Uruguay Investment Residency (with the foreign-income tax holiday)
- Processing time
- 6–12 months
- Physical presence
- Uruguay expects genuine presence. The route to citizenship — three years for married applicants or those with dependent children, five years otherwise — can reset if you leave the country for more than six consecutive months, so this is not a passport for someone who will not spend real time there.
- Family
- Spouse and dependent children are included; the shorter three-year citizenship clock applies to married applicants and those with dependent children.
Investment routes
Real estate
From $2 000 000
- Capital
- Non-refundable
Real estate of at least about 2,000,000 USD (12.5 million indexed units), the threshold raised by Law 20.446 from 1 January 2026. This route secures the ten-year exemption on foreign-source income, on top of legal residency.
Investment fund
From $100 000
- Capital
- Non-refundable
Alternatively, 100,000 USD per year for eleven consecutive years into the National Innovation Fund. A committed, long-horizon route to the same ten-year foreign-income tax holiday.
Limits and drawbacks
- Legal residency and the tax holiday are two different things. Residency can be obtained on means or income, but the ten-year foreign-income exemption via investment now requires about 2,000,000 USD in property, or 100,000 USD a year for eleven years — a steep bar raised in 2026.
- You can also get the tax holiday simply by spending 183+ days a year in Uruguay, with no investment — but that means genuinely living there.
- After the holiday, Uruguay taxes foreign financial income (dividends, interest) at a flat rate raised to 12% in the 2026 reform, and local income is taxed progressively up to 36%.
- Citizenship rewards real presence: leaving for more than six consecutive months can reset the three- or five-year clock. This is a settle-here route, not a fly-in passport.