The Panama Friendly Nations Visa is the most misreported residency programme on the internet. Search it today and you will find page after page telling you that $5,000 in a Panamanian bank account plus a cheap corporation buys you residency. Some of those pages sit in the top three results. Some were updated this year.
They are all wrong, and they have been wrong since 7 August 2021.
Panama scrapped the cheap route five years ago. The real entry price today is $200,000, or a genuine job with a Panamanian employer. That is a forty-fold increase on the number most of the internet still quotes, and it changes the answer to the only question that matters: should you still be looking at Panama at all, or has somewhere else quietly become the better deal?
Let’s be blunt. For a lot of people reading this, the answer is somewhere else. This guide gives you the verified rules, the honest timeline to a passport, and a straight comparison against the programmes that now beat Panama on price, speed, or both.
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What Is the Panama Friendly Nations Visa in 2026?
The Panama Friendly Nations Visa is a residency programme for citizens of 50 specific countries that Panama considers friendly. Qualifying applicants receive a two-year provisional residence permit, then apply for permanent residency. Since August 2021 it requires $200,000 in real estate, $200,000 in a three-year fixed deposit, or a Panamanian employment contract.
That is the whole programme in one paragraph, and it is worth reading twice because almost nothing about it matches the version still circulating online.
The category was created by Executive Decree 343 of 16 May 2012, which was itself repealed a month later and replaced by Executive Decree 416 of 13 June 2012. For nine years it was one of the cheapest permanent residencies on earth. You showed roughly $5,000 in a local bank, incorporated a Panamanian company as your economic tie, and walked out with permanent residency almost immediately.
Then Panama closed it. Executive Decree 197 of 7 May 2021 killed the corporation route and the $5,000 solvency test outright, replaced instant permanent residency with a two-year provisional permit, and set the investment bar at $200,000. Executive Decree 226 of 20 July 2021 added the fixed-deposit option and put Peru on the eligible list. Both took effect on 7 August 2021.
Here’s the kicker. Those two decree numbers are the single fastest way to check whether a page you are reading is current. If an article about the Panama Friendly Nations Visa cites only Decree 343, or invents a decree number that does not exist, it was written from source material that predates August 2021. We have seen fabricated decree numbers in circulation, so treat any unfamiliar citation as a red flag and check it against the Servicio Nacional de Migración decree index directly.
The Three Real Qualifying Routes
Panama’s immigration service publishes the actual requirements, and there are exactly three ways in. Two are investment routes at the same $200,000 level. One requires no capital at all, and it is the route almost every competing article buries at the bottom.
| Route | What Panama requires | Capital needed | Is the money recoverable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employment | Work letter from a Panamanian company stating post and salary with a repatriation clause, employer Public Registry certificate, aviso de operación, plus a work permit filed with MITRADEL | None | Not applicable |
| Real estate | Titled Panamanian property with a registered value of at least B/.200,000, free of liens, held personally or through a company or foundation you ultimately own. Local bank financing is permitted | $200,000 | Yes, on sale, subject to market and transfer costs |
| Fixed-term deposit | B/.200,000 in a general licence Panamanian bank, free of encumbrance, locked for a three-year term | $200,000 | Yes, after three years, plus interest |
The balboa is pegged one to one with the US dollar, so B/.200,000 and $200,000 are the same number.
One trap worth flagging on the property route: the requirement is titled property. Panama has a parallel system called Right of Possession, common on the coast and in the interior, which is not registered title. Plenty of attractive listings are ROP land. It will not qualify, and finding that out after you have wired a deposit is an expensive lesson.
Can You Still Get the Panama Friendly Nations Visa Without $200,000?
Yes, through the employment route, which carries no capital requirement at all. You need a genuine job with a Panamanian company willing to file a work permit application with MITRADEL on your behalf. It is the only remaining low-cost path, and it suits people relocating for actual work rather than passive residency shoppers.
That said, be realistic about what “genuine” means. Panama enforces a local employee ratio, and the employer carries the administrative burden of the work permit filing. A shell company you set up yourself to employ yourself is precisely the arrangement Decree 197 was written to stop. If you own the company, you are not really on the employment route, you are on the abolished corporation route wearing a hat.
In our experience this is where most enquiries about Panama quietly end. Someone arrives having read that residency costs $9,000 all in, discovers the $200,000 gate, and then discovers that the employment workaround requires a real employer they do not have. The conversation usually turns to Paraguay residency or Uruguay’s 11-year tax holiday within about ten minutes.
