“Local income” and Paraguay permanent residency: what Migraciones actually asks for

“Local income”: the phrase that misleads everyone

Since the summer of 2026, one phrase has been circulating in every expat group: “for permanent residence, you now need local income”. Many people take it literally — a Paraguayan client, a Paraguayan employer, a property let on the spot. That reading is wrong, and it discourages candidates who are perfectly eligible.

What the immigration authority is asking is not that the source of your income be Paraguayan. It is asking that your activity leave a verifiable tax footprint in Paraguay. For a self-employed person, that takes the form of a tax identification number — the RUC (Registro Único del Contribuyente, single taxpayer register) — and the IVA (Impuesto al Valor Agregado, value-added tax) returns for the three months preceding the application.

The confusion stems from a misunderstanding about territoriality. The principle has not changed: Paraguay taxes Paraguayan-source income and leaves foreign income outside its scope. What the new resolution adds is not a taxation rule; it is an evidentiary requirement. The criterion is documentary.

Put another way: your activity must exist in the eyes of the Paraguayan tax authority. Where your clients come from is a different question.

Permanent residence, tax residence, cédula: three different things

Before going any further, a confusion that costs money — because it makes people look for the wrong documents at the wrong counter — must be cleared up. Three statuses look alike and have nothing to do with each other.

• The residence permit — temporary residence permit, then permanent residence — falls under the Dirección de Migraciones (immigration directorate). It is what allows you to live legally in Paraguay. The temporary residence card covers the first two years; the permanent residence card takes over afterwards.
• The cédula (cédula de identidad, Paraguayan identity card) derives from the residence permit, but it is neither the same document, nor the same administration, nor the same counter.
• Tax residence, for its part, falls under the tax authority. Becoming tax resident is evidenced by a tax residence certificate, valid for one year, issued within ten working days to a taxpayer registered with the RUC and up to date with their obligations.

A Paraguayan permanent resident is therefore not automatically a tax resident, and the reverse is also true. How to obtain tax residence in Paraguay answers to its own criteria, which have not been altered by the 2026 immigration reform. The entire residence procedure benefits from being seen this way: two administrations, two sets of documents, a single timeline to keep.

What Resolution 407/2026 actually requires for permanent residence

Resolution DNM No. 407/2026 has been in force since 6 July 2026 and applies to applications lodged from that date onwards. It unifies the criteria flowing from Law 6984/2022 and the Mercosur Residence Agreement, and removes the mention of the profession from the printed card.

The text defines twelve categories of economic solvency: professionals, technicians, employees, self-employed persons in trade or services, remote workers and digital nomads, property owners, shareholders or associates, farmers and livestock breeders, religious, retirees or pensioners, dependants, students.

Two requirements run across all these categories:

• verifiable income, documented;
• proof of the effective exercise of the declared activity.

The second point is the real change. An apostilled degree, which previously sufficed to establish professional status, no longer satisfies the condition on its own. It is now necessary to show an activity in progress.

A word on what the text does not say, because that is where most of the errors read elsewhere arise: the resolution publishes no minimum income threshold. No minimum wage, no multiple, no numerical floor of any kind. The assessment of solvency is left to the administration on the basis of the file. Anyone who tells you a specific figure is giving you an interpretation, not a rule.

The documents expected according to your profile

Here are the profiles most common among expats, and the key document expected for each. The other categories — associate, farmer, religious, student, dependant — follow the same logic: verifiable proof of the activity or income.

Two useful remarks. First, proof of economic solvency is in addition to the usual documentary base: valid passport, full birth certificate, criminal record. All necessary documents for the file follow the same route when they come from abroad — apostille, then sworn translation in Paraguay. The apostille has nothing specific to do with this resolution.

Second, a pension certificate or an employer’s certificate dispenses with all the tax mechanics described below. When this route is open to you, it is by far the simplest: you need neither to open a RUC, nor to produce returns.

