Uruguay Investor Visa

The requirements document sets no income figure. The condition is proof of a nominal monthly income sufficient for one own maintenance, and the means of proof changes with the source of that income.

A person living on investment income, a pensioner or a retiree drawing income from abroad must file a notarial certificate stating that status, the nature of the income, the nominal monthly amount and how it is received in Uruguay.

A business owner or shareholder must file a notarial certificate carrying the full legal check on the company, including that its legal personality is valid and current, its corporate term, its registration with the social security and tax authorities, its line of business, its tax domicile and its representatives.

The Indexed Unit figures in the options table are not thresholds for the residence permit described above. They are grounds for being treated as a tax resident on the basis of economic interests, published by the Tax Directorate.

The lowest, 3,500,000 units for real estate bought from 1 July 2020, also requires physical presence of at least 60 days a year. The full conditions of each ground are recorded in the tax cell of this page.

What this route produces is the regularisation of migration status: the authority's current procedure page directs a foreign national who wishes to reside in Uruguay temporarily or permanently to the procedure needed to obtain residence and a Uruguayan identity card, and opens the general permanent category to any foreign national intending to reside permanently.

The responsible body is the Ministry of the Interior, National Directorate of Migration, Residences Department.

The output is not limited to the residence decision itself: the file also produces a Migration certificate, and that certificate is what is used to obtain the Uruguayan identity card — the step that brings a newcomer into the country’s identity system.

There are other permanent categories that readers should know about before assembling a file, because using the wrong one costs time.

Nationals of MERCOSUR member and associated states, together with the spouses, cohabiting partners, parents and siblings of Uruguayan nationals, are permanent residents under Article 33 of Law 18,250, as worded by Article 169 of Law 20,075 of 2022, and need only prove that nationality or tie. Their applications may be filed with the Ministry of the Interior or with Uruguay's consular offices, and the Ministry must decide within 90 working days; Article 27(B) of the same law gives the Ministry of the Interior the power to grant permanent residence.

Law 19,254 of 2014 is only the former wording of those two articles and has been replaced. The National Directorate of Migration, within the Ministry of the Interior, now runs separate procedure pages for MERCOSUR permanent residence and for permanent residence through a tie to a Uruguayan national, updated on 12 March 2026. Which category applies is decided by nationality or family tie rather than chosen by the applicant.

This route publishes no processing deadline, but it carries a forfeiture rule a reader needs before anything else, because it takes the money too.

The authority states it plainly: arriving later than the 10-minute tolerance, or without the documents marked exclusionary, means the appointment and the payment are lost, and a new procedure must be started.

The largest timing risk here is therefore not the authority being slow but the applicant being one document short.

The filing rhythm: book through the public services portal, attend in person on the day with the complete file, and only after the file has been opened may a representative be appointed to make enquiries and carry it forward.

Some documents carry a period of validity, so a file prepared slowly can expire on its own:

A marriage certificate, where needed to prove the relationship, must not have been issued more than one year earlier; a power of attorney by which parents authorise a minor's residence is valid for 180 days, and an authorisation made before a Uruguayan consulate is valid for six months from issue.

The police record requirement concerns scope rather than validity: it must be national in scope, and state, provincial and departmental ones are not accepted.

All foreign documents must be legalised or apostilled and translated into Spanish by a Uruguayan public translator, except documents issued by Brazil. And once the file is open, missing documents are added through the online procedure itself; in Montevideo they are received in a single delivery, with partial delivery not accepted, from 09:00 to 14:00 on weekdays, with 50 numbers issued each day.

The intention to reside permanently defines this category: the immigration authority's current procedure page describes permanent residence as open to any foreign national intending to reside permanently in Uruguay, but states neither how that intention is assessed nor any legal provision for assessing it — a condition of intent, then, not a count of days.

But the most telling part of this cell is three conditions showing the route is designed for someone already in the country rather than applying from afar.

First, the applicant must produce the original of a valid identity document, matching the one used to book the appointment, and where the nationality requires a visa to enter Uruguay that visa must be valid under Decree 356/18 — a requirement marked exclusionary.

Second, two mandatory health documents can only be obtained in Uruguay: a valid health card and a vaccination certificate must both be issued by public or private health providers authorised by the Ministry of Public Health under Decree 136/2018, and a person vaccinated abroad must attend a vaccination centre in Uruguay with proof.

The detail and the fees are recorded in the other costs cell of this table.

Third, an applicant who does not speak Spanish must attend with an interpreter.

On absence, the rule bites while the file is still being processed: leaving Uruguay for more than six months obliges the applicant to file a further police record from the country where that time was spent.

For minors there are two extra conditions: express parental authorisation, and from the age of four proof of student status by a certificate from the educational institution.

The right of reunion is written into the statute itself, at article 10 of Law 18,250: the Uruguayan State guarantees migrants the right to family reunification with parents, spouses, cohabiting partners, unmarried minor children or adult children with disabilities.

An unmarried partner is recognised, but must be evidenced by a judicial decision formally establishing the cohabitation; a bare declaration is not accepted.

Accompanying parents need only the sponsor birth certificate, with no age limit and no separate financial dependency test. The financial threshold falls on the sponsor rather than accruing per head: monthly income must reach at least the national minimum wage, given on the procedure page as 25,383 pesos as at 1 July 2026.

The reunification procedure is handled by the Consular Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rather than by the immigration authority, and each dependant files a separate form.

In the immigration authority permanent residence file a minor is an independent applicant, requiring a notarised authorisation from both parents, while the criminal record certificate applies only from the age of eighteen.

