The Permanent Residency Process And Your Expectations

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A frustrating thing about getting permanent residency in another country is that it rarely goes quickly.  And don’t expect it to follow any sort of schedule.

Someone recently asked me about permanent residency in Paraguay.  From what I’ve personally seen, I told him to expect it to take about five to six months.  He told me he read somewhere else it only takes a month.

How long will it really take to get permanent residency?

The only true answer is, “No one can say for certain.”

Maybe the person who get residency in a month used a better residency assistant.  Maybe they happened to apply at a slow time of year.  Maybe they’re mistaken about when they actually received their permanent residency.

In one country, someone told me you could get a temporary, non-resident cedula shortly after applying for residency.  Then, he said, you could go to the local police, claim you lost your cedula, and ask for a new one.  Apparently, the local police branches only have the normal, resident cedulas, and not the temporary ones.  So you’d end up with the same cedula you’d have if you actually completed your permanent residency.

He believed this meant he would have permanent residency.

It doesn’t.

He’d still be “in process” for his permanent residency.  He’d only happen to have a card that says “permanent resident” on it.  But in his mind, that meant you could get permanent residency in a couple of months.

How can you get a good estimate?

You need to combine the information you get from two different groups of people.

First, is the person who will be helping you acquire residency (if you hire someone for that).  If you hire anyone good, they are probably moving several people along the process, and know roughly how long it takes to complete.

However, their estimates may be biased.

They’re in business to help people become permanent residents.  They know that telling people it takes years will cause some people to look for another country – or another residency assistant who promises it only takes months.

The second group you need to check with is expats who are actually getting residency in the country.  Check the forums and blogs to see what they’re saying.

I can assure you if the application process is taking longer than promised, there will be people complaining about it on the Internet.

Realize the residency process will be different for everyone

In Uruguay, I knew people who got their residency in six months, and others who took two years.

Sometimes, there are reasons why the process may take longer.

Maybe you lived in another country for a few months, and now the Immigration department wants a police background check from there.

Maybe a new law was passed halfway through your application.

Maybe some bureaucrat reinterprets a policy after you start.

Sometimes, delays just happen because your application is handled by someone slow and inefficient.

What can you do if your residency application is taking longer than expected?

You can do two things.

First, keep in contact with whoever is helping you, or with the Immigration department.

The first time I applied for residency, I was told it should take 8 to 10 months to complete.  I didn’t really check on anything until nine months had passed.  That’s when I found out some paperwork had to be redone, and of a couple other problems.  Had I checked earlier, I could have gotten things corrected and been farther along in the process.

I also got an opinion from someone other than the people helping me apply for residency.  I went to the Immigration department to check on the status of my application.  Based on what I found out, it would probably be at least six more months to finish.

So stay updated on the status of your residency application.

Second, if you’re happy about everything else, then don’t worry about any delays.

If you’re happily living somewhere, and your life really isn’t any different whether you do or don’t have your residency completed, then don’t worry about it.

When I found out my residency was going to take even longer, I took a couple days to think.  It turns out, after living in Uruguay for ten months, it wasn’t the right place for me.  It didn’t make sense to stay six more months, in order to get permanent residency in a country where I didn’t want to live.

One of my personal goals was to get permanent residency outside my home country, and start working towards a second citizenship.  However, there were other countries where I could do that, and probably be happier living there.  So I decided to stop my application.

If you like the place where you’re living, and if your day-to-day life isn’t hurt by not having your permanent residency completed, then don’t worry about the delays.  Don’t get stressed if it’s not preventing you from doing something you want to do, like owning real estate, banking, or starting a business.

Many of us have expectations about how things should work.  If someone says it will take a month, we get upset if it takes longer.  If someone says they’ll be there at ten, we’re mad when they show up at eleven.

But if the delay doesn’t cause any problems in your life, why spend your energy getting angry about it?  I’d say that’s a good principle to apply not only for your permanent residency application, but most other expectations.