New Fees for Immigration Procedures to be implemented in September 2016.

Immigration Procedures and fees will be greatly impacted in a week from now. On the 22nd of August 2016, the Argentine Government has published a decree in the Official Gazette. Decree 959/2016 deals with new fees for Immigration purposes. This will be implemented within 30 days after date of publication. Fees are set to rise by 150% and we are not talking about small money here.

There are a couple of things that is of importance in this new decree. First of all, the reciprocity visa fee for US passport holders have been scrapped. This has been discussed after Barack Obama visited Argentina in March, in order to improve bilateral relations. Hopefully Argentinians will be enjoying the same benefits when they visit the United States.

The second important aspect is that US citizens will pay the same fees as Mercosur countries. Other countries outside of the USA and Mercosur will be paying the full price. Personally, I find this to be discriminatory but that is my personal opinion.

Please note that the Reciprocity fee is still in place for Canadians and Australians visiting Argentina.

Why have the new price increase and Immigration Procedure been implemented.

In all fairness, prices have not been increased in a couple of years.

I know this because I have been through the process of obtaining permanent residency in Argentina.

The Immigration Office has increased the prices to be able to implement integrated controls with neighbouring countries. To do this they need to assign human and technical resources.

New price increases and what you can expect to be paying.

Some tariff changes and what you can expect to be paying if you are outside of the Mercosur:

•  Application for Permanent or Temporary Residency -from 1200 pesos to 2000 pesos.
•  Extension or renewal of tourist visa -from 600 pesos to 900 pesos.
•  Exit fee to leave the country if your visa has expired – from 600 pesos to 1500 pesos.

Where to find a full list of the new prices and the Immigration procedures.

A full list of the fees as well as the Decree can be viewed on the official webpage of Immigration. I am including the link but please note that the page is in Spanish only.