Precaria > Pension Visa > Residence Visa?

[MacMan]

Hello and thank you for for my new registration here.

From my home in California I am planning to fly with dog (in cargo hold I hope) to Argentina. My purpose is to permanently retire in one of its cities.

The sequence of obtaining various Visas is a bit confusing to me, as to timing.

Assume i meet all of the age, income, criminal history, and documentary requirements, spelled out quite clearly.

Do I have it right as in the title states, the sequence of Visas?

I must somehow secure verification of an address by obtaining (for example) a utility bill to apply for Pension Visa?

My final question, what is the minimum time in each category before applying for permanent status?

 

[toast]

In 2018, I used a lawyer in my city in the US to assist with assembling all the documents for the pension visa, which I received in the Argentine consulate in Chicago. It takes three years to be granted permanent residence in ARG. Do you have a lot of established connections in ARG? Fluency in Spanish? I needed a lot of help getting established in Buenos Aires. Without all the help, I probably would have gotten back on a plane and returned to the US after 6 months.

 

[MacMan]

Thanks for your reply. Tarzan Spanish though just returned 4 months in Central America by auto with dog. My timeline to return to Latin America is 1-2 years out, as I am attending to an elderly parent. I will soon enroll in conversational Spanish. That I can do from here. I know what you mean how important language skills are especially when establishing yourself. No contacts. Target cities Mendoza (vacinity) or further south around Patagonia. Not too rural.

 

[steveinbsas]

Assume i meet all of the age, income, criminal history, and documentary requirements, spelled out quite clearly.

Do I have it right as in the title states, the sequence of Visas?

The precaria is granted after migraciones accepts all of the required docs for the pension visa.

If approved, you will be granted temporary residency. On the third renewal of your temporary residency you can request the 'cambio de cstegoria" to permanent residency.

It's that simple, but I would not use the word "right" when talking about migraciones and temporary or the "upgrade" to permanent residency.

I would use the word "permission."

 

[MacMan]

The precaria then can only be obtained once in country as an address and proof of address required?

 

[Alby]

You may be able to set it all up from home and come with everything, as Toast was evidently able to do.

The other process, in answer to your specific question, is as follows:

• You enter the country (sans dog) on your flight.
• At the immigration desk, they grant you a 90-day entry, colloquially referred to around here as a tourist visa (although technically it’s not that).
• If your intention is to apply to be a temporary migrant as a pensioner (again, it’s good to be clear on terminology and be clear in our heads what we are actually doing) and you’ve brought all the documents you need, you get them officially translated and you then lodge them as soon as you can on arrival electronically on the Migraciones system.
• If Migraciones deem your documentation to be sufficiently complete and correct to warrant full assessment by Migraciones, they will invite you to visit them in person, take photos and fingerprints and issue you a Precaria. This is a document that annuls the (so-called) “tourist visa” and gives you a new legal status to remain here while they fully assess your documentation. The Precaria will have an expiry date (which used to be 90 days, but is now more random). If they haven’t completed their assessment before its expiry date, you will have to apply for a new Precaria. And keep doing so until they finish the assessment. During the Precaria stage, they may seek further information from you.
• Once they have finished assessing your application, if you are successful, they will issue a Temporary Residency as a Pensionista (again, an official document) valid for 365 days. This replaces the Precaria. Separately, they will send you a plastic ID card valid for 365 days.
• In the lead up to the end of the 365 days, you have to renew the Temporary Residency (Pensionista) application and if they grant it, you will get another Temporary Residency (Pensionista), and another plastic ID card, again valid for 365 days.
• You repeat the previous step.
• After the third period of 365 days of Temporary Residency (Pensionista), you can apply for Permanent Residency.

 

[MacMan]

Thank you. Very helpful. When can dog be added to the process as you said "sans dog" (on arrival by plane)?

 

[Alby]

No idea.

I don't know for a fact that you can't bring a dog, but I imagine, as you are (effectively) entering as a tourist for 90 days, it might be hard to include a dog with the luggage. Someone else can comment on this aspect.

If it is a deal-breaker for you, it may be better to go through the system that appears to exist in the US where you can arrange the temporary residency from home and effectively have that status from when you first arrive. Under those circumstances, I guess the dog wouldn't cause a problem.

 

[MacMan]

Thank you.

Does it change much if we arrived by land?

 

[steveinbsas]

I don't know for a fact that you can't bring a dog, but I imagine, as you are (effectively) entering as a tourist for 90 days, it might be hard to include a dog with the luggage. Someone else can comment on this aspect.

I entered Argentina for the first time with a dog and was granted a 90 day tourist visa.

When I entered I knew very little about migraciones or temporary or permanent residency.

Thanks to my first and only Argentine girlfriend who I met a week later, I learned a lot... very quickly.

I started getting the necessary docs from the US immediately. l got a 90 day extension of my tourist visa just before it expired, and continued with getting the docs translated.

I got a certificado de domicilio of my temporary apartment and a copy of the signed short term lease. Then I applied for temporary residency (pensionado)at migraciones.

It all went smoothly.

PS: migraciones never knew I had the dog.

PS2: I had the dog in a carry-on bag.