How the Paraguayan system actually works

To understand why so many applicants find themselves stuck, you have to look at the whole chain. It starts well before the appointment at Migraciones.

The cédula comes before the RUC

Since General Resolution No. 133/2023, the RUC identifier of a foreign resident — temporary or permanent — is the number of their Paraguayan cédula. The immigration card no longer serves as a tax identifier.

Practical consequence, and it weighs heavily on the timeline: the cédula, the Paraguayan identity card, comes first. It is collected in person. Obtaining a tax identification number therefore presupposes having already cleared that step. The qualified electronic signature certificate, essential for electronic invoicing, is also collected in person at an office of the tax authority: these administrative formalities cannot be dealt with remotely.

The country runs on documents

The Paraguayan system is declarative, but backed by the invoice. An IVA return is based on the invoices issued during the period. You do not declare a figure pulled out of thin air: it corresponds to documents issued.

The electronic invoicing obligation, for its part, is staggered. The administration designates groups of taxpayers by name, according to a calendar running from March 2025 to September 2027 (General Resolutions DNIT 21/2024 and 52/2026). There is no single date from which everyone switches over.

A point often misreported: Article 9 of Resolution 21/2024 does indeed require newly registered taxpayers to invoice electronically from the time of their registration, from 1 April 2025 — but only for legal persons. A natural person is not automatically subject to it. Starting a company in Paraguay and operating as a sole trader do not therefore fall under the same regime.

e-Kuatia’i, the free tool

The administration provides a free electronic invoicing solution, e-Kuatia’i, reserved for small taxpayers with a single establishment and a single point of dispatch declared in the RUC. Voluntary take-up has been open to natural persons since 1 October 2024, and to small-taxpayer legal persons since 2 January 2025. Access is requested from the Marangatú (significa “intelligent” en guaraní, the online tax system) portal. Those who voluntarily join must move to all-electronic within twelve months of their first electronic invoice.

Those who issue through their own software or a provider go through the e-Kuatia circuit, subject to the same calendar logic.

Marangatú, the central portal

Marangatú is the country’s tax management system. Returns, RUC management, generation of the boleta de pago (payment slip), application to be registered as an electronic invoicer: all formalities go through it. Access is gained with a personal and confidential clave de acceso (access code), and official messages from the administration arrive in a dedicated buzón (mailbox), Marandú (significa “notice” en guaraní).

A landmark to keep you from getting lost: the tax authority is now called the DNIT (Dirección Nacional de Ingresos Tributarios, national directorate of tax revenues), created by Law 7143/2023, which absorbed the former SET and the customs directorate. But the set.gov.py domains remain active and official — that is where you will find the platforms you use on a daily basis. Seeing “DNIT” and “SET” coexist is perfectly normal.

The calendar that catches everyone off guard

The IVA return (Form 120, version 4) is monthly. Its due date is not the same for everyone: it depends on the last digit of your RUC, according to the “Calendario Perpetuo” (perpetual calendar) of the tax authority.

If the due date falls on a public holiday, it moves to the next working day. This same calendar governs IVA, IRP (Impuesto a la Renta Personal, personal income tax) and income taxes.

The IRP — the tax on income of natural persons, levied on Paraguayan-source income — is annual. The return (Form 104) covers the financial year ending on 31 December and is filed in March of the following year, on the date given, again, by the last digit of your RUC. It comprises two regimes that must not be confused: IRP-RSP (Impuesto a la Renta de Servicios Personales, tax on personal services), at progressive rates of 8%, 9% and then 10%; and IRP-RGC (Impuesto a la Renta de Ganancias de Capital, tax on capital gains and income), at a flat 8%. This is the most common mistake among new taxpayers — and in the content that discusses them.

As regards payment, three methods are accepted: electronic payment from an affiliated bank, hence from a bank account opened in Paraguay, payment of a boleta de pago at an authorised collection point (Aquí Pago and Practipago are officially named), or credit or debit card via the authorised processors.

