Argentina's passport by investment: amounts, process and legal status

Argentina is no small island state. It is a vast country with its own industry, its own farming and one of the continent's great capitals. When a country like that prepares to open citizenship to investors, the whole market for second passports shifts. For an overview of every programme that grants passports for investment today, read buying citizenship.

Can you buy Argentine citizenship?

Not yet, but the basis sits in the statute itself. Decree 366/2025 of 28 May 2025, published in the Boletín Oficial on 29 May 2025, rebuilt the Ley de Ciudadanía N° 346 (Argentina's Citizenship Law) in several places. Since then, Art. 2 names two routes to naturalisation:

• Residence: foreign nationals aged 18 or over who have lived in Argentina continuously and lawfully for the two years before applying and declare their wish to naturalise before the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones.
• Investment: foreign nationals who prove to the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones that they have made a relevant investment in the country, expressly regardless of how long they have lived there.

Under Art. 2 bis, the Ministry of Economy decides what counts as relevant, including through investment projects of its own. With Art. 6 bis, the decree created a dedicated body to run it all: the Agencia de Programas de Ciudadanía por Inversión, attached to the Ministry of Economy and charged with designing, running and overseeing the programmes. Since 22 April 2026 the agency has had an executive director, appointed by Decree 285/2026.

That is the decisive difference from the usual investor visas in Latin America. A visa gives you the right to live in a country, and that right can be taken away. Citizenship is not a residence permit; it is a status. A passport is a right, not a permission.

What does an Argentine passport by investment cost?

On 2 October 2026, Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Cabinet Chief Diego Santilli presented the amounts at Argentina Week in Paris. They come from the government's announcement; no official threshold has been published in the Boletín Oficial yet. The main applicant is to choose between two routes, and family members join at fixed amounts:

By the government's own calculation, a typical family of main applicant, spouse and two minor children comes to USD 500,000. Relatives can join if they prove the family relationship and pay the contribution for their category.

Contribution or bond

The USD 350,000 contribution is a payment to the state that does not come back. The USD 800,000 bond ties up more capital, but it is a government security, not a sunk grant. The Ministry of Economy's announcement gives neither the interest rate nor the term. If you choose the bond, you are accepting locked-up capital and Argentina's country risk; if you choose the contribution, you are buying certainty. How donation and investment routes compare in other programmes is covered in donation or real estate.

How Argentina compares

At USD 350,000, Argentina sits above the entry amounts of the Caribbean, Vanuatu, São Tomé and Príncipe or Sierra Leone. In return you get the passport of a large country that you can also make your home. Every programme with its minimum amounts and fees side by side is in the comparison, and the full calculation for each programme on the costs page.

Who reviews the application: the agency, security services, Migraciones

The procedure is set out in Decree 524/2025 of 30 July 2025. It is short and clearly structured, and it shows that Argentina is not selling passports over a counter: every applicant is screened thoroughly.

Step 1: application to the agency

You file your application with the Agencia de Programas de Ciudadanía por Inversión. It first checks whether your investment counts as relevant under the Ministry of Economy's criteria.

Step 2: opinions from the security authorities

If the investment is relevant, the agency gathers opinions: from the Ministry of Security, the financial intelligence unit Unidad de Información Financiera, the national criminal records registry Registro Nacional de Reincidencia, the national population registry RENAPER, the intelligence service SIDE and any other body it considers necessary. Each is asked the same question: would your naturalisation pose a risk to national security or to the country's interests?

According to the October 2026 announcement, the state looks at identity, the origin and lawfulness of the funds, assets and financial position, the risk of the jurisdiction you come from, criminal record and reputation, and your migration history. All money must move through the regular financial system, and the review follows OECD and FATF recommendations.

Step 3: recommendation and decision

The agency sums up the findings in a report and recommends approval or refusal to the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones. Migraciones decides within 30 working days of receiving that report. The decree also requires the tax authority ARCA to make a CUIT, the Argentine tax identification number, available to everyone naturalised through the programme.

The government has not set how long the review before the report takes. So expect a procedure whose length depends on how deep the checks go, not on a fixed deadline. How long the running programmes of other countries take is covered in the article on CBI processing times, and the general sequence on the process page.

Decree 366/2025 and the court ruling: how solid is the programme?

Argentina did not introduce the programme through an act of Congress but through a Decreto de Necesidad y Urgencia, an emergency decree issued by the President. That is fast, but it is open to challenge.

