Residency with an Income of $400 a Month | Pathfinder International

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Dear Reader,

When buying an overseas property, you should first decide what you'll use the property for. Is it for investment (rental income, or appreciation, or a bit of both), or for personal use?

If it's for personal use, and you want to spend part or all of the year living there, then you need to investigate residency options. Most countries allow tourists to stay for periods from 30-90 days. That's perfect if you plan on spending only a few weeks at a time in your property and renting it out while you're not there.

But what if your plan is avoiding cold winter weather and spending half of the year in your new beach home? Or your dream is full-time relocation, leaving your old life behind?

We've written about residency in Belize, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Ecuador to date. Today, we investigate Nicaragua's residency programs--and discover that you can retire here if you can prove a monthly income of just $400 a month or more. That's one of the lowest income requirements for residency, and worth investigating further if you're on a tight budget.

Margaret Summerfield

NICARAGUA

Foreign retiree status in Nicaragua gives some benefits, mostly in the form of tax incentives. As a foreign retiree, you're entitled to:

Pay no taxes on any out-of-country earnings.
Bring into Nicaragua up to US$10,000 worth of household goods for your own home, duty free.
Import one automobile for personal or general use and pay no import tax or protective tariff up to US$ 25,000. You can sell the vehicle after five years, again exempt from consumer sales tax
Import an additional vehicle every five years under the same duty exemptions.

Next, we'll show you the standard documents required for all residency applications.

Standard Documents Required

Residence forms from the immigration authority in Nicaragua.
Photocopies of the stamped pages of your passport (the passport must have a validity of at least six months).
Two passport-sized photos.
Criminal record from your country of origin (or country of residence for the last five years), legalized and translated into Spanish. This certificate should be issued at most six months before the application date for residency.
Health certificate issued by the health authority of your country of origin (or country of residence for the last five years), legalized and translated into Spanish.
Birth certificate from your country of origin, legalized and translated into Spanish.
Marriage certificate from the country where the marriage was celebrated (if applicable).

Please note that all documentation provided from abroad must be legalized before the nearest Nicaraguan Consulate. All documents must be translated into Spanish.
There are two kinds of residency status:

Temporary Resident: the period of residence is for 1 year, and the applicant shall renew his/her resident card yearly. After 3 consecutive years in Nicaragua, the applicant can apply for permanent resident status.

The applicant can be outside Nicaragua for up to 6 months, during the year of residence.

Permanent Resident: the period of residence is for 5 years, and the applicant shall renew his/her resident card every 5 years.

With permanent residency, the applicant can be outside Nicaragua for only 1 year during the 5 years of residence.

Now, we will look more closely at the documents needed for specific permanent residency categories.

Foreign Immigrant

Certificate issued by the government demonstrating interest in the activities to be developed by the applicant.
University degree of the applicant; his/her profession has to be authorized to be practiced in Nicaragua.
Certificate issued by a state organization, public or private company, or international organization, stating that the applicant will work with them.
Certificate of income source.
Banking deposit certification.

Foreign Investor

Business plan certified by the Commerce, Industry and Development Ministry.
Statement regarding source of income, indicating how much is earned by the applicant.

Financial Resident

Certificate demonstrating income received from abroad, duly legalized by the corresponding authority in the country where the income is given.
Certificate demonstrating that the applicant has deposited bonds or other securities issued by the State of Nicaragua in the last 5 years.
Document showing the actual monthly interest generated by the bank deposits.

Foreign Retired Persons

Document proving the pension received for retirement reasons (income should not be lower than US$ 400 per month.
Applicant must be older than 45 years.
If the applicant will import his/her household goods, he/she will be required to file a list of the goods, in original and two copies.

The abovementioned requirements must be filed with an application to the Tourism Ministry (INTUR) in Nicaragua, which will then issue a resolution allowing the condition of "Foreign Retired Person". Once the tourism ministry issues this resolution, the residency application can be submitted to the immigration authority.

The immigration authority may ask for additional documents, as well as an interview with the applicant.

Norma Morales

For more information on residency in Nicaragua, please feel free to contact Norma, (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)