Panama raises the resale threshold on its Qualified Investor route

Panama has split the property threshold on its Qualified Investor residence route in two. Decreto Ejecutivo No. 17, signed on 8 September 2026 and published in the Gaceta Oficial on 16 September, holds the minimum at 300,000 balboas for the initial purchase of a new and unoccupied property from its developer, and sets it at 500,000 for property bought on the resale market. It replaces the 2020 rules in all their parts.

What changed

Under the previous rules the route asked a single figure of a property buyer. Decreto Ejecutivo No. 193 of 15 October 2024, restating the 2020 decree, set the minimum at 300,000 balboas for the purchase of a property in Panama, which had to be free of encumbrances. It drew no distinction according to who had owned the property before.

Article 4 of Decreto Ejecutivo No. 17 draws that distinction and prices it. Every figure in the decree is stated in balboas, Panama’s unit of account.

The recitals give the reasoning: differentiated parameters are described as a commercial and economic policy measure, prioritising first-sale inventory to reactivate the construction industry, because resale transactions do substantially less for job creation.

What counts as a first sale

Article 4(a) defines first-sale property as the initial acquisition of a new and unoccupied property transferred by the promoter, the developer or its successor in title. Segregation, a declaration of improvements, contribution to a trust and a reorganisation not involving sale to an unrelated third party do not remove that status. The article also says how the status is proved: a Registro Público certification and, as applicable, construction or occupancy permits and tax records.

Article 4(b) covers the onerous transfer of a property previously commercialised, occupied, leased or transferred to an unrelated third party. Its exceptions are close but not identical — succession on death appears here and not in Article 4(a), a declaration of improvements there and not here, and its reorganisation exception turns on whether the property was commercialised rather than on who bought it. Article 4(b) alone reserves the authority’s power to disregard simulated acts, or acts designed to evade the minimum.

How the value is now measured

The second change is quieter. Article 5 requires a net computable value at or above the minimum, and defines it as the lesser of the price actually paid and the reasonably accredited commercial value, less the balance of any real encumbrance. A buyer who pays 520,000 for a resale flat accredited at 480,000 does not meet the 500,000 test. Where the price exceeds the minimum, the excess may be financed, provided the financing is documented and traceable and no encumbrance drags net value below the floor.

Borrowing above the minimum was already allowed in 2024, through a mortgage with a local bank. What is new is the formula and the machinery behind it: the 2024 text set no net-value test and evidenced value through a certification from the land titling authority.

Article 6 supplies that machinery. Cadastral certification from the Autoridad Nacional de Tierras remains required, and where the registered value does not reflect the property’s current condition — or objective grounds raise reasonable doubt about its correspondence with market value — the Dirección Nacional de la Inversión may require an independent commercial appraisal. It must have been issued within the six months before it is filed, be signed by a professional recognised by Banco Nacional de Panamá and Caja de Ahorros and independent of the applicant, seller, promoter, intermediary and financier, declare any conflict of interest and support its methodology. The applicant pays.

The deposit route gains a state-bank tier

The fixed-term deposit route keeps its 750,000-balboa minimum in a private-capital general-licence bank, held free of encumbrance for at least five uninterrupted years. Article 9(b) reduces that to 500,000 on the same terms where the deposit sits directly and solely in Banco Nacional de Panamá or Caja de Ahorros — a measure the decree calls a material incentive of state development, meant to build the state’s agricultural and mortgage portfolios.

The securities route stays at 500,000 balboas for five years through a licensed brokerage, but no longer has to pass through the Bolsa de Valores de Panamá; the decree names eligible classes instead, among them sovereign debt and real-estate investment trusts.

Who is caught

Property dominates this programme. The Ministry of Commerce and Industries reported in July that it issued 268 Investment Certifications across all modalities between July 2025 and June 2026, backed by 113.6 million balboas, and that real estate accounted for 87.3% of them, against 7.5% for deposits and 5.2% for securities. Certification is the ministry’s step; the permit is resolved separately by the Servicio Nacional de Migración.

Article 19 protects work already done. Applications filed before the decree took effect are governed by the requirements, conditions and amounts in force when they were filed, subject to the immediate application of any more favourable procedural rule, and Investment Certifications already issued keep their effect until their term expires. Investments and binding contracts perfected before entry into force may still elect the previous regime, but only if the application follows within six months of entry into force. The new valuation rules are not applied retroactively to disregard investments already certified, unless there are objective indications of falsity, simulation, fraud or illicit origin of funds.

The date the decree does not give

Article 21 reads, in full: “Este Decreto Ejecutivo comenzará a regir a partir de su promulgación.” It takes effect on promulgation and names no calendar date. The Gaceta Oficial describes promulgating and publishing the norms required to be published as its own function, which points to 16 September, the date of publication, rather than to 8 September, the date of signature.

That matters because two clocks run from entry into force: the six months in Article 19 to elect the previous regime, and the twelve months in Article 18 for those who, at entry into force, hold or have applied for permanent residence on their own economic means, to request conversion. Article 18 also bars investments made before 15 October 2020, and requires later ones to meet the traceability, title and value conditions. No guidance naming the commencement date had appeared in the gazette as at 18 September.

What to watch

Guidance from MICI setting out how it reads the commencement date, and reasoned decisions under Article 5, would show how the lesser-of-two-values test works where a price and an accredited value diverge. Until then, a buyer relying on the first-sale threshold should verify the conditions the decree actually imposes — initial acquisition, an unoccupied property, and a qualifying transferor — and a buyer under the resale rules should plan around the valuation test, not only the 500,000 figure.