The short version: Paraguay residency cost starts with a qualifying investment of USD 40,000 to USD 200,000, depending on the route, plus roughly USD 480–560 in government fees and USD 1,000–2,500 in translation and incidental costs per applicant. Legal fees sit on top and are quoted individually, since they depend on your route and family composition rather than a fixed menu price. For the full itemised version, see our complete cost breakdown.
What follows is a shorter, practical answer to the question most people ask: what will this cost me, and what am I getting for it.
The number depends entirely on what you count
Most “Paraguay residency from USD 40,000” headlines online are technically true and practically misleading. USD 40,000 is a real threshold — it is the qualifying contribution for the film and audiovisual route. But it is one line in a four-line total, and treating it as the whole answer is how applicants end up surprised.
Every application, whatever the route, is built from the same four cost layers:
- The qualifying investment — set by the route you choose under Resolution N° 0283/2026 (or, for film, under the separate Ley N° 6106/2018 pathway).
- Government fees — the tariffs Paraguay’s Dirección Nacional de Migraciones charges to process the residency application itself, separate from the investment.
- Legal and professional fees — the cost of structuring the file correctly and seeing it through to the cédula. This varies with complexity, not with the investment size, and is confirmed in a personal consultation.
- Translation, apostille and incidentals — certified document translation, legalisation, background checks and travel to Asunción.
The full cost breakdown walks through each layer with sources. Here, the short version, applied to the decision most people are weighing: which route, and what does it really cost once everything is added up.
Qualifying investment by route
| Route | Minimum investment | What you hold at the end |
|---|---|---|
| Film & audiovisual | USD 40,000 (contribution) | Nothing recoverable — a contribution to an approved production |
| SUACE company | USD 70,000 | An active, capitalised Paraguayan company |
| Approved tourism project | USD 150,000 | A stake in an approved tourism development |
| Real estate | USD 200,000 | Title to income-generating property |
| Financial instruments | USD 200,000, held minimum 2 years | Regulated financial instruments, held in your name |
The film route also carries a USD 80,000 show-of-funds requirement — you must demonstrate you hold that amount in available bank funds, but you do not contribute it. It is a proof-of-solvency check, not a second investment, and it is worth understanding before comparing film’s headline USD 40,000 against the other four routes.
Government fees: the layer most sites skip
On top of whichever investment you choose, Paraguay’s Migraciones charges its own tariff to process the residency application. Under Executive Decree N° 6225/2026, effective 1 July 2026, the permanent residency application fee is ₲ 2,926,925 — approximately USD 480 at mid-July 2026 exchange rates. That is a per-applicant fee, distinct from the investment itself, and it is where a lot of “all-in” marketing numbers quietly stop being honest.
Most applicants also budget for a cédula (national ID card), an Interpol clearance certificate and a local police-clearance certificate — each a modest, separately administered fee confirmed during file preparation.
One distinction worth holding onto here: the Foreign Investor Certificate (CIE), issued by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce within five business days of a complete file, is not the same procedure as permanent residency, which is granted later by Migraciones. The government fee above applies to the residency application — not the CIE.
Legal fees: why we won’t quote a flat number
We will not publish a fixed legal-fee figure here, for the same reason we don’t on the full cost breakdown: a number that ignores your route, your family composition and your existing structure is a marketing anchor, not a quote. What we can say is that fees track complexity, not investment size — a SUACE company formation with genuine operating substance is typically more structuring work than a straightforward real estate purchase, regardless of which one costs more in capital. A firm figure comes out of your consultation, once we understand your circumstances.
If a site advertises an all-in “residency package” price before asking a single question about your situation, treat that number with scepticism. A firm quotation should follow an understanding of your route, your family composition and any existing corporate or trust structure you already hold — not precede it.
Translation, apostille and incidentals
This is the layer that catches people off guard, mostly because it is rarely itemised. It applies regardless of route and scales roughly with family size:
- Apostille of foreign civil documents (birth and marriage certificates, police clearances) — typically USD 20–150 per document, depending on the issuing country.
- Certified Spanish translation, completed locally by a translator registered with the Paraguayan judiciary — typically USD 30–100 per page. A translation done abroad, even apostilled, is not accepted on its own.
- Interpol and local police-clearance certificates, cédula issuance, and travel to Asunción for the in-country stage.
Added together, most single applicants land somewhere in the USD 1,000–2,500 range for this layer. Families see it scale close to linearly per person, since each family member’s documents go through the same chain.
