Argentina Citizenship by Investment and the Supreme Court: What the DNU 366/2025 Appeal Will Decide

Argentina's Citizenship by Investment program rests on a decree that is now before the country's Supreme Court. In June 2026, two federal appellate courts declared DNU 366/2025, the instrument that allows a qualifying investment to replace the traditional two-year residency requirement, invalid. The government has appealed, and the Court's decision will determine whether the program's legal foundation is restored, replaced, or left to Congress.

This page sets out what is at stake, what the Court could decide, and what each outcome would mean for investors. It will be updated with a full analysis within hours of the decision. For the running record of every confirmed development, see our Argentina CBI program status tracker.

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The Three Instruments Behind the Program, and Why Only One Is Under Challenge

Most coverage treats Argentina's Citizenship by Investment program as a single legal object that is either valid or not. It is not. The program rests on three separate instruments, and telling them apart is the difference between an accurate reading of this case and a misleading one.

DNU 366/2025 is a decree of necessity and urgency signed in May 2025. It amended Argentina's Citizenship Law so that a qualifying investment can stand in place of the traditional two-year residency requirement. This is the instrument under constitutional challenge, and the only one the courts have ruled on.

Decree 524/2025, signed on July 31, 2025, is a separate instrument. It did not create the no-residency principle. It built the program's administrative and institutional structure on top of the change that DNU 366/2025 had already made. For a fuller account, see our full analysis of Decree 524/2025.

Resolution 522/2026, issued on April 14, 2026, cancelled the international tender to appoint the program's operator. It ended a procurement process. It did not cancel the program, the decrees, or the investment pathway. We covered it in detail when it happened, in our analysis of the cancellation of the operator tender.

Keeping these three apart matters because the courts have ruled only on DNU 366/2025. Decree 524/2025 has not itself been struck down, but because it was built on the change that 366 introduced, the status of 366 has direct consequences for whether the pathway 524 describes can actually operate. That dependency, not a headline about the program being open or closed, is what determines where the program stands.

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What DNU 366/2025 Actually Did

DNU 366/2025 made two distinct changes to Argentine citizenship law, and almost no coverage separates them. The separation matters, because the courts' reasoning turns on it and because only one of the two changes concerns the investment route directly.

The first change was jurisdictional. It moved authority over naturalisation petitions away from the federal courts and toward the National Directorate of Migration, an executive body. In the ordinary process, a federal judge grants citizenship. Under the decree, that decision would sit with the administration.

The second change was substantive. It amended the residency requirement so that a qualifying investment could replace the two years of continuous residence that Argentine naturalisation has historically required. This is the provision that makes a Citizenship by Investment program possible at all. Without it, an investor would still need to establish two years of residency before naturalising, and there would be no investment route to speak of.

The reason to hold onto this distinction is that a court can decide the first question without settling the second. Who grants citizenship is legally separate from whether investment can replace residency. Some of the outcomes now open to the Supreme Court touch only the first.

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How the Case Reached the Supreme Court

The challenge to DNU 366/2025 did not begin as an investment case. It reached the courts through individual naturalisation disputes, and the constitutional question was decided on those facts.

On June 18, 2026, Sala III of the Camara Civil y Comercial Federal ruled in the Volosh case that DNU 366/2025 was unconstitutional. The court found that the government had not demonstrated the emergency circumstances the Constitution requires before citizenship rules can be changed by decree rather than by Congress.

Twelve days later, on June 30, 2026, the Camara Nacional Electoral went further. In the Yang Liping case it declared DNU 366/2025 absolutely null. Its reasoning was categorical: citizenship is tied to political rights, the Constitution reserves those rights for Congress, and a decree of necessity and urgency is precisely the instrument that may not touch them. The chamber communicated its ruling to all federal electoral judges nationwide, so the same standard would be applied consistently.