Worth knowing: Panama does run a separate Panama Qualified Investor Visa that grants permanent residency immediately at a higher investment level. If you were going to commit serious capital to Panama anyway, compare the two before defaulting to Friendly Nations.
What the Panama Friendly Nations Visa Actually Costs in 2026
Government fees for the Panama Friendly Nations Visa are B/.250 to the National Treasury and B/.800 to the National Immigration Service, totalling $1,050 for the principal applicant. Legal fees, apostilles, translations and medicals typically add $2,300 to $6,500 on top. All of it sits on top of the $200,000 qualifying investment, not instead of it.
That last sentence is where most cost breakdowns mislead people. They present a tidy five-figure total that quietly excludes the actual requirement.
| Cost item | Single applicant | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Qualifying investment | $200,000 | Recoverable. Waived entirely on the employment route |
| National Treasury fee | $250 | Certified cheque |
| Immigration Service repatriation deposit | $800 | Certified cheque |
| Immigration lawyer | $1,800 to $5,500 | Covers both the provisional and permanent stages |
| Apostilles and certified translations | $400 to $800 | Translations must be by a certified translator in Panama |
| Panamanian health certificate | $100 to $200 | Must be issued in Panama |
| Flights and accommodation | $500 to $2,000 | Expect at least two trips |
| Total excluding the investment | $3,850 to $9,550 | Add $200,000 unless employed locally |
Dependants are the line item nobody warns you about. Each dependant pays the same B/.250 plus B/.800, so a family of four faces roughly $4,200 in government fees rather than $1,050, before any additional legal fees. On the upside, both cheques are waived at the permanent residency stage.
There is also an opportunity cost people rarely price in. Two hundred thousand dollars parked in a three-year Panamanian certificate of deposit is $200,000 not invested elsewhere. The deposit route is the cheapest way to satisfy the rule in cash terms, but it is not free, and a three-year lock is a long time to give up flexibility for a residency permit.
Which Countries Are Eligible for the Panama Friendly Nations Visa?
Exactly 50 countries qualify. The list comes from Executive Decree 343 of 2012 as amended, with Taiwan removed by Decree 197 in May 2021 and Peru added by Decree 226 in July 2021. Panama does not publish a consolidated list on its public site, which is why competing articles disagree on the count.
The current 50: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay.
Italians are a special case worth knowing about. Italy is not on the Friendly Nations list, but Italian citizens have a better option anyway under the 1966 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between Panama and Italy, which offers a more direct path to permanent residency.
How Long Does It Take to Get Panama Citizenship?
Roughly seven years from your first application, not five. Panama’s Constitution requires five consecutive years of residency for naturalisation, and that clock starts when permanent residency is granted. Because the Panama Friendly Nations Visa now gives two years of provisional status first, the realistic minimum is two plus five, before any processing time.
The five-year figure repeated across the internet is not invented, it is just misapplied. Article 10 of the Constitution does say five years. What it does not say is five years from arrival, and the two provisional years do not count toward it.
Then there is the part almost nobody publishes. The President of Panama personally signs every grant of citizenship. Naturalisation is an executive act, not an administrative entitlement. Meeting the criteria makes you eligible, it does not make you Panamanian. Panamanian firms routinely quote two to five years for the naturalisation file itself on top of the residency clock, and successive governments have carried a significant backlog.
Add it up honestly and a passport is eight to ten years away, with a genuine chance it never arrives. The numbers don’t lie on this one. That is not a reason to avoid Panama. It is a reason not to buy Panama for the passport.
Two further points that get glossed over. Naturalisation requires an exam administered by the Tribunal Electoral covering Spanish plus Panamanian history, geography and political organisation. And Article 10 requires naturalised citizens to expressly renounce their existing nationality. In practice most home states do not recognise that renunciation, so people end up dual in fact, but the legal position for a naturalised Panamanian is not the same as for someone born there. Anyone weighing Panamanian citizenship should go in with eyes open on that point.
Panama’s Territorial Tax System: What It Does and Does Not Cover
Panama taxes only Panamanian-source income. Foreign rental income, foreign dividends, foreign capital gains and foreign pensions fall outside the charge entirely for a Panamanian tax resident. Personal rates on local income run 0% to $11,000, 15% from $11,000 to $50,000, and 25% above that. Corporate tax is a flat 25%.