A worked example: SUACE, single applicant
To make this concrete, take the SUACE company route for a single applicant — indicative, not a quote:
| Layer | Approximate figure |
|---|---|
| Qualifying investment | USD 70,000 (retained, in your company) |
| Government fees | ~USD 480–560 |
| Translation, apostille & incidentals | ~USD 1,000–2,500 |
| Legal and professional fees | Quoted individually |
| Subtotal before legal fees | ~USD 71,500–73,000 |
The same arithmetic applies to every route — government fees and incidentals stay in roughly the same range, and only the qualifying investment changes:
| Route | Qualifying investment | Subtotal before legal fees* |
|---|---|---|
| Film & audiovisual | USD 40,000 (non-recoverable) | ~USD 41,500–43,000 |
| SUACE company | USD 70,000 (retained) | ~USD 71,500–73,000 |
| Approved tourism project | USD 150,000 (retained) | ~USD 151,500–153,000 |
| Real estate | USD 200,000 (retained) | ~USD 201,500–203,000 |
| Financial instruments | USD 200,000 (retained, 2-year hold) | ~USD 201,500–203,000 |
*Government fees (~USD 480–560) and incidentals (~USD 1,000–2,500) combined; legal fees excluded, since they are quoted individually. See the full route-by-route breakdown for how each figure is sourced.
Two things stand out. Across every route except film, the government-fee and incidental layers together are a rounding error against the investment itself — well under 1% of the total. And for four of the five routes, that capital is retained by you as a company, a stake, a title or a regulated holding, not spent.
Family applications scale the paperwork layer, not the investment
The qualifying investment is set once per application, not per person. Government fees, apostille and translation costs, however, are generally charged per applicant, so a family of four should expect those layers — not the investment itself — to scale roughly by headcount. One route-specific wrinkle: on the film route, the main applicant receives direct permanent residency, but dependants typically start on two-year temporary residency before converting, which is worth factoring into planning if that route is under consideration.
The question that matters: cost against what
“Cheapest” is the wrong lens on its own. Film has the lowest cash outlay at USD 40,000, but it is a non-recoverable contribution — the capital doesn’t come back. The SUACE company route, at USD 70,000, gives you an operating business with real economic substance. Real estate and financial instruments, both at USD 200,000, convert your capital into an asset or a regulated holding you retain — the most expensive routes on paper, and the only two where nothing is spent.
The honest comparison is cost against what you’re left holding, not cost in isolation. That is also why we walk every prospective applicant through the full set of routes before recommending one, rather than leading with whichever number sounds best in an ad.
What the investment figure doesn’t tell you
None of the numbers above include citizenship, and that is deliberate, not an oversight. Paraguay does not sell passports alongside the investment. What the Investor Pass buys is a structured path to permanent residency; citizenship follows later, by naturalisation, after the constitutional period of residence, subject to language, civics and physical-presence requirements. Anyone pricing “residency and citizenship” as a single bundled figure is collapsing two separate credentials, on two separate timelines, into one number — which is exactly the kind of shortcut that makes a programme look cheaper and faster than it is.
Costs — and the right route for your circumstances — are worth confirming against your actual situation before you commit capital. Get in touch and we’ll map an itemised breakdown for your route, family composition and timeline.
Editor pass — 2026-07-18
- Fixed a broken-register slip: “for the same reason we don’t on the pillar page” leaked internal CMS/site-structure jargon into reader-facing copy — replaced with a proper descriptive link to the full cost breakdown (
/cost/), which also reinforces the pillar up-link. - Trimmed a repeated “actually” tic (4 instances in body prose) for concision — cut from the H2 heading, the intro, and two other sentences where it added nothing.
- Tightened “We are not going to publish” → “We will not publish” (casual phrasing → law-firm register), matching the identical fix already applied on the /cost/ pillar page.
- Verified CIE ≠ permanent residency ≠ tax residency ≠ citizenship distinctions throughout — all consistent with about.json, cost.json/cost.md and film.json (naturalisation after the constitutional residence period, never “bought”; CIE from MIC vs. residency from Migraciones kept separate).
- Cross-checked every figure (investment thresholds, USD 80,000 film show-of-funds, ₲2,926,925/~USD 480 government fee under Executive Decree N° 6225/2026, USD 1,000–2,500 incidentals, worked-example subtotals) against docs/pillars/cost.md and cost.json — all consistent, nothing altered.
- Frontmatter verified: seoTitle 45 chars, description 136 chars (both within limits), hero points to a real file (
/uploads/fin-hero.webp, same hero used on the /cost/ pillar), pillar and route links present and linked in-body with matching/descriptive anchors (“full cost breakdown”, “SUACE company route”). - Flags: 1 [FLAG] — added an HTML comment (non-reader-facing) ahead of the translation/apostille figures noting they are unsourced market-rate estimates, mirroring the identical flag already carried on the /cost/ pillar page (docs/pillars/cost.md). Figures themselves were not altered.
- Verdict: ready for design.
Last reviewed against Resolution N° 0283/2026 and current official fee schedules.