated national, and the spouse of that national's child. The quotation ends mid-word because the published PDF breaks the line at si- ; the next line reads guientes: cónyuge, hijos y nietos extranjeros del connacional.
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
Practical notes
The dependants category also covers parents and grandparents maintained by a child or grandchild, and people with a disability maintained by a relative up to the third collateral degree, with a disability certificate from SENADIS or the equivalent authority abroad.
A spouse who is separately enrolled as a social security beneficiary must have no income, must not be a taxpayer, a public official, a registered employer or an active pensioner of another fund. Being a dependant for migration purposes and being a beneficiary for health purposes are two different tests.
We did not find a civil-union or unmarried-partner category in the migration documents read. The social security institute does recognise a concubino as a beneficiary, which is a health-cover question rather than a residency one.
- administersResidencia Permanente para el cambio de categoría de residencia temporal establecida por la Ley N° 6984/2022
Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (Paraguay)
About 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
- administersLey N° 6.984 de Migraciones (texto publicado por la Dirección Nacional de Migraciones)
Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (Paraguay)
About 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