This is a genuine territorial system, not a marketing claim, and it remains Panama’s strongest argument.
The nuance that trips people up is remote work. Article 694 of Panama’s Fiscal Code charges income produced within Panamanian territory regardless of where it is received. The location of your client and your bank is explicitly not the test. In practice the operative question is where the service takes effect, and if your deliverables are consumed entirely outside Panama, practitioners treat the income as foreign-source. But this is a documented grey area rather than a blanket exemption, and anyone running a location-independent business from Panama City should keep contemporaneous documentation showing clients, contracts and deliverables are genuinely offshore.
Two compliance facts the brochures skip. Panama began automatic exchange of information under the Common Reporting Standard in 2018 and signed a Model 1 FATCA agreement with the United States on 27 April 2016. Panama was on the FATF grey list from June 2019 until 27 October 2023. And Panama has been on the EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions continuously since February 2020. It was still there at the most recent review on 17 February 2026, as one of only ten jurisdictions on Annex I. Banking secrecy as a selling point is long gone.
Is the Panama Friendly Nations Visa Still Worth It in 2026?
It depends entirely on why you want it. For someone already buying Panamanian property, taking a job in Panama City, or specifically wanting Panamanian tax residency, the Panama Friendly Nations Visa remains a clean and well-run programme. For someone shopping for cheap residency or a fast passport, it stopped being competitive in 2021.
Four honest profiles:
- Strong fit: the locally employed professional. No capital requirement, a real employer handling the work permit, and territorial tax on your foreign income. This is the best-value version of the programme by a wide margin.
- Strong fit: the buyer who wanted Panama property anyway. If the $200,000 was going into Panamanian real estate regardless, residency is effectively a free upgrade on a decision you had already made.
- Reasonable fit: the territorial tax seeker with capital. Panama’s system is genuinely territorial, the dollar is legal tender, and the banking infrastructure is real. You are paying $200,000 of locked liquidity for it. Compare against Paraguay and Uruguay before committing.
- Poor fit: the passport shopper. Eight to ten years, a presidential signature, a Spanish exam and a formal renunciation requirement. There are faster and cheaper routes to a second passport, and Panama is not one of them.
Panama vs the Alternatives: The 2026 Comparison
Once Panama costs $200,000, it lands in a completely different competitive set. Below is the honest comparison, with passport rankings taken from our own Passport Freedom Index rather than the commercial indices, so the numbers are consistent across every country.
| Programme | Minimum capital | Tax on foreign income for residents | Years to citizenship | Passport Freedom Index rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panama Friendly Nations | $200,000, or employment | 0% (territorial) | ~7 years, from permanent residency | 29 of 197, 147 destinations |
| Paraguay temporary residency | No fixed sum. Documented solvency test | 0% (territorial) | ~5 years realistically (3 years from permanent admission) | 60 of 197, 142 destinations |
| Uruguay legal residency | Varies by causal. Low-footprint property route exists | 12% flat on foreign capital income. Foreign earned income untaxed | 3 years with family in Uruguay, otherwise 5 | 17 of 197, 153 destinations |
| Costa Rica rentista | $2,500 per month income for 24 months ($60,000) | 0% for individuals, with a carve-out for certain group entities under Ley 10381 | 7 years, or 5 for Ibero-Americans and Spaniards by birth | 24 of 197, 148 destinations |
| Portugal Golden Visa | €500,000 funds, or €250,000 heritage donation | Up to 48%, unless you qualify for the narrow IFICI regime | 10 years, 7 for EU and CPLP nationals | 7 of 197, 184 destinations |
| Greece Golden Visa | €800,000 in prime areas, €400,000 elsewhere | Up to 44% on the ordinary scale | 7 years of permanent legal residence | 26 of 197, 184 destinations |
| Dominica citizenship by investment | $200,000 donation, plus roughly $85,000 in fees | Not applicable, no residence required | Immediate on approval, 3 to 6 months | 61 of 197, 145 destinations |
Panama vs Paraguay: the same tax deal for a fraction of the price
This is the comparison that matters most, because Paraguay is now what Panama used to be. Both are genuinely territorial. Both leave your foreign income alone. The difference is that Paraguay asks for no fixed capital sum at all, while Panama asks for $200,000.