Moving from temporary residence to permanent residence: the timeline

The tax mechanics only make sense when placed within the immigration timeline.

The status of temporary resident is valid for up to two years. The permanent residence application is ideally lodged three months before expiry of the card. A tolerance of one month exists after the deadline, accompanied by an official fine of 702,462 Gs (guaraníes). Beyond that delay, the temporary residence must be extended, pushing everything back accordingly.

Work backwards: if your file requires three months of IVA returns, and if you must apply for permanent residence three months before your temporary residence card expires, then the RUC must be active — and the cédula obtained — well before. That is the real trap of the reform: it is not legal, it is chronological. The conversion of temporary residence into permanent residence is prepared during the first two years, not the month of submission.

Once permanent residence is obtained, the status becomes “definitivo” (definitive): the resident card is renewed every 10 years, and a visit to Paraguay once every 3 years is enough to maintain it.

If you want to situate your own timeline and the corresponding official fees, our cost estimator gives you a quantified plan in a few minutes.

Invoicing a client abroad: the point that remains unsettled

A self-employed person established in Paraguay most often invoices clients based elsewhere. Should IVA be applied to those invoices?

The answer is not settled. The tax authority has maintained that a service remains taxable when it is performed from Paraguayan territory. Local practitioners, on the other hand, apply the exemption when the service is used and exploited outside the country. Both positions still rely on the former Law 125/1991, which does not help. And no “export of services” regime comparable to the one that exists for goods is formally established.

We will not settle this point, and we invite you to distrust any source that does so in assured tones. Have your situation analysed by a Paraguayan contador (accountant); if the financial stakes are significant, a consultation with the tax authority allows the position to be secured.

A warning that matters

A piece of advice is circulating, presented as a clever trick: issue an invoice to a counterparty that has bought nothing from you — a broker, a cryptocurrency trading platform, a gambling site — on the sole ground that you derive income from it.

This is not a clever trick. It is a transaction with no economic reality. Documenting a service that did not take place exposes you to a tax reassessment, and it weakens precisely the file you are seeking to build, since the resolution demands proof of the effective exercise of the declared activity. An invoice that corresponds to nothing proves no effective exercise at all.

The solid route is more tedious and far safer: declare the activity as it actually exists, with invoices that correspond to real services.

Five misconceptions doing the rounds

“The resolution applies from 1 July 2026.” No. It has been in force since 6 July 2026, for applications lodged from that date. The 1 July date regularly appears on unofficial channels; June 2026 does as well. Both are wrong.

“You must declare at least such-and-such an amount.” No threshold is published — neither the local minimum wage, nor a multiple of it. Economic solvency is assessed on the basis of the file.

“You need a Paraguayan client, or property in Paraguay.” The text asks for Paraguayan tax returns, not a Paraguayan buyer. Property ownership is one of the twelve possible routes, not a general condition.

“IVA is paid by the 20th of the month.” The due date depends on the last digit of your RUC and spans from the 7th to the 25th. The 20th appears in no official calendar.

“A nil return prevents you from obtaining the tax residence certificate.” The tax residence certificate requires you to be registered with the RUC and up to date with your obligations: filing a return, even a nil one, satisfies the declaratory obligation. Do not transpose the immigration logic to the tax field: Paraguayan tax residence and immigration solvency are two different regimes, managed by two different administrations, with two sets of criteria.

What to take away

Resolution 407/2026 has not territorialised your income. It has raised the level of proof. What it asks is that your activity exists and is visible in the Paraguayan registers.

The chain is short to state and long to walk: cédula, RUC, invoices, returns. It involves in-person collections and requires a head start on the calendar — three months of returns are not put together the day before submission.

Two points remain open, and it is better to know that than to believe the opposite: no minimum amount has been published, and the IVA treatment of services invoiced outside Paraguay is not settled. On everything else, the texts are readable — and the main difficulty in a permanent residence in Paraguay application remains the order in which you go about it.