The step-by-step plan for Paraguay

In this step you learn how you may come to live in Paraguay. It starts differently from most countries: you apply for nothing in advance. With a Dutch passport you enter without a visa, for at most 90 days. According to the visa table of the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (DNM), the migration service, you also need no visa to extend your stay or to apply for residence.

The 2022 migration law, Ley 6984, has two steps:

• Residencia temporal. For whoever settles in Paraguay for an activity, also with a pension. Valid for at most two years, and extendable.
• Residencia permanente. For an indefinite period. You apply for it after you've had the temporal: the DNM calls the temporal a condition for the permanente.

There are two exceptions that give permanent straight away: the investor through the SUACE and the spouse or child of a Paraguayan. See step 2.5 and 2.6.

A difference from the neighbouring countries. For the temporal the DNM names no income amount and no proof of means. That proof, the solvencia económica, you only hand in at the switch to the permanente. Even then without a minimum amount.

Not retired yet? Whoever leaves before the AOW age looks at what they can show at the switch: a job or a business of their own in Paraguay, remote work for an employer abroad, or a home of their own in Paraguay.

In this step you see what emigrating to Paraguay does to your tax, your AOW and your healthcare. Three treaties decide it, and all three turn out differently.

Tax: no treaty. Paraguay isn't in the Belastingdienst table of treaty countries. Without a tax treaty, the Netherlands has the right to tax. Your AOW, your pension and your annuity therefore stay taxed in the Netherlands. On the Paraguayan side, the income tax for individuals, the IRP, taxes according to the tax authority DNIT "las rentas de fuente paraguaya": income from Paraguay. Your Dutch pension isn't part of that. How that works out is in step 3.2 and 3.3.

The AOW: a treaty. The Netherlands and Paraguay concluded a treaty in 2005 on the export and enforcement of social security benefits. It has been in force since 1 March 2008. Paraguay is among the 36 countries to which the Netherlands sends the full AOW. So whoever goes alone keeps the AOW for a single person.

Healthcare: no treaty. Paraguay isn't on the list of treaty countries for healthcare. So there's no CAK. Your Dutch basic insurance stops when you deregister. See step 3.1.

Your AOW build-up stops. Whoever lives outside the Netherlands is usually no longer insured. Every year until your AOW age then costs 2 percent of your later AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. The registration must be in within one year.

In this step you choose where you want to live. Paraguay has one big city, Asunción, and beyond it mostly smaller towns, farmland and the dry Chaco in the west. Whoever only knows the capital doesn't know the country yet.

Look at three things in every place:

• The climate. The summer is long and hot, and falls in our winter. Live a few weeks in the place you choose, in the season you'll really be there.
• Healthcare. Ask in every place which hospitals there are, and how far it is to the nearest. See step 5.3.
• The desks. You apply for your residencia in person at the DNM. The head office is in Asunción; ask in advance which office near you accepts applications.

Your exploratory trip can be the start of your application right away. As a visitor you may stay 90 days, and you apply for the residencia in Paraguay. See step 2.8.

In this step you see what the move will cost you. On the application side Paraguay is straightforward. The residencia temporal costs 2,926,925 guaraníes per person, about 457 euros, and two years later the permanente costs the same.

The money sits in three other items:

• The healthcare that replaces the CAK: a policy of your own, which comes back every year.
• The move across the ocean. According to customs, your household goods may come in free of duties if you lived abroad for more than a year.
• The papers: every document gets an apostille and a translation.

In this conversation you decide together whether Paraguay fits, and when. This country comes with three things you need to see together.

• The language. At the DNM, the bank and the doctor everything is in Spanish. Agree who will learn Spanish, and how.
• The distance. Family and grandchildren in the Netherlands you no longer see in between. Agree how often you'll come back.
• The two years. The permanente only comes after the temporal. Whoever spends long periods in the Netherlands in those years still has to arrange the switch in Paraguay on time. See step 5.6.

Choose the day you want to leave. The plan counts back from that date: when the papers from the Netherlands must be in, when the household goods go out the door and when you deregister.

Count two clocks. As a visitor you have 90 days to file your application at the DNM. And two years later, in the three months before your temporal expires, you apply for the permanente.