On 30 June 2026, in the case Yang, Liping, the Cámara Nacional Electoral, the national court of appeal for electoral matters, declared Decree 366/2025 null and void in a single naturalisation case. Judges Alberto Dalla Vía and Daniel Bejas reasoned that the decree changed which courts decide on citizenship, and with it the framework the legislature had set for acquiring political rights. The circumstances cited did not show a genuine exceptional situation and urgency that would justify an emergency decree. The public prosecution service, the Ministerio Público Fiscal, reported on the decision on 2 July 2026.

What matters for you is what happened next. The government lodged an extraordinary appeal (recurso extraordinario); the chamber admitted it on 24 September 2026, and the Corte Suprema has not yet ruled. The government did not withdraw the programme; it built it out. On 2 October 2026 it named the amounts and announced that it would accept applications in the fourth quarter of 2026. In the official database, the text of Ley 346 still stands in the version introduced by the decree.

That leads to a clear stance:

• Plan early. If your source of funds, documents and family paperwork are already in order, you can apply as soon as the agency accepts applications.
• Pay only once the route is open. The contribution goes to the state; make it only in line with the rules the agency publishes for the procedure.
• Keep a second route ready. Programmes that already issue passports today are listed on the programmes page. A running programme and Argentina do not rule each other out.

Argentine passport by investment or two years of residence

Alongside the investment route, Argentina offers naturalisation through residence and, for children born in the country, citizenship by birth. The three routes at a glance:

The residence route is the cheapest and, in the long run, often the better one, because you genuinely get to know the country. The current statute, however, requires two years of continuous residence and treats every departure during that time as a break. That rule comes from the very same Decree 366/2025 on which the Corte Suprema has yet to rule. If you cannot or will not live for two years without a single trip abroad, the investment buys you exactly that time.

The two can be combined. A passport by investment gives you freedom today; residence in a country like Argentina builds a second, genuine tie over the years. How to plan both routes together is set out in CBI and naturalisation. For the residence permits themselves, meaning Rentista, Pensionado or Inversionista, the right place to start is temporary residence in Argentina.

Dual citizenship: Argentina and Germany

The most important question for any German: do I lose my German passport? No. The former rule under which Germans lost their citizenship on acquiring another one at their own request, section 25 of the Nationality Act (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz, StAG), has been repealed. You become Argentine and stay German. What that means for children, military service and travelling on two passports is explained in the article on dual citizenship in Germany.

Tax follows residence, not the passport

An Argentine passport does not make you tax-free in Germany. Anyone with a home or habitual abode in Germany has unlimited tax liability there, under section 1(1) of the Income Tax Act (Einkommensteuergesetz, EStG). Citizenship plays no part in this basic rule. The basics of second passports and tax are on the tax page.

The investment route does not require residence, so you can become Argentine without moving your main home. Check how Argentina treats residents and its own citizens for tax before you apply; taxes in Argentina (in German) gives the overview. The passport is your option; where you live remains your decision.

What an Argentine passport gives you

A second passport is an insurance policy, and the Argentine one covers a few risks particularly well.

• Travel to Europe: Argentina is listed in Annex II of Regulation (EU) 2018/1806, the list of countries whose citizens need no visa for the Schengen Area for short stays of up to 90 days in any 180 days.
• A country to live in: the passport opens up a large country where you can live, work and raise children, with cities such as Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Mendoza.
• A right instead of a permission: a visa can be refused or revoked. As a citizen you have a right to enter and live in Argentina, whatever happens to other residence permits.
• One passport for the whole family: spouses, minor children and unmarried children up to 25 without children of their own can join, at fixed amounts.
• Diversification: holding a European and a South American passport means being at home on two continents and not depending on a single government.

The eight reasons people want a second passport in the first place are on the page why a second passport. And if you want to bring your family, the family page shows how other programmes treat relatives.

Who the programme is right for

Argentina is not a programme for everyone, and that is its strength.

It suits you if you want a passport with substance, see South America as a second place to live, want to bring the whole family in one go and can document your funds properly through the financial system. For entrepreneurs with ties to Latin America, an Argentine passport is more than a travel document: it is a way in.

It suits you less if you need the passport in your hand within a few months. In that case, go for a programme that already issues passports today and add Argentina as a second step. Which programmes those are, and which are tightening their rules, is covered in new CBI programmes 2026.

How to prepare

1. Document your source of funds: complete evidence of where your money comes from, through accounts in the regular financial system.
2. Gather your family's documents: birth and marriage certificates, and for children aged 18 to 25, proof that they are unmarried and have no children of their own.
3. Police certificates and CV: the review looks at criminal records, reputation and migration history.
4. Choose your route: contribution or bond, depending on whether you value certainty or preserving capital more.
5. A plan B for your plan B: a running programme or the residence route, so your plans do not hinge on a single decree.

Prepared like this, you lose no time once the agency accepts applications, and you have a route that holds regardless.

Frequently asked questions