Paraguay Investor Visa

Not one threshold but four, and choosing the wrong door costs nearly three times as much.

Resolution 283 of 21 April 2026 of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Annex I Article 1(g), sets the minimum amounts in US dollars or the guaraní equivalent at the official rate on the date of application:

What decides the choice is not the figure but the conditions attached, and they run in the opposite direction. The cheapest door is the heaviest: productive investment requires a business plan approved in advance and at least five formal jobs.

The two USD 200,000 doors are markedly lighter — Articles 5 and 6 of Annex I state expressly that no business plan and no formal job creation are required, and the definitions in Article 1(d) and (e) add that there is no obligation to manage a venture directly.

The real-estate door also excludes something readers often assume counts: property acquired for exclusively personal or family use does not count as investment.

The evidence differs too: the financial door requires an investment certificate issued by an entity authorised by the Securities Superintendency of the Central Bank of Paraguay, for a term of not less than two years.

The real-estate door requires a duly registered public deed of transfer, or a private sale contract with signatures certified before a notary provided the amount paid is at least 30% of the total declared as investment.

For the productive door the resolution names what does count as investment — property, machinery and equipment, specialised tools, vehicles used in the activity, technological and industrial equipment, operating furniture, adaptations and civil works — and what does not:

Rents, salaries, basic utilities, recurring administrative expenses and any merely operational item.

One rule blocks pooling: in projects with several investors, each applicant must meet the minimum for their chosen type individually. An investment is accepted whether already executed or in the process of execution, provided the economic commitment is documented.

The final outcome is permanent residence, but what this route issues is not residence: it is the document that opens the way to it, and that distinction governs how the whole record should be read.

The Ministry of Industry and Commerce defines the foreign investor certificate as the official document it issues through the Unified System for Opening and Closing Companies, and its effect is to enable a foreign individual to pursue permanent residence and to begin the formalities of opening a company in Paraguay.

The certificate therefore settles the entry condition, while the residence decision belongs to a different authority. The office responsible for issuing it is the Directorate of Investment and Special Regimes within SUACE.

The legal framework the ministry cites comprises Law 4986/2013 creating SUACE, promulgated on 12 July 2013, Law 6867/2021 amending and extending it, Resolution 1052/2025, and Resolution 283/2026, which abrogates Resolution 1052 of 11 September 2025.

One limit on sourcing must be stated: the statement about permanent residence here rests on the economic ministry's wording and has not been cross-checked against the residence authority itself, Paraguay's National Directorate of Migration.

The certificate is issued within five working days, and the clause that follows is what decides the matter in practice.

Article 4 of Resolution 283/2026 directs the Directorate of Investment and Special Regimes within SUACE to issue the Foreign Investor Certificate within no more than five working days of receiving the file.

But where there are observations, requests for complementary information or requests for rectification, the period is suspended until the applicant has fully complied.

The five days therefore run on a complete file, not from the first filing. The remaining periods bind the investment itself rather than the procedure.

On the financial-instruments door, the investment certificate must carry a term of not less than two years and the holder has an obligation to report annually.

On the productive and tourism doors, the business plan must carry an execution schedule, and the investor must report on the project's progress every six months through the designated channels.

The resolution sets no deadline for completing the investment; the twenty-four-month figure appears only on the Ministry of Industry and Commerce guidance page, written for the productive door, and is not in the text of the resolution.

Two limits on the age of documents can spoil a file prepared too early:

For the financial-instruments and real-estate doors, the documents evidencing the investment may be no older than one hundred and eighty consecutive days from the date of filing; and a foreign title certificate used to show financial capacity may be no more than six months old.

On the authority's side, Article 5 requires the Directorate of Administrative Records and Verification to monitor and control the conditions monthly.

The most important feature of this route is an exemption, and it sits in the statute rather than in the procedure.

Resolution 283/2026 quotes Article 46 of Migration Law No. 6984/2022 verbatim: foreigners who can reliably demonstrate that they have made investments in Paraguay under Law 4986/2013 are exempt from the temporary-residence step that otherwise precedes permanent residence.

An investor therefore goes straight to permanent residence without living through a temporary period first.

What the Foreign Investor Certificate does and does not do must also be kept apart.

Annex I defines it as an official document issued by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce through SUACE in the investor's name, used exclusively for the purpose of obtaining permanent residence from the National Directorate of Migration. It is not a residence document, and it is issued only to natural persons, not to companies.

The residence decision remains with the Directorate of Migration, and the powers of the anti-money-laundering secretariat are expressly preserved alongside.

On post-issue obligations the resolution sets three layers of oversight.

The Directorate of Administrative Records and Verification monitors the conditions monthly, keeps an updated statistical register of certificates issued, and sends a report on certificates issued to the Directorate of Migration at intervals the two bodies agree.

The Directorate of Investment and Special Regimes, for its part, must exhaustively control the documents and assess the business plan, issuing a technical report.

The resolution provides that the certificate application form is completed electronically and sets no in-person filing rule of its own; the Ministry of Industry and Commerce guidance page lists the certificate procedure as an in-person procedure, and the permanent-residence step at the National Directorate of Migration is personal and in person. The resolution allows SUACE to refuse the certificate where the application fails the requirements or lacks mandatory documents.

For Vietnamese nationals, the decisive step is the journey to Asunción. An ordinary Vietnamese passport needs a visa to enter Paraguay, and the Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs lists Vietnam among ten nationalities granted a visa on arrival at Silvio Pettirossi International Airport, on a passport valid for at least six months and payment of the corresponding fee.