Two appellate courts, reaching the same conclusion by different routes, left the government one option: an extraordinary appeal to the Supreme Court of Argentina, which it filed in July 2026. That appeal is now before the Court, and its decision is the subject of this page.

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What the Court Could Decide

Four outcomes would each carry different consequences, alongside a fifth state, no decision, which is the most likely for as long as the Court takes to rule.

The Court could uphold the decree. That would restore the program's legal foundation and return the path to launch to an administrative matter, though the cancelled tender and the unpublished regulations would still stand between the program and its first applications.

The Court could confirm the annulment on the merits, agreeing with the appellate courts that a change of this kind must come from Congress. The same investment pathway could then be enacted as legislation, a route the government is better placed to pursue after the 2025 midterm elections, though a slower and less certain one.

The Court could rule narrowly, on the jurisdictional question of which authority grants citizenship, without deciding whether investment can replace residency. That would leave the program's central legal question open.

The Court could decline to hear the appeal altogether, under Article 280 of the federal procedural code, which allows it to dismiss extraordinary appeals without stating reasons. That would settle no doctrine but would leave the annulment in force, with much the same practical effect as a merits annulment.

Whichever occurs, one thing does not change until regulations are published: the program is not open to applications, and no investment figure has been codified.

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What Does Not Change, Whatever the Court Decides

Some parts of the program's status are independent of the ruling, and they are worth stating plainly, because coverage often folds them into the headline.

Decree 524/2025 has not been struck down. It remains formally in force as an instrument, whatever the practical consequences of the ruling on DNU 366/2025 for its operation.

The tax position is settled and separate. In February 2026, the government confirmed that citizenship does not by itself make an investor an Argentine tax resident. Tax residency is determined by physical presence, generally 183 days or more in a year, not by holding a passport. An investor who obtains citizenship without relocating is not liable to Argentine tax on foreign-sourced income. This clarification stands regardless of the ruling. For the detail, see our analysis of the tax residency position.

The strength of the Argentine passport is unaffected. It provides visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to more than 170 countries and territories, including the Schengen Area, and it carries Mercosur freedom of movement across South America, a right no Caribbean program offers. See our Argentine passport visa-free country list.

And Argentina's recognition of dual citizenship is unchanged. Argentine law does not require you to renounce an existing nationality when you naturalise.

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What Is Still Unconfirmed

Several things often reported as settled are not, and this holds whatever the Court decides.

No investment threshold has been codified. In July 2026, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the government's plans, a structure of a non-refundable donation of approximately USD 500,000 or approximately USD 1,000,000 in zero-coupon government bonds. Those figures come from reporting on unnamed sources describing plans still being refined. They do not appear in any published regulation. Since that report, several industry sites have restated the figures as confirmed features of the program. They are not. Until the Ministry of Economy publishes implementing regulations, no investment amount, route, or refund condition is official.

The eligible investment routes, the family inclusion terms, any lock-in period, and the application procedure are likewise unpublished. Each will be confirmed only in the implementing regulations, which cannot be issued until the legal foundation is settled.

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The Effect on the Timeline

Until the Court rules, the program's timeline is paused at its most important gate. The operator tender has been cancelled and not yet replaced, no investment threshold has been codified, and implementing regulations are unpublished. Even in the most favourable outcome, a restored foundation, those steps would still stand between the program and its opening. A launch is not anticipated before 2027.

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What Investors Should Do Now

For anyone considering the program, the position is one of preparation rather than action. There is nothing to apply for yet, and any figure or date circulating before the Court rules and regulations are published should be treated as provisional. The steps available now are to understand the structure the program is expected to take, to take qualified legal and tax advice on your own circumstances before committing to any plan, and to follow developments as they are confirmed.

ArgentinaCitizenships.com follows this program more closely than any other English-language source, and will publish a full analysis within hours of the Supreme Court's decision. To be notified the moment the Court rules, and in time the moment applications open, join the waitlist. For the complete picture of the program, see our main guide to Argentina Citizenship by Investment.