Chile Forum

I'm an American Citizen desiring permanant residency in Chile. Could you please tell me who to contact and what forms I need to become a permanent legal resident with a retirement visa? I am in my 50's and all the money I spend here, is earned in and accessed from The States. Thank you

enjambedline wrote:I'm an American Citizen desiring permanant residency in Chile. Could you please tell me who to contact and what forms I need to become a permanent legal resident with a retirement visa? I am in my 50's and all the money I spend here, is earned in and accessed from The States. Thank you

Welcome to the forum. You will note that there is a search function for previous related threads such as this one:

topic3135.html

THIS PARAGRAPH IS EDITED AFTER THE ORIGINAL POST: You typically start a period of temporary residency, the length of which may curiously vary (see comments in subsequent posts), during which time many of the banks here in Chile may not wish to have anything to do with you. Some may; many won't. A temporary resident in Chile is something of a second class resident. At the end of the temporary residency if you have behaved yourself, you may apply for permanent residency. If not, there is always Bolivia.

Here is the page for the application documents and requirements. How is your Spanish? And why would anyone wish to live in Chile, for crissake?

This type of visa is for "RESIDENCIA TEMPORARIA PARA JUBILADOS Y RENTISTAS" meaning for persons who are either retired or are receiving investment or similar income inside or outside of Chile, who wish to live in Chile for more than 90 days at a time, "for their activities or interests in the country."

http://www.extranjeria.gov.cl/te_6.html

This is the requirements document for first time applicant for residency as jubilado (retired) or with income from outside of Chile

http://www.extranjeria.gov.cl/filesapp/TE6%20ISO.pdf

This is the request form for application by mail

http://www.extranjeria.gov.cl/filesapp/ ... O_2008.pdf


As you can see on the fees page there is no charge for US residents

http://www.extranjeria.gov.cl/filesapp/ ... 202009.pdf

Naturally, you may wish to do some extensive research on the ground in this country to see if you really really really want to live here. And some reading on this forum. Chile isn't for everyone. You may also find it better to apply for residency from within Chile, traveling here first on a tourist visa. Then after your research and travels about the country, if you are not thoroughly disgusted, or killed in an earthquake, or trapped in a gold-mine, or asphyxiated from the results of poor water-heater installations, or electrocuted by the abysmal electrical systems found here, or mugged on the streets of Santiago, you can make application for temporary residency while on tourist status. Naturally you will wish to bring with you the documents specified in the aforementioned requirements pages.

The observed experience, at least in Magallanes, is that two years of temporary residence were required before permanent residency could be applied for. Does the regulation say something else? Yes. Does experience show that this regulation is not uniformly observed? Evidently. Could be any number of other factors at work.

By all means, feel free to contact the Extranjería office in Puerto Natales and ask why they do what they do.

In the meantime I will try to contact the people here whose circumstances called for the requirement of two one-year periods of temporary residency, and let's see why there is a disparity. Maybe we can even publish the document that described the (local?) requirement.

patagoniax wrote:The observed experience, at least in Magallanes, is that two years of temporary residence were required before permanent residency could be applied for. Does the regulation say something else? Yes. Does experience show that this regulation is not uniformly observed? Evidently. Could be any number of other factors at work.

<this is a friendly and a bit drunk smiley>

patagoniax wrote:The observed experience...

Putting aside drunken conversations, this is an interesting topic, and is a good lesson for me.

Not only I have the most recent versions of the immigration FAQs and their "information" PDFs on my hard drive, but am also familiar with this very TE-6 "Temporary Residence" based on experience, and can personally confirm the fact that one's permanent residency application indeed can be assigned the "in processing" status well before the first year of the said TE-6 "Temporary Residence" ends. Hence, my stating "this is just so" would seem quite right here.

Yet, I believe that patagoniax speaks also based on experience, so, I am sorry for the above post.

Off topic

and you can also search the wiki section on this site:
http://www.allchile.net/chilewiki/

Speaking of Wiki, there's a spelling error in the first line. Unless it's meant to say "the curios" instead of "curious". Not being pedantic, just hoping to be helpful.

Digging a bit on the experience of the two gringos who needed two years of temporary residency. These people were on "inversionista" status and that may (or may not) partially explain why there is a difference vis-a-vis other types of temporary residency. Sure enough, the FAQs at the CL government site indicate the validity of the practice (extension by one year). Note that although the law allows for voluntary extension, the extension cases I know of were specified by the Extranjería here. In other words, the applicants did not have the option of applying for permanent residency until the end of the second temporary-visa year. It is quite possible that they didn't have enough legal days in-country during their first year to satisfy the Extranjería. And yes, even though the processing was conducted by the local Extranjería, the extensions had to be approved at the Santiago main office.

Is it common in other regions? Don't know. Just know that it happens in XII Regíon and evidently not uncommonly, and that the law provides for it, even if it not the "standard practice" observed by others. So the criticism was well taken and I modified the original post to acknowledge that two years of temporary visa may not be the norm.

http://www.bcn.cl/guias/residencia-extranjeros-chile
Guía legal sobre: Residencia de extranjeros en Chile. Preguntas frecuentes que explican en lenguaje ciudadano los principales contenidos de este tema.
¿Qué es una residencia temporaria?
Es un permiso que se otorga a una persona extranjera que acredita tener vínculos de familia (padre o madre chilena, hijo o cónyuge chileno), intereses en el país o cuya residencia se considere útil o ventajosa. Este tipo de residencia permite a la persona residir temporalmente en el país y realizar cualquier actividad lícita sin limitaciones especiales, incluso trabajar. Esta visa puede durar hasta un año y es prorrogable sólo por un año más. Si se desea permanecer por más tiempo hay que solicitar permanencia definitiva o de lo contrario abandonar el país.

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A subsequent search of the Extranjería material tells us the following

http://www.extranjeria.gov.cl/te_11.html

PRORROGA DE VISA DE RESIDENCIA TEMPORARIA

Podrán solicitar una Prórroga de Visa de Residencia Temporaria aquellas personas cuyo fundamento para solicitar por primera vez una visa de este tipo haya sido su condición de inversionista o comerciante.

Esta prórroga de visa temporaria está orientada para aquellas personas que hayan obtenido su primera visa de residencia por un tiempo menor al año establecido para solicitar la permanencia definitiva y deseen completar los plazos para realizar una presentación de este tipo.

También podrán optar a este permiso aquellas personas que cumpliendo los plazos previstos para solicitar la permanencia definitiva no deseen hacerlo y en cambio opten por prolongar su estadía sólo por un año más a través de un permiso de residencia temporal.