Seems like the safe options are to do the rentista visa, or apply for citizenship when you land. You can save some expense in application fees for the residency visa,
The "fee" for the rentisa visa is one relatively small percentage of the total cost. The docs that provide suficient evidence of stable and passive income must have the Apostille and also be translated (in Argentina) by an official translator. Fees for criminal reports from the home country would also apply.
but you'll save a lot of time in lodging the citizenship application. To apply you pretty much just need a birth certificate and passport. Up to you what's more important, your time or your cash.
If you show up at any federal court with your birth certificate and passport (without a DNI as well as without evidence that you have an "honest means of living" and indicate that you are there to "lodge" an application for citizenship (which is free of charge), you might be laughed out of the office...if the person you are speaking with is in a good mood.
They may be nice enough to tell you to come back after you have been "living" in Argentina for two years and to be sure to bring your DNI and the evidence of your honest means of living.
Bottom line: If you haven't been living in Argentina for two years and don't have a DNI, you would need to pay a lawyer to start the citizenship application, and that will cost considerably more than the fees for the visa rentista and the cost of getting the required doccuments.
With a lawyer like Bajo_cero2 you could start the citiizenship process immediately without a DNI or two years of "residency" and you would be able to come and go as you please with him on retainer to prevent your deportation, but that would require a signifcant deposit in the thousands of dollars paid up front.
If you do decide to chance it with the tourist visas just know there is always a way to get in to Argentina even if you get deported, a bit time consuming but you'll always be able to get in
And (IMO) you will be able to kiss any chance of ever getting citizenship goodbye...as the courts will check with migraciones to see your history. They would see that you reentered the country after being deported (which would probably be grounds to be arrested immediately, then detained and deported ASAP).
PS to arvest: The OP and his wife and son "landed" in March of this year and all three have already come and gone at lest twice and Dad has left and reentered Argentina three times.
...we are currently here and we landed on Aug. 27th with our return flight on December, 18th (I have been in Europe for 2 weeks at the end of October).
We will be back before school will start at the end of February, I will be in Europe on my own mid-Aprile and we will all probably go to the US for fall break May, 1st to 5th, then go back to Europe for north-hemisphere summer when school ends in the beginning of July for 3 weeks... and we will have another week off mid-September, which we could use to visit Chile.
Actually we were here as well from March, 7th to April, 7th and again June, 4th to the 20th, when we were traveling a bit around South America.
Based on this information, the wife and son will each have an overstay as of Nov 15 (based on the last entry date of August 17). The question in the first post was whether to pay the overstay fines before the next departure in mid-December or ask for brief extensions at migraciones, unaware of the fact that extensons are always for 90 days.
Asuming the wife and son got new 90 day tourists permits each time they reentered in 2022, I seriously doubt that migraiones would give them a 90 day extensions of the third 90 day permits that they received since first arriving in March.
If they actually are granted 90 day prorrogas prior to November 15 (80 to 89 days after the most recent ingress), the prorrogasns would be valid until mid-Februray. I seriously doubt they are stiill considering asking for the prorrogas which would expire 90 mid- February and then return in late February, hoping to get nre 90 day tourists permits.
Obviously, the best course of action at this point is to
stay away from mgraciones, pay the overstay fines for the wife and son when they leave in December, and
hope all three of you will be allowed back in in late February.
So yeah, we like to move around and the only thing avoiding us to do so is our son going to school, but we still do it as often as wen can... we have no intention of exploiting the system, we just need a place away from war (and winter now) where to stay for a couple of years... but knowing how complicated and messy the system is here,
Doesn't applying for the appropriate form of temporary residency for which you are 99.999% likely to be granted, sound
a lot less messy than the situation you soon may be facing, not being allowed back in or being told, This is the last 90 days, period!" (and would be entered in the computer system).
I know I am repeating what I have previously posted, but everyone who gets temporary residency does so for only one year at a time and if, like me, they "use" it for two "extra" years, they have to renew it each time, including students, most of whom
only use for one or two extra years. To be able to renew it, temporary residents must be in Argentina at least 183 days of the year but otherwise can come and go as often as they like, for whatever reason they choose.
Technically, tourists are ony "supposed to be" in Argentina 180 days of a rolling year (based on one tourist permit and one proroga), but migracones has traditionally not strictly enforced this when individuals really appear to be traveling in and out of the country as tourists.
I was given the impression from other expats that the wisest solution was not to apply for a visa which we would only use for one or two extra years and would come with an endless number of different headaches attached...
There really is not an
endless number of differet headeaches attached to getting or having temporary residency. It has been posted that the visa rentista is difficult to get, but that was not my experience. I provided convincing doccumentation which included cover leters from a lawyer and an officer at my bank which supported the infomration in the doccments and I wrote every word of the letters which were then notarized and attached to te docs and then received the Apostille.
To repeat what I have previously posted, I suggest that you bring all of the "necessary" doccuments with you in February so, at the least, to a suspicious border official that you are
planning to apply for temporary residency and then really apply using RADEX (doing so before you leave the country again for any lenght of time). Just telling the official that you want to be somewhere that is warm probably won't warm their heart. Saying that you want to continue your South American travels using Argentina as a base might work, but what will you do if it doesn't?
What if the official tells you to "enjoy your "final visit" (and gives you an "ultima prorroga" even though yuou never went to migraciones to ask for one) and, that when your last 90 days are up, to "spend some time in another South American country?" That is preciesly what "long term" foreign tourists in South America do. If and when the border official gives you and your wife and child the final prorrogas, going to migraciones and getting more extensions will be absloutely impossible.
After the final prorrogas have expired you can probably overstay as long as you want, but you shouldn't plan on returning any time soon after you leave, certainly not in a few weeks and most likely not a few months. You can only hope at the airport you don't get hit with a five year ban on reentry (which happened to one xpat at EZE as he was leaving!), especially if you overstay a "final" prorroga.
The only way it might be possible to get another "prorroga" will be to actually apply for temporary residency usinf RADEX. If my info is correct, tha automatically comes with a 90 day extension, and you should be able to come and go as often as you want after you start the process and receive the precaria..