Paraguay is not free of complications. Law 6984 of 2022 replaced the old instant permanent residency with a mandatory two-year temporary stage, and the famous $5,000 deposit that Paraguay used to require was abolished in the same reform. The current test is a documented economic solvency assessment with no single published number, which is less predictable than a fixed threshold. Citizenship runs three years from the permanent admission resolution, so realistically five years from arrival, decided judicially by the Supreme Court. We cover the full head-to-head in Panama vs Paraguay.
Panama vs Uruguay: better passport, real tax cost
Uruguay’s passport ranks 17th on our index against Panama’s 29th, and Uruguay offers a low-footprint route to tax residency through property investment with a 60-day annual presence requirement. But Uruguay is not a zero-tax country. It charges 12% on foreign capital income, and from 1 January 2026 Ley 20.446 widened that base to include foreign real estate income, capital gains and appreciation.
There is also a genuine trap that almost nobody writes about. Uruguayan ciudadanía legal is not nationality. Uruguay’s own national human rights institution describes the country as unique in granting citizenship without treating it as naturalisation, and legal citizens are administratively treated as foreigners. Passports issued to legal citizens record country of birth rather than Uruguay in the nationality field. If a passport is your goal, understand what you are actually receiving.
Panama vs Portugal and Greece: the European premium got worse
Both European options now cost more and take longer than most comparison tables admit.
Portugal’s fund route is €500,000, not the €250,000 that circulates widely. The €250,000 figure is the arts and cultural heritage donation tier, which is money you do not get back. The real estate route was abolished entirely by Law 56/2023 in October 2023. And the timeline changed dramatically: naturalisation moved from five years to ten for most third-country nationals, and seven for EU and CPLP nationals, applying to applications from 19 May 2026. The clock now starts when your residence permit is issued rather than when you apply, which given the AIMA backlog can silently add years. See Portugal’s new 10-year citizenship wait for the detail.
Greece raised its thresholds under Law 5100/2024 effective 1 September 2024. Attica, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and islands over 3,100 population now require €800,000. Everywhere else is €400,000. The old €250,000 tier survives only for converting a non-residential building to residential use or restoring a listed building, with a 120 square metre minimum and a ban on short-term letting. For anyone buying where they actually want to live, the real number tripled. Our Greece residency guide covers the current tiers.
The uncomfortable conclusion for Panama: it is now nominally faster to a passport than Portugal. That would have been an absurd sentence in 2023.
Panama vs Caribbean citizenship: different products entirely
Comparing Panama to Dominica citizenship by investment is not quite apples to apples, but people run the comparison anyway because the headline numbers are now similar. Dominica’s minimum donation is $200,000 following the OECS harmonisation of June 2024, plus around $85,000 in government, due diligence, interview and naturalisation fees. For roughly $285,000 all in you get a passport in three to six months with no residence requirement. Panama’s $200,000 is recoverable but buys you a residence permit and a seven-year wait.
The catch is direction of travel. Caribbean programmes are under real pressure. US Presidential Proclamation 10998 placed Dominica under partial visa suspension effective 1 January 2026, expressly citing citizenship by investment without a residence requirement, and the European Parliament moved in October 2025 to make golden passports a formal ground for suspending Schengen visa-free access. Anyone buying a Caribbean passport primarily for travel access should price that risk in rather than assume today’s mobility holds.
How to Apply for the Panama Friendly Nations Visa: Step by Step
Step 1: Confirm your nationality qualifies. Check your country against the current 50, remembering that Taiwan came off in 2021 and Peru went on. If you hold two passports, apply on whichever one is eligible.
Step 2: Choose your qualifying route. Employment, $200,000 in titled real estate, or $200,000 in a three-year fixed deposit. This decision drives everything downstream, including whether you need a Panamanian bank at all.
Step 3: Gather and legalise your documents. Police clearance from your country of origin plus any country you have lived in for the last two years, valid for three months from issue. Passport copy, photographs, and a power of attorney. Everything apostilled and translated into Spanish by a certified translator in Panama. Budget longer than you think for apostilles.
Step 4: Open a Panamanian bank account if required. Essential for the deposit route, useful otherwise. Expect bank and professional reference letters dated within three months, proof of income, and a documented source of funds. Approval is discretionary, not procedural.
Step 5: File the provisional residency application in Panama. Your lawyer submits to the Servicio Nacional de Migración with the B/.250 and B/.800 certified cheques and a health certificate from a Panamanian doctor. You must be in the country. You will also want the multiple entry and exit visa.
Step 6: Hold provisional residency for two years. Maintain the qualifying condition throughout. Selling the property or breaking the deposit early puts the permanent application at risk.