One point larger than this record: the immigration authority lists five lawful residence categories and none of them is an investor route; the word investor does not appear on the permanent residence page, on the temporary residence page or anywhere in Law 18,250.

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 Uruguay passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Uruguay passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Uruguay passport reaches 167 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.

Uruguay does offer a real tax concession to newcomers, but it is not tied to the residence permit — it attaches to tax residence, and the two are reached by different routes.

The immigration authority procedure page does not mention tax or levy; the tax authority appears there only within the notarial certificate required of a company, through the company's tax registration and tax domicile.

Conversely, the tax authority's guidance never mentions a residence permit, legal residence or a visa, but it does rely on immigration records: days of presence are proved by a certificate of migratory movements issued by the National Directorate of Migration, and the procedure page for a tax-residence certificate accepts a foreign identity document.

Tax residence is established by satisfying any one of four grounds, tested at 31 December each year. Ground one, physical presence: more than 183 days in the calendar year, with sporadic absences of no more than 30 consecutive days counted in, unless a certificate of tax residence in another country is produced.

Ground two, vital interests: a spouse not legally separated together with dependent minor children habitually resident in Uruguay; where there are no children, the spouse alone suffices.

Ground three, main nucleus: income generated in Uruguay greater than in any other single country, compared country by country rather than against the total.

Ground four, economic interests, has four branches, and all four apply only where the person does not prove tax residence in another country. A person who can still prove tax residence in Vietnam therefore does not become a Uruguayan tax resident through property or an investment alone.

The first is real estate above 15,000,000 indexed units. The second is above 45,000,000 indexed units in an undertaking with an investment project declared of national interest under Law No. 16,906.

The third is real estate above 3,500,000 indexed units acquired from 1 July 2020, plus physical presence of at least 60 days a year. The fourth is an investment in an undertaking above 15,000,000 indexed units from 1 July 2020, together with the creation of at least 15 full-time jobs.

The legal basis is Article 2 of Title 7 of the Consolidated Text 2023 and Article 5 bis of Decree No. 148/007.

That concession changed on 1 January 2026. Law No. 20,446 amended Article 24 of Title 7 of the Consolidated Text 2023 so that the earlier elections could be made only once and no later than 31 December 2025. Those elections were: for people becoming tax resident from 2020, paying Non-Resident Income Tax for the year of the change and the ten following tax years, or paying Personal Income Tax at 7%; for the older cohort, an extension of up to ten tax years under Law No. 19,937, conditional each year on holding real estate above 3,500,000 indexed units acquired from 22 January 2021 and on physical presence of at least 60 days. Decree No. 188/026, published on 19 August 2026, sets the same 31 December 2025 deadline for the corresponding elections in Articles 5 quater and 5 quinquies of Decree No. 148/007.

People becoming tax resident from 1 January 2026 fall under Article 24-BIS, added by Law No. 20,446. They may elect Non-Resident Income Tax for the year of the change and the ten following tax years, but only on movable capital income from abroad, and must meet one of three conditions: real estate investment above 12,500,000 indexed units; capitalising investment funds that finance productive projects, research or innovation by at least 625,000 indexed units a year; or meeting the presence ground of more than 183 days in each tax year. A common condition is not having been tax resident in the two preceding tax years.

Decree No. 225/026, published on 29 September 2026, provides that the real estate counted towards the 12,500,000 indexed-unit threshold is property acquired from 1 September 2025, and that it may coincide with the property used to establish tax residence under Article 5 bis of Decree No. 148/007. The 3,500,000 indexed-unit threshold therefore remains a tax-residence ground but no longer opens the concession to newcomers on its own.

After the ten years, the law offers two further elections with conditions of their own: Personal Income Tax at 50% of the rate for five tax years, or a fixed annual amount of 1,875,000 indexed units, reduced to 1,250,000 indexed units in years in which the 183-day ground is met.

The legal basis for the concession is Articles 24 and 24-BIS of Title 7 of the Consolidated Text 2023 as amended by Law No. 20,446, and Articles 5 quater to 5 septies of Decree No. 148/007 as amended by Decrees No. 188/026 and No. 225/026. The tax authority's guidance on the election for new tax residents, dated 15 October 2025, still describes the earlier elections and has not been updated for Law No. 20,446.

Some parameters of the residence route itself: the permanent category is open to any foreign national intending to reside permanently.

The file comprises a valid passport, and a valid visa where the nationality requires one under Decree 356/18, which is an excluding requirement. It also needs criminal record certificates from the country of origin and every country of residence of six months or more in the preceding five years.

A person living on foreign income proves it with a notarial certificate, as the capital threshold cell describes.

Read this cell within its scope: the immigration source covers documents and procedure and says nothing about tax; the tax sources cover tax residence and the concession, never mention a residence permit or a visa, and connect with the immigration authority only through the certificate of migratory movements used to count days of presence.

The thresholds and conditions in this cell have been checked against the consolidated text of Decree No. 148/007 on the IMPO legislation portal, which includes Articles 5 bis to 5 septies, and against Title 7 of the Consolidated Text 2023.

Three charges, expressed in Indexed Units and revalued every six months:

The residence procedure at 557.30 UI, the migration certificate needed to obtain an identity card at 55.70 UI, and, least often mentioned, from the moment the file is opened until residence is granted, every departure from Uruguay requires a re-entry permit costing 225.60 UI.

The file must also carry a vaccination certificate and a valid health card, both issued by public or private health providers authorised by the Ministry of Public Health under Decree 136/2018; a person vaccinated abroad must attend a vaccination centre in Uruguay with proof