Congress has not voted on Argentina’s investment citizenship decree

Argentina’s citizenship-by-investment route exists because of a presidential decree of necessity and urgency, DNU 366/2025, not a law passed by Congress. The Senate record shows the decree with Congress’s bicameral commission since June 2025, without a report, and the records of neither chamber show a vote. With a presidential election due in late 2027, what a later government could change, and whether that would reach citizenship already granted, turns on the texts that govern such decrees.

When the next election falls

No official date for the 2027 election was found. The Official Gazette carried no decree convening it by 15 October 2026, and the national electoral court’s website could not be reached that day.

The Electoral Code places national elections on the fourth Sunday of October before mandates end. Counting four-year terms from 10 December 1999, the presidential mandate ends on 10 December 2027, so the election would fall on 24 October 2027. The same rule gives 26 October 2025, the date in the 2025 convocation decree.

Primaries are set by law for the first Sunday of August of the election year, which would be 1 August 2027. The one suspension found, by Law 27783, covered 2025 only. An executive electoral reform bill that would repeal the primaries sits in a Senate committee without a report.

What the route stands on

DNU 366/2025 rewrote article 2 of the Citizenship Law, Law 346, so that a foreigner who proves to the National Migration Directorate that they have made an “inversión relevante”, a relevant investment, may be naturalised whatever the length of their residence. It also created the Agency for Citizenship by Investment Programmes under the Economy Ministry.

Decree 524/2025, an ordinary decree, sets the procedure: the agency reports, and the directorate decides by a reasoned act within 30 working days of the report. No Economy Ministry act defining a relevant investment was found in the Official Gazette up to 15 October 2026.

An Economy Ministry news release of 2 October announces a non-refundable contribution of US$350,000 or the subscription of a US$800,000 public bond created for the programme, and says the programme will be operational to receive applications during the fourth quarter of 2026. The amounts appear in the release, not in a norm found in the Official Gazette.

The one provision found in a law of Congress that refers to the investment ground is article 194 of Law 27802, in force since 6 March 2026. It provides that foreigners naturalised on that ground are not tax residents merely because of the naturalisation, and sets tax treatment only.

Under the Constitution, the will of each chamber must be expressed explicitly (article 82), and the law governing decrees provides that each chamber rules on a decree by its own resolution. This indicates article 194 does not amount to approval of DNU 366/2025.

Four ways to change or end the route

Both chambers reject the decree

Under Law 26122, rejection requires a resolution of each chamber, by an absolute majority of members present. Rejection repeals the decree, “quedando a salvo los derechos adquiridos durante su vigencia”, with rights acquired while it was in force preserved.

Resolution project 5360-D-2026, to reject DNU 366/2025, was tabled in the Chamber of Deputies in October 2026, and no committee report was recorded by 15 October. A bill to amend articles 17, 21 and 24 of Law 26122, the regime for decrees of necessity and urgency, was approved by the Senate and, with changes, by the Chamber of Deputies in 2025, and returned to the Senate.

Congress repeals it by law

Law 26122 does not prevent Congress from using its ordinary power to repeal decrees of this kind. Four bills whose texts were read are pending: a Senate bill tabled in August and three Deputies bills tabled in October, the first two on 2 and 5 October. They differ on investors already in the system.

A later president repeals it by decree of necessity and urgency

There is a precedent: in 2021, DNU 138/2021 repealed an earlier decree on migration and citizenship, DNU 70/2017, and restored the norms it had changed, including article 2(1) of Law 346. A new decree of necessity and urgency is subject to the same constitutional limits as the one it repeals.

The executive stops the procedure

Decree 524/2025 is an ordinary regulatory decree, and no Economy Ministry definition of a relevant investment was found. This indicates that a later government could halt or reshape the procedure without touching Law 346, though the ground itself would remain in the law.

The court ruling already on record

On 30 June 2026 the National Electoral Chamber declared DNU 366/2025 null in an individual naturalisation case, under article 99(3) of the Constitution, which bars decrees on electoral matters. The application had been made on the residence ground and begun before the decree took effect.

The court held that moving naturalisation from the courts to the Migration Directorate touches electoral matters. It informed the Ministry of National Security that it must instruct the directorate on the ruling, and notified federal electoral judges nationwide. On 2 October 2026, three months after the ruling, the Economy Ministry announced the launch of the programme.

Citizenship already granted

The consolidated text of Law 346 contains no provision for losing or cancelling a naturalised citizenship; article 8 suspends the exercise of political rights only. The one annulment route found in an official text is a court action before the National Electoral Chamber where naturalisation was obtained by fraud, under Decree 3213/84.

Under article 17 of the Administrative Procedure Law, a notified individual act that has created rights cannot be revoked by the administration itself, except in listed cases including proven fraud; otherwise only a court can annul it.

Under article 14 of the same law, a judgment declaring an act absolutely null takes effect from the date of the act, unless the court decides otherwise on equity grounds and the beneficiary did not act fraudulently. The Civil and Commercial Code adds that retroactivity established by law cannot affect rights protected by constitutional guarantees.

This indicates that, if a naturalisation granted by the Migration Directorate is an individual administrative act of this kind, a later government could not revoke it by its own decision for policy reasons; it would need a court or proof of fraud.

What the pending bills would do

Four bills whose texts were read would treat investors already in the system differently.

All four are proposals at committee stage, with no report recorded on 15 October 2026.

What this article has not established

The 2027 election and primary dates are calculated from the statute; no official convocation was found.

Whether the bill to amend Law 26122 became law was not established, and the amended text of articles 17, 21 and 24 was not opened.

No official source says any application has been received or any citizenship granted.

How far the 30 June ruling reaches beyond its own case, and whether it has gone to the Supreme Court, were not established.

Whether an ordinary decree could repeal the decree’s citizenship articles was not established. Nor was whether a court would treat article 194 of Law 27802 as recognition of the route.

Whether a court would treat an investment naturalisation as an acquired right, how it would treat a grant if the decree were held null, and whether the fraud route reaches grants made by the Migration Directorate were not established.

The texts of three earlier bills against the decree were not read.