91 days!

[arlean]

I did that all the time when I lived in Bariloche and they didn't say anything about it. Used to be you could stay forever as long as you crossed a border every three months. Has that changed?

 

[Tourist2008]

I got caught by one day (I was calculating months not days) and yes, they fined me. They did however say (although I have no way of knowing if its true) that they would not register it as a "violation" on the system, as it could give me problems re-entering in future.

All seems like a lottery to me!

 

[ElQueso]

I did that all the time when I lived in Bariloche and they didn't say anything about it. Used to be you could stay forever as long as you crossed a border every three months. Has that changed?

Sort of.

There was a thread that was very specific about this, and a couple of others that have talked about it. In one thread bajo cero was giving his professional opinion on why the visa run is a bad idea.

You are only allowed so much time in Argentina per year, as in every country on the globe I know about, officially. 90 days for a tourist visa, and then in order to stay correctly, a visit to immigrations to get a 90 day extension. That is the maximum official limit.

He explained why visiting Colonia wasn't really renewing the visa. I don't actually remember the legal reasoning, but it's not renewing anything, it's just getting another stamp in the book. Immigration's policy has been to allow people to do this, but it's not according to immigration law and it doesn't actually renew any visa, just puts another stamp in the passport and logs another exit/entry in your computer records in Argentina.

There have been reported cases of people being told/warned that they cannot do the crossing any more. In at least some of the cases, legal immigrations proceedings were initiated against people who were warned not to do it any more - the court issued an order to the person (in absentia) saying the person had 30 days to normalize their status in Argentina of they would be blocked from returning. Some people would get the notice, some not - it depended on whether immigrations/the court had the person's real address at the time the notice was issued as to whether or not the person knew about the order.

The people who did not know failed to comply within the 30 days required. Many of those who did know may not have had recourse unless they were living in the country for more than a year and qualified to go through the citizenship process (which bajo cero specializes in, for people without official resident status, living here for a year or more) or had the prerequisites needed to get residency in some form legally.

Your status while you are here, having exceeded the original 90 day visa, is not illegal, just irregular, until you are issued that notice. It seems that until you are issued that notice from the court, you are fine to be here - irregular, but not illegal.

Once that notice is issued and you pass the 30 days without compliance, you are here illegal. The next time you leave the country and try to reenter, you may not be allowed entrance (I know someone this happened to), or you may be given something like 10 days to get your stuff together and leave. If you stay in that instance, you are illegal.

It has only happened to a handful of people, it seems. However, with the government the way it is lately, I wouldn't be surprised to see that immigrations begins to follow its policies a little closer to the law.

Therefore, every time you leave and come back in order to avoid the 300 peso fine, you are putting yourself in the aim of immigrations and they MAY choose to initiate legal proceedings to have you declared illegally in the country, with the possible penalty that you cannot return for 5 years.

For whatever reason, it seems if you don't do the crossing and just pay the fine when you leave, you're ok. Of course, that depends on the number of times you do THAT I'm sure. At some point, someone who leaves the country a number of times over a few years and pays the fine, even that may be a problem.

I did the "visa renewal run" clear up until I applied for my residency in 2009. I may have reconsidered during that time had I known then what I know now, although then there were never any reported problems that I ever heard.

If anyone plans on getting residency sometime down the line, I would suggest not taking my word for all this, but make sure how this particular item may affect your residency application by talking to an immigration attorney. Anyone else who is here "permatouristeando" but not thinking about residency is certainly much better off just paying the fine and not doing the visa run.