Argentina Citizenship by Investment: USD 350,000 Announced

That shifts the question. Until October, the figures in circulation—500,000 US dollars, one million, a non-refundable donation—came from press briefings and advisory firms and did not appear in the decrees. Now there is an official figure, but it sits in a press release. Until the Ministry of Economy publishes the rule in the Boletín Oficial, the amounts, the security's terms and the procedure can still change.

What the government announced on 2 October 2026

Economy Minister Luis Caputo presented the Programa de Ciudadanía por Inversión at Argentina Week in Paris. The official announcement sets out:

• Main applicant: a direct, non-refundable contribution of USD 350,000 to the National Treasury, or the subscription of a USD 800,000 government security (título público) created for the programme.
• Family: the main applicant's spouse and children may also apply. A spouse contributes USD 100,000, as does each child aged 18 to 25 who is unmarried and has no children; each minor contributes USD 25,000. The announcement's example—a main applicant, a spouse and two minor children—totals USD 500,000.
• Timing: the programme is to be operational to receive applications during the fourth quarter of 2026.
• Assessment: led by the Agencia de Programas de Ciudadanía por Inversión, with the state intelligence service (SIDE), the financial intelligence unit (UIF) and the ministries of security and the interior; the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones approves or rejects each application.
• Checks: identity, the traceability and lawfulness of the funds, assets and finances, jurisdiction risk, criminal and reputational background and migration history; all funds must go through the formal financial system.

What the announcement does not contain matters as much: no decree or resolution number, no property or other productive investment as a qualifying option, no residence or holding requirement and no application channel.

What Decree 366/2025 changed

Decree 366/2025, published in the Boletín Oficial on 29 May 2025, replaced Article 2 of Ley 346, the Argentine citizenship law dating from 1869. The replacement sets out two routes to naturalisation.

The first is residence: a foreign national aged 18 or over who has held continuous legal residence for the two years preceding the application. The decree defines continuous with unusual severity. The text requires that the person hubiere permanecido en el territorio durante todo el plazo … sin haber realizado ninguna salida al exterior—remained in the territory for the whole period without any departure abroad. Read literally, a single trip out of the country restarts the clock.

The second is investment, and the decisive phrase is that it applies cualquiera sea el tiempo de su residencia—whatever the duration of residence. No minimum stay. No physical presence requirement in the decree at all.

The same decree moved naturalisation out of the federal courts and into the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones. That is an administrative change with practical consequences: the decision now sits with an executive agency rather than a judge, which is faster and also more exposed to policy shifts.

Article 2 bis, added by the same decree, states that the Ministry of Economy will determine which investments count as relevant, and may designate specific investment projects. That sentence is the legal hook for any amount: the figures announced in October 2026 still have to be set out in a rule issued under it.

The same decree also created the Agencia de Programas de Ciudadanía por Inversión as a decentralised body under the Ministry of Economy (new Article 6 bis of Ley 346).

What Decree 524/2025 added

Decree 524/2025, published 31 July 2025, built the machinery. It set out how the Agencia de Programas de Ciudadanía por Inversión (APCI), created by Decree 366/2025, handles an application.

Eligibility rests on having made a relevant investment under the criteria the Ministry of Economy sets. APCI assesses whether a given investment qualifies as relevant. Before it reports, it has to gather clearances—from the Ministry of Security, the Unidad de Información Financiera, the criminal record registry and the state intelligence service—and then submit a reasoned report, an informe circunstanciado, recommending approval or rejection to Migraciones. Migraciones then has thirty business days from receipt of that report to decide.

Thirty business days is the number that has travelled furthest in coverage of this programme, and it is real. It is worth being precise about what it measures: it is the deadline for the final decision after APCI has completed its assessment and the security clearances. It is not the length of the process.

The official government announcement of 30 July 2025 is consistent with the decrees and equally silent on amounts. It describes applicants as those who acrediten haber realizado inversiones relevantes en el país and confirms that the definition rests with the Ministry of Economy.

Announced is not yet enacted

The October announcement answers the price question in principle. It does not yet answer it in law.

The amounts now have an official announcement as their source. At our 8 October check, we had not located a published rule setting them or the security's terms and any holding conditions. Ask for the applicable instrument before planning an application, especially if a firm offers a property-based route or a different price.

What our source check did not establish

At our 8 October 2026 check, we had not located the following:

1. A published Ministry of Economy rule defining relevant investment with the announced amounts and their conditions.
2. The published instrument creating the USD 800,000 government security and setting its terms.
3. An official filing route and its evidence requirements. The government announced receipt of applications during the fourth quarter of 2026.

Our search did not cover every Boletín Oficial publication, so a missing result does not prove that no rule or channel exists. The press release itself is an announcement; verify the applicable rule, filing route and eligibility before committing funds.

What the enacted tax text says—and what it does not settle

Article 194 of Ley 27.802, published on 6 March 2026, adds three paragraphs to Article 116 of the income tax law. The official text says that obtaining Argentine citizenship through a relevant investment does not, by that fact alone, make a foreign individual tax resident under Article 116(a). For Article 116(b), the person continues to be treated as a foreign national; someone who was already a permanent resident when obtaining investment citizenship remains resident under that paragraph.

This is narrower than a general tax exemption. Tax residence and tax exposure can still depend on other facts, statuses and effective dates. The statute does not replace a case-specific analysis of residence, income source, entity structure or reporting obligations.

How this compares with the neighbours

Paraguay and Uruguay already have working routes, which is why interest in Argentine investment citizenship has outrun anything an applicant can currently do about it. We have run all three processes ourselves, and the differences are practical rather than theoretical.

Paraguay issues temporary residency quickly—about six weeks in our case—and requires one personal entry, which powers of attorney reduce but do not remove. The cédula that follows is the document that actually unlocks things; without it a bank account is effectively out of reach. Normal issue time is six to twelve weeks. Ours took five months, and for the second applicant in the same household close to a year, after a scandal at the immigration authority led to restructuring and files sat untouched. That was an outlier and we say so, because most guides quote either the brochure timeline or a horror story, and neither is the expected case.

Uruguay also requires personal entry, and expects you not to be absent for more than roughly six months early on, or the application can lapse. The binding constraint for us has been proof of income, in the order of USD 1,600 a month, which is straightforward on a salary and awkward when income arrives as dividends or distributions. Mercosur nationality matters here: for an Argentine the route is simple, for a German spouse in the same household it is not.

Argentina taught us the departure rule the expensive way. A permanent-residency application filed before the May 2025 changes was terminated near the end because we left the country, which we had not understood would break it. That is worth knowing now that Decree 366/2025 has written a strict continuity requirement into the residence route: the administrative practice came first, the text followed.

Two smaller observations. Argentine paperwork is largely digital, German apostilles are not, and physically shipping documents between countries was the most tedious part of all three processes. On cost, agency fees of around USD 2,000 structured with two trips, and closer to USD 2,500 around a single trip, are what we paid; we have heard higher.

What to watch

The signal that matters is now the published rule: a Ministry of Economy resolution or decree that defines relevant investment with the announced amounts, and the instrument that creates the USD 800,000 security. Both will appear in the Boletín Oficial. A press briefing or an advisory-firm update does not change what an applicant can rely on.

The second signal is a working filing route at APCI, announced for the fourth quarter of 2026. A created agency and a reachable agency are different things. We track both on the implementation-status entry in the regulatory tracker.

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