Argentina announces US$350,000 contribution for investor citizenship

Argentina’s Economy Ministry announced on 2 October that its citizenship-by-investment programme will take applications during the fourth quarter of 2026. Under the plan, a main applicant would either make a non-refundable contribution of US$350,000 to the National Treasury or subscribe to a US$800,000 bond that the ministry says is created specifically for the programme. Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Cabinet Chief Diego Santilli made the announcement at Argentina Week in Paris.

Two routes, and an amount for each family member

The ministry’s announcement sets out the two routes, then separate amounts for a main applicant’s spouse and children. It gives no maturity, interest rate or redemption terms for the bond.

A main applicant’s spouse, and children aged 18 to 25 who are single and have no children, can be included for a contribution of US$100,000 each to the Treasury, provided the relationship is proven. Children under 18 need US$25,000 each. By the ministry’s own example, a main applicant, a spouse and two minor children would pay US$500,000 in total.

All funds must pass through the formal financial system and meet anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing and financial-transparency standards. The ministry says the money will go towards strengthening Argentina’s fiscal and financial position.

Who checks an application, and who decides

The Agency for Citizenship by Investment Programmes will lead the assessment, with the State Intelligence Secretariat, the Financial Information Unit and the ministries of Security and the Interior among the bodies taking part. The checks listed are identity, the traceability and lawfulness of the funds, asset and financial analysis, jurisdictional risk, criminal and reputational records, and migration history. The agency then sends a recommendation to the National Directorate of Migration, which approves or rejects each application.

That sequence is consistent with the existing decrees. Decree 366/2025 created the agency under the Economy Ministry and opened citizenship to a foreign national who shows the migration directorate a relevant investment, whatever the length of residence. Decree 524/2025 gives the directorate 30 business days from receipt of the agency’s report to grant or refuse citizenship. The ministry says the due-diligence standards will be aligned with OECD and FATF recommendations and that a group of international investment-migration firms advises the government; it does not name them.

The tax position is already set by law

Congress has legislated on one consequence of the programme: the tax position of anyone naturalised through it. Law 27802, a labour-reform law passed on 27 February 2026 and in force since its publication on 6 March, added paragraphs to article 116 of the Income Tax Law, which lists who counts as resident in Argentina for tax purposes.

Under that article, Argentine nationals, native or naturalised, are residents, while a foreign national becomes resident by obtaining permanent residence or by staying 12 months on temporary permits. A foreign national who obtains Argentine citizenship through the relevant-investment ground of Law 346 does not become a tax resident by that naturalisation alone. For the test that applies to foreign nationals, the law treats such a person as a foreign national. Anyone who already held permanent residence when obtaining citizenship by investment remains a resident.

Law 27802 refers to the investment ground in Law 346, not to Decree 366/2025. Whether it has any bearing on the decree’s validity, or on the review of the decree in Congress, is not established.

No Gazette act found on the amounts

Under article 2 bis of Citizenship Law No. 346, which serves the investment ground the decree added, the Economy Ministry establishes which investments count as relevant. A full-text search by TLT of the Official Gazette’s first section on 3 October, covering 29 May 2025 to that day, found five acts that refer to citizenship by investment or to the agency: Decrees 366/2025, 524/2025 and 585/2025, the April 2026 appointment of the agency’s executive director, and Law 27802. None sets the amounts or defines a qualifying investment, and by 3 October nothing on citizenship had appeared since 26 September. For now the amounts rest on the ministry’s announcement.

The announcement does not mention a ruling of 30 June 2026 in which the National Electoral Chamber declared Decree 366/2025 void in one case, file 8843/2023, and told the Security Ministry to instruct the migration directorate on the ruling. The ruling’s effect beyond that case is not established, and TLT could not verify whether an appeal has been filed or decided. The Senate’s file on the decree, as captured by TLT on 26 September, showed it was referred to the Permanent Bicameral Committee on Legislative Procedure on 10 June 2025, with no exit date and no date for receipt of a committee opinion.

For Vietnamese applicants

The announcement says nothing about nationality, for or against, and TLT has found no published rules that would set any restriction. It lists jurisdictional risk among the checks without saying how it is assessed. The announced amounts are per person, so a family’s total depends on who applies: replacing one minor in the ministry’s example with a single, childless child aged 18 to 25 would, by TLT’s arithmetic, raise the total from US$500,000 to US$575,000.

TLT’s August report set out the legal framework before any amounts were known.

What this article does not establish

The bond’s terms, any application fees, any nationality rules, the date in the fourth quarter when applications open, whether a Gazette act will set the amounts, the effect of the June ruling beyond its case and whether it has been appealed, whether Law 27802 bears on the decree’s validity, and the decree’s status in the Chamber of Deputies.