Since 1 July 2023 the National Directorate of Migration has required a visa as a mandatory condition for processing residence applications from nationals of countries without a visa-waiver agreement with Paraguay; the official texts checked do not say whether a visa on arrival meets that requirement. The Embassy of Paraguay in Japan is accredited to Vietnam, and Paraguay's honorary consuls may not take visa applications.

The certificate file must include proof of entry into Paraguay. From 11 September 2026 the Apostille Convention is in force for Vietnam, and Paraguay is not among the states that objected to Vietnam's accession, so documents issued in Vietnam can carry an apostille in place of consular legalisation.

Migration Law 6984 of 2022 contains no residence category of its own for the family of a foreign investor, and that is this cell's finding rather than a corner left untouched.

At the level of principle the right to reunion exists, and the law defines the family circle precisely: Article 4(10), among the law's general principles, guarantees migrants the right to family reunion with parents, spouses, unmarried minor children and adult children with disabilities.

Article 10 places on the National Directorate of Migration a duty to facilitate the mechanisms of reunion, with particular care for the children, women and older people within that circle.

But the only two articles that open a direct path to residence for relatives do not cover this route: Article 48 admits the foreign spouse, children and grandchildren straight to permanent residence, and Article 53 lists their documents.

Both are written for the relatives of a repatriated Paraguayan national, not for the relatives of a resident foreigner.

The foreign investor therefore falls outside both, and the law leaves this gap to subordinate regulation.

Two other rights are real and measurable, though they are not rights of residence:

Article 13 allows foreigners admitted as residents to bring in their personal property, the property of their family, household effects and one family means of transport, on import duties set by the National Customs Directorate; and Article 14 guarantees the right to transfer funds abroad for the support of relatives.

One point belongs with any reading because it bears on the whole file: relationship documents issued abroad must be current, legalised or apostilled, and where they are not in Spanish need a translation by a sworn translator enrolled in Paraguay.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Paraguay passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Paraguay passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Paraguay passport reaches 152 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The tax position of this route is set by the general law, and the decisive point turns on one word: source.

Law 6380 of 2019 on the modernisation and simplification of the national tax system, Article 48, charges Personal Income Tax only on Paraguayan-source income — income from activities carried on in the Republic, from property situated there, or from rights economically exploited there.

Income arising outside the territory falls outside the charging provision.

Article 49 states that the taxpayers are natural persons, Paraguayan or foreign, resident in the territory, so residence brings filing duties rather than a charge on worldwide income. Three rates must be read separately.

Income and gains from capital bear a flat eight per cent under Article 60.

Income from personal services bears a banded progressive scale: eight per cent on the slice up to 50 million guaraníes, nine per cent on the slice above 50 million up to 150 million, and ten per cent on the slice from 150,000,001 guaraníes upward.

Where gross income from personal services in the fiscal year does not exceed 80 million guaraníes, the taxpayer must still meet the formal obligations but is not liable to pay.

The third rate matters most to anyone placing capital: the Dividends and Profits Tax is eight per cent where the recipient is an individual or entity resident in the country, and fifteen per cent where the recipient is not resident, including a parent company abroad.

On a dividend stream from a Paraguayan company, becoming resident therefore almost halves the rate. One limit of this reading must be stated: Law 6380 itself sets no day-count for deciding whether an individual is tax resident; that test sits in the implementing regulation, so the number of days cannot be read from this source.

The state fees for this route are not written in money but in day-wages, and that has to be understood before any budget is drawn.

Article 99 of Migration Law 6984 of 2022 requires foreigners to pay a fee on every application for precarious, temporary or permanent residence, for a change of information, an extension of stay, a change of Migration category, and for the certificates and documents the National Directorate of Migration requires.

Article 100 sets the schedule, and the whole of it is expressed in jornales, the statutory minimum day-wage: permanent residence fifteen day-wages. Temporary residence ten; spontaneous or occasional residence eight.

Precarious residence five; extension of temporary residence eleven. Extension of stay five; replacement of a residence card five. Renewal of a permanent residence card four; change of category ten.

Change of information two; issue of certificates and other documents two.

The permanent residence fee is the one that matters here, because Article 46 exempts anyone who can properly evidence an investment under Law 4986 of 2013 from the temporary stage that would otherwise come before permanent residence.

Article 101 does grant exemptions, but to the relatives of repatriated Paraguayan nationals, so it does not reach this route.

Three further groups of cost sit in the document lists of Articles 51 and 52 and are routinely overlooked:

Three separate record certificates must be obtained, from the Identification Department of the National Police, the foreigners' certificate from the Police Computing Department, and a judicial record certificate, plus one Interpol certificate, all required from the age of fourteen.

Every document issued abroad must be legalised or apostilled; and documents not in Spanish must be translated by a sworn translator enrolled in Paraguay, or by a foreign sworn translator whose translation is then apostilled.

The amount actually charged is higher than the statute: under the National Directorate of Migration's tariff in force from 1 July 2026, based on Decree 6225/2026 and Directorate Resolution 478/2026, permanent residence, including a change of category, costs 25 day-wages, or 2,926,925 guaraníes paid in cash, on a minimum day-wage of 117,077 guaraníes and a monthly minimum wage of 3,044,000 guaraníes.

Because the schedule is denominated in day-wages, the amount moves with each minimum-wage adjustment. The basis for charging 25 day-wages rather than the 15 written in Article 100 has not been verified at an official source.