POSTERN

Uruguay

Residencia por Medios de Vida Propios (Rentista). Foreign-source passive income, pension, dividends, interest, rent, or annuities, qualifies directly for Uruguayan permanent residence, no temporary phase first.

Free · The law behind every answer · Checked Sep 27, 2026

Residencia por Medios de Vida Propios (Rentista)

Permanent residence directly, with no separate temporary stage.

Who qualifies

  • Recurring passive income from outside Uruguay; there is no fixed legal minimum, but the immigration authority applies a case-by-case solvency test, in practice around $1,500 a month for a single applicant and $2,500 for a couple.
    Uruguay Independent Means Visa, 2026
  • The income must be formalized through a notarial income certification by a Uruguayan escribano, with foreign documents apostilled and translated.
    BorderPilot, Permanent Residency Guide
  • File through Uruguay's national migration office, which issues an interim document while the application is pending.
    gub.uy, Residencia Legal Permanente

You keep your U.S. citizenship.

1

Does it fit your family?

One question, from the program’s own rules.

Steady monthly income, from any source?

Not legal advice.

2

What it takes.

Income
At least $1,500 a month, steady and documented.
Time
12–24 months from a complete filing.
Cost
About $2,000–5,000 all in, including notary and apostille costs, with legal help.
The hard part
There is no codified income floor; solvency is judged case by case, and the notarized certification and apostilles take real time to assemble.

Dollar figures are converted from the local currency at the rate the program’s research used; the official figure is in the local currency.

3

Citizens by 2033.

If your first permit is issued in 2027 and you keep living there, this is the road.

  1. 2027
    First residence permit

    5 years, renewable for 5 years at a time.

  2. 2032
    Apply for citizenship

    With a language test.

  3. 2033
    Citizenship
Language
You must understand and speak Spanish; the Corte Electoral will not process the case otherwise. There is no formal test; it is checked at the hearing.
Time away
Habitual residence counted from arrival: no absence may exceed 6 months in a row, or the count restarts from zero on return. You must prove with dated documents (migration records, social-security history, bank, school or medical records) that you lived in Uruguay on specific days, months and years, and bring two witnesses who have known you for the whole period.
Two passports
Yes. You keep your U.S. citizenship.
  • Permanent from the start, with no temporary stage; the citizenship clock runs from arrival as long as you never spend more than 6 months in a row abroad.
  • Legal citizenship is not nationality. A naturalised person becomes a Uruguayan legal citizen but keeps their birth nationality, cannot vote until 3 years after the letter of citizenship, and loses legal citizenship by later naturalising anywhere else (Constitution art. 81). Since 23 April 2025 the passport shows 'Nacionalidad/Ciudadanía: URY' and no longer prints the place of birth, which fixed most border problems (Ministry of the Interior, https://www.gub.uy/ministerio-interior/comunicacion/noticias/uruguay-actualiza-introduce-cambios-pasaporte-para-mejorar-movilidad), but some countries' visa rules may still look at the birth nationality.
  • A bill rewriting Ley 8.196 (the citizenship procedure, including the witness hearings) passed the Chamber of Representatives in May 2026 and awaits the Senate; the Corte Electoral reports a growing backlog (https://www.uruguaypais.uy/2026/06/ciudadania-legal-corte-electoral.html).
  • The program file's '183 days a year' rule is not in the Corte Electoral manual; the official rule is the 6-month continuous-absence reset plus dated proof of living in Uruguay. Lawyers commonly advise spending more than half of each year there.
  • Whether the clock runs from arrival or from filing the residence application: the Corte's page says from entry into the country; in practice the residence has to be proven by dated documents from that date.
  • No official decision-time figure; about a year is commonly reported.
  • UY-RENTISTA's permit is shown as 5-year cards only as a placeholder: the status is indefinite, and the identity-card length for permanent residents was not found on an official page.
  • How long the decision takes isn’t published; we allow a year.
The law behind these dates
4

Living there.

Time you must spend there
183 days a year during the naturalisation-qualifying period; an absence of more than 6 continuous months resets the clock.
Tax
Eligible for the tax-holiday regime on foreign income once resident.

We never file a tax return. We tell you what applies and brief the professional who does.

5

Start today.

  1. File the residency application through Uruguay's Dirección Nacional de Migración.Open gub.uy ↗
  2. Round up the papers.
    • Proof of steady income: at least $1,500 a month
    • Request your FBI Identity History Summary
    • Health cover for the move
6

Or let us run it.

$900for your first year as a founding member. Then $399 a year, automatically.Standard first year: $1,200. Everyone renews at $399.One membership, the whole family. Accounts and activation included.

17 steps, from the first paper to the passport. You do 4 of them: send what we ask for, sign, and show up. We run the rest, and keep every permit renewed on time. Accounts and activation are included, whether you move now or keep the plan ready. Accounts depend on provider availability. Government, record and approved third-party charges are extra.

Run it for my family →
7
ISSUED TO

YOUR FAMILY

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