How to prepare your immigration papers, permanent residence permit and identity card for Paraguay by yourself
Preparing immigration papers – Part II – After your arrival in Paraguay
You have successfully completed the preparations in your home country, and are now full of energy (which you will need) and ready to leave the airport.
First find a cab and negotiate the price. Some have already managed to be driven through the city for about Euro/USD 100,- for half a day, others pay 2 to 3 times as much for it; depending on luck and language skills.
With the cab it goes to a local copy-shop to make copies of your passport with entry stamp. These copies then need to be certified with a local notary (escribania publica). This will serve as our “proof of legal entry” into Paraguay.
Certificate of good conduct from Interpol Paraguay
Continue your journey and you will arrive at Interpol, where you will give your fingerprints to obtain the police certificate of good conduct from Interpol Paraguay.
For this you will also need
- A copy of the passport (data sheet), notarized
- A copy of the entry stamp, notarized
- 2 passport photos
If all your documents are already translated, you will save about 3 days now (why? see Part I).
If you are having your documents translated in Paraguay, you will need to find yourself an approved translator.
Registration confirmation of your residence in Paraguay
Once this is done, he next step is confirmation of your residence in Paraguay. This is to be issued by a police station near your home or hotel.
Usually 2 witnesses + 2 copies of their cédulas (Paraguayan identity cards) and a small donation to the police are enough for this, and you will have your registration confirmation in hand within about 1 hour. However the country is getting more and more modernised and this could be a lot more complicated depending on where in Paraguay you are going to do this.
National certificate of good conduct for foreigners
With the certified copy of your passport (remember it?) you now go to the “Identificaciones” in Asuncion for the receipt of your “national certificate of good conduct for foreigners”.
You will need the original plus a certified copy of this later.
Nice and slow we are making progress and your “to do” list is getting shorter.
Affidavit/Declaration
Still missing is the affidavit from the main migration office, original with certified copy.
In this you agree to abide by the Constitution and laws of Paraguay, according to Law N° 6984/2022.
Application for Residencia Temporaria at “Migraciones”.
Now you have all the necessary documents and you can submit the application for the “Residencia Temporaria” permit at the main migration office “Migraciones”. Under the new law N° 6984/2022 (effective since october 19th 2022) you will now first receive a temporary residence, valid for 2 years. After this initial period of two years, application for the “Residencia Permanente” becomes available. This is a seperate application process and will require another visit to the country.
During the application process, the documents are carefully checked for completeness and the presence of all stamps.
The deadlines (such as certificate of good conduct) must be strictly observed.
If documents and/or stamps are missing, your application will NOT be accepted!
But we are lucky and you have worked correctly and efficiently – congratulations, your application has been accepted! You will now receive the “Mesa de entrada”. With this document, the authorities confirm your application and you can legally stay in the country for 6 months for the time being. The costs for the application is about 420,- Euro/USD per person and has to be paid in cash.
From now on, patience is required – expect a processing time of several months.
Police registration for foreigners (Registro para extranjeros)
Once you have the “Mesa de entrada”, the journey continues to the “Registro para extranjeros” for the fingerprint card.
Here you will need:
- The certified copy of your passport
- 3x certified copy of the Interpol certificate of good conduct
- Notarized registration certificate of the place of residence
- Original + certified copy of the “Mesa de entrada
- 2 passport photos
- Application itself (to be filled out in Spanish)
Identity card/Cedula de Identidad
By now a lot of time has passed and you have already saved the number of “Migraciones” as a favorite in your smartphone.
After hearing 83x that your papers are being processed and that you need patience, you have been told on the 84th call (to your shock!) that everything is now ready and you can pick up your residence permit. A day’s drive to Asuncion later, you finally have your “Residencia Temporaria” in hand and would now like to apply for your identity card (“Cedula”) as well.
The good news is that applying for the cedula is a bit easier than applying for the residence permit. The application for the cedula can be submitted to the “Identificaciones” in Asuncion or to a local office in the country.
- You will probably have to get a new certificate of good conduct from your home country and have it apostilled. Talk to the embassy about the exact procedure. In general it takes 4-6 weeks to arrive.
- You will need a new national (from Paraguay) certificate of good conduct.
- You will need a certificate of good conduct from Interpol in the original and 3 times certified.
- A certified copy of the permanent residence permit.
- A certified copy of the fingerprint card (now you finally know why you went to all the trouble last year with the foreigners’ registration office!)
- 2 passport photos
- The application itself (to be filled out in Spanish)
- The police will take fingerprints from all your fingers
The processing time 2022 is about 2-3 months.
And that was it!
Congratulations on your organizational skills and angelic patience.
Cost breakdown for the residence permit plus Cedula
Completely without immigration helpers, the following costs are to be calculated.
- Fixed costs for the application, stamp fees and translations about Gs 5,000,000 (Eur/USD 700,-).
Overnight costs in Asuncion are variable, but 3-4 nights for the residence permit should be expected. In a hotel one night costs around Gs. 400,000. Let’s calculate with Gs 1,200,000 total cost for a rather modest accommodation per person. - Travel cost for cab or rental car for 6 days. Rental car for 6 days is U$ 35 a day upwards, so from about Gs. 1,500.000 (Eur/USD 210,-). It is much cheaper with public transport, but everything takes much longer.
- Variable cost of rides. Parking fees are virtually always payable downtown. If you are traveling by rental car, then there is a good chance that you will also get a ticket or two. These can quickly reach 1 million Guaranies. Let’s calculate Gs 500,000 as an average, since not everyone will pay a fine, but fuel and parking fees you will pay.
- Variable costs for food and drink. If you want to have at least one meal a day in a restaurant, then we should budget at least Gs 50,000 a day per person or Gs 200.000 total. If you want a decent to good meal per day, then we should easily calculate double that amount.
- Time commitment and nerve costs. Since you will spend an estimated 4 work days on the whole process, time is not particularly important to you. Therefore, we evaluate the value of your time with 0 Eur/USD, since you can’t do anything more useful with it anyways. If you are a working professional you might want to calculate between Eur/USD 10-50 per hour of your valuable time.
If we add up the above items, we are at about Gs 8.500.000 (Eur/USD 1.200,-) for the application of your residence permit in Paraguay. Add the value of your time to this number as you see fit.
Once the residency permit has been granted, you are then free to apply for the Cedula de identidad. This will require another visit to the country. We should calculate about Gs 3.500.000 or Eur/USD 500,- for this document.
Obtain your permanent residency and Cedula with us
If you want to do yourself a favor you can use our help to make things a lot easier and faster for you. Please check here: Obtain your residency and Cedula Paraguay with ParaguayProfis