You can hold Paraguayan residency and live somewhere else — but not indefinitely, and no longer quietly. Since August 2026 the Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (DNM) has a written procedure for finding residents who have been away too long and cancelling their status. It also has a written procedure for the opposite: asking permission in advance to stay away longer than the law allows. Both live in Resolution DNM N° 376/2026.
If you have read that Paraguayan permanent residency is “kept alive with one visit every three years” and “never lapses automatically”, that description is now out of date. The limits have not changed. What changed is that DNM built the machinery to enforce them — and attached a genuinely nasty penalty to asking for an extension too late.
This article is the practical companion to our overview of the new conditions for permanent residency from 6 July 2026. That one is about getting residency. This one is about keeping it while you travel.
The limits themselves have not moved
The thresholds come from Article 55 of the Migration Law (Ley N° 6984/22), and Resolution 376/2026 says so explicitly in its recitals: it creates no new grounds for losing residency. It only regulates how the existing ones are applied.
- Temporary residency — cancelled if you leave the country and do not re-enter for more than one year.
- Permanent residency — cancelled if you leave and do not re-enter for three years or more.
Two details matter more than people expect. First, any single entry resets the clock — the rule counts consecutive absence, not days per year, and Paraguay sets no minimum number of days you must spend in the country. Second, the clock only stops if there is no authorising resolution on file. That is exactly what Article 6 of the new resolution is for, and we come to it below.
What is new: DNM now goes looking
Resolution 376 was signed on 13 May 2026 by National Director Jorge Kronawetter, and it repeals the two earlier resolutions that governed this area (018/2023 and 120/2023). It appeared on the DNM portal only on 10 August 2026 — three months after signature — which is why most published guidance still describes the old position.
Under Articles 1 and 2, the Dirección de Control de Permanencia now runs a six-monthly sweep of the migration movement register. It compiles a list of residents who have passed the limit, the legal department issues an opinion, and the cancellation is made by administrative act. The result is then reported to the National Police (Identifications), the Supreme Court of Justice and DNIT, the tax authority.
📧 Check which email address DNM has for you.
The cancellation is notified to the email or telematic address you declared in your residency application — possibly years ago, possibly an address you no longer read, possibly your old lawyer’s. There is no letter to your home country. If that mailbox is dead, the first you hear of it may be at a border post. This is the cheapest thing on this page to fix, and almost nobody does it.
There is one narrow escape hatch for temporary residents: if you filed an extension (prórroga) in time, you can be struck off the list before the cancellation lands. But once a cancellation has been registered, no extension is admissible any more — you start again from scratch under Article 50.
The part nobody covers: ask for the extra year in advance
Article 6 is the reason this resolution is worth reading rather than fearing. You can ask DNM, before the fact, for authorisation to stay away longer than Article 55 allows.
- Permanent residents can be granted up to one extra year, counted from the exit recorded in the migration systems. In practice that turns the three-year limit into four.
- Temporary residents can be authorised up to the day before their change-of-category or extension deadline.
- File it up to three months before you hit the limit — one month if you are a temporary resident.
- The Dirección de Control de Permanencia reports within ten business days.
If it is granted, Article 7 says the resolution carries a formal warning naming the exact date by which you must enter the country, and the authorisation is recorded in the residents’ registry. Note the obligation that comes with it: on your return you must declare your real address to the migration inspector at the control post. Not the address on an old file — the one where you actually live.
What goes in the file
Article 8 makes this a physical filing, lodged at Admissions, Migratory Status or the General Directorate. You need:
- a letter (nota) addressed to the National Director, setting out the request;
- a copy of your residency carnet;
- a copy of your Paraguayan cédula;
- a copy of your passport;
- proof of arraigo — your genuine link to Paraguay (see the list below);
- the fee of two jornales under Article 100.11 — ₲234,154 at the 2026 minimum wage, roughly US$39.
The fee is set in jornales, so it moves with the Paraguayan minimum wage rather than with the dollar. Treat the guaraní figure as the real one — the guaraní has moved about 10% against the dollar during 2026, so any US$ conversion you read, including ours, ages quickly.
Proving arraigo: any one item from a closed list
This is where people over-prepare. Article 9 sets out a written list, and you need one of the following — not all of them:
- title to property in Paraguay;
- a housing rental contract;
- a certificate confirming you opened a bank or finance-company account in Paraguay;
- a company registration (EAS or other), or your cédula RUC;
- a family link to a foreigner resident in the country — or anything else the Directorate accepts.
Worth noticing: a Paraguayan bank account is not just a convenience here, it is named in the resolution as sufficient proof of your tie to the country. If you hold residency but have never opened one, this is a second, independent reason to do it. We help clients with exactly this — see our Paraguay services, and our overview of banking in Paraguay.
⚠️ Article 10 is the trap: ask late and you lose the residency.
A request filed after the legal absence period has already run — or filed with missing or inconsistent documents — is not simply refused. It is denied and your residency is cancelled. Sixty calendar days of silence from DNM also count as a refusal.
This is strictly a before instrument, never an after one. If you can see the limit coming, deal with it while it is still ahead of you. If it has already passed, do not file this request — read the recovery section instead.
If your residency has already been cancelled
Article 4 answers the immediate question: you revert to estadía transitoria — ordinary tourist status. From that point you have 30 days to leave the country, or to apply for some form of residency again.
Permanent residency is recoverable, and Article 5 sets out how. The window is three years from the cancellation, and the route runs in two stages:
- Take residencia espontánea u ocasional and physically remain in Paraguay for its whole validity. This is the part that catches people out — the recovery route requires real presence, not another flying visit.
- Then request the recovery at the Central Office, together with the replacement of your carnet. You keep the same IC number, matching your Paraguayan cédula.
The recovery file is heavier than the original: passport, carnet copy or loss report, cédula, police and judicial records from your country of origin or from wherever you have lived for the last three years (apostilled and translated), Interpol certificate, the National Police computing, judicial and criminal-record certificates, proof of arraigo, and an ANDE and ESSAP utility bill for your declared address, plus the fees under Article 100, items 1 and 7.
One clarification, because it is easy to mix up: that utility-bill requirement belongs to the recovery file. It is not a general condition of the solvency rules under Resolution 407/2026.
Two smaller things in the same resolution
Giving up your residency on purpose (Article 3). There is now a clean way out: a web form, a copy of your ID and carnet, and two jornales. It can be done through a representative holding a notarial power of attorney with a special clause, so you do not have to fly in to close the door behind you. If you have moved your tax affairs elsewhere and want a clean record, this is better than simply letting the residency lapse by absence — a lapse is reported to the tax authority and the courts; a voluntary cancellation is your own decision on file.
Withdrawing an application still in progress (Article 11). Same shape: web form, ID copy, two jornales.
What to do this week
- Find your last entry stamp and count forward. One year if you are temporary, three if you are permanent.
- Confirm the email address DNM holds for you is one you actually read.
- If the limit falls within the next three months and you cannot travel, file the Article 6 request now — not after.
- If you have no arraigo document at all, get one. A bank account is the most useful of the list, because it serves several purposes at once.
Everything above comes from the text of the resolution itself, which we host here so you are not dependent on the DNM portal: Resolución DNM N° 376/2026 (PDF). For the wider picture see our main Paraguay residency guide, the new solvency conditions from 6 July 2026, and — if you would rather skip the two-year temporary stage altogether — the Paraguay Investor Pass.
If you are unsure where you stand, or your limit is close, write to us. Sorting out an Article 6 authorisation before the deadline is straightforward. Recovering a cancelled residency afterwards is not.