Step 7: Apply for permanent residency. Fewer requirements this time, and the two certified cheques are waived. Once granted, your five-year naturalisation clock finally starts, and you must enter Panama at least once every two years to keep the status.
On timing, be careful with any source quoting a precise figure. Panama’s immigration service does not publish an official processing estimate for this category. Panamanian firms currently report roughly three to six months for the provisional card, with a similar period again for the permanent application. Treat anything longer than six months as a warning about your file rather than the norm.
Common Mistakes With the Panama Friendly Nations Visa
Most of these come from acting on outdated information rather than from anything the applicant did wrong.
- Budgeting from a pre-2021 article. The single most expensive mistake. If your plan starts with a $5,000 deposit, your plan is five years out of date.
- Forming a Panamanian company as your qualifying tie. Abolished by Decree 197. A company can still hold the $200,000 asset, but incorporating no longer qualifies anyone. If you want a Panamanian entity for commercial reasons that is a separate and legitimate decision, and you can form a Panama corporation on its own merits.
- Buying Right of Possession land. Only registered title counts toward the $200,000.
- Assuming citizenship arrives in five years. Seven at the earliest, and only after a presidential signature.
- Forgetting per-dependant government fees. $1,050 each, not $1,050 total.
- Chasing five years of police clearances. Panama asks for your country of origin plus anywhere you have lived in the last two years. Several guides demand far more than the immigration service does.
- Treating a Panamanian bank account as a formality. It is discretionary and non-residents are declined regularly. Read our guide to opening a Panama bank account before you rely on one.
- Letting permanent residency lapse. Absence beyond two years puts your status at risk, and beyond roughly six years revocation is effectively automatic.
One pattern we see repeatedly: people arrive having already wired a property deposit, then discover the title issue or the ROP problem at legalisation stage. Sort the qualifying asset and its paperwork before you spend anything on the immigration file, not after. That part is dead simple, and skipping it is how a residency application turns into a property dispute. The migration office will not flex, and the money is already gone by the time anyone looks at the title.
Panama Friendly Nations Visa FAQ
What is the $5,000 Panama Friendly Nations Visa?
Can I get the Panama Friendly Nations Visa without investing $200,000?
Does the Panama Friendly Nations Visa still give permanent residency immediately?
How many countries are eligible for the Panama Friendly Nations Visa?
How long does it take to get Panamanian citizenship through this visa?
Do I have to live in Panama to keep my residency?
Is my foreign income taxed in Panama?
Does Panama allow dual citizenship?
Can I include my family in a Panama Friendly Nations Visa application?
Is the Panama Friendly Nations Visa still worth it in 2026?
Does US citizenship change the tax picture in Panama?
Is Panama still on international tax blacklists?
Final Thoughts
Panama did not ruin a good programme in 2021. It repriced one, deliberately, to attract a different applicant. The frustrating part is that the internet never updated, so a large share of people arriving at the Panama Friendly Nations Visa today are working from a five-year-old brochure and a number that no longer exists.
Judge it on what it actually is. Two hundred thousand recoverable dollars, or a real job, in exchange for a genuinely territorial tax system, a dollarised economy, decent banking, and a long but real road to a passport. On those terms it is a solid programme for the right person and an expensive detour for everyone else.
If the tax treatment is what you were after, Paraguay gives you most of it for a fraction of the capital. If speed to a passport is the goal, Panama was never going to be your answer, even in 2019. And if you were counting on the $5,000 route, that ship has sailed. Start from the real numbers and the decision gets a lot easier.
Read next: Panama residency for the full jurisdiction overview, or browse every second residency programme we work with.
Sources and References
- Servicio Nacional de Migración de Panamá, Requisitos: Residente Provisional, Extranjeros Nacionales de Países Específicos (PPT-PE)
- Servicio Nacional de Migración de Panamá, Decretos y Resoluciones 2021 (Executive Decrees 197 and 226)
- Tribunal Electoral de Panamá, Constitución Política de la República de Panamá, Artículo 10
- PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Panama: Individual Taxes on Personal Income
- Financial Action Task Force, Panama Country Page and Grey List Delisting, October 2023
- European Commission, EU List of Non-Cooperative Tax Jurisdictions, Update of 17 February 2026
- US Internal Revenue Service, Foreign Earned Income Exclusion
- Liberty Mundo, Passport Freedom Index