How to Apply for Argentina Citizenship by Investment: Every Step, From Preparation to Passport

Applications for Argentina citizenship by investment are not open yet. Under Decree 524/2025, an investor applies to the Agency for Citizenship by Investment Programs, which checks that the investment qualifies and asks several state bodies to vet the applicant. The National Directorate of Migration then decides within 30 business days of the Agency's report. The government's target for opening is Q4 2026, and that may still move.

This guide follows the application step by step, from the decisions you can make now to the passport at the end. Each step is labelled by how certain it is: set by Decree 524/2025, officially announced by the Ministry of Economy on 2 October 2026, or not yet published. For the program as a whole, see our guide to Argentina citizenship by investment.

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Where the process stands, 24 October 2026

• Set by Decree 524/2025: who receives applications, the checks the Agency requests, who decides, and the 30-business-day deadline for that decision.
• Officially announced on 2 October 2026, not yet codified: the two investment routes, the family contributions, the bodies that will vet applicants, and the OECD and FATF standards they will follow.
• Not yet published: the detailed procedure, the application channel, the document list, government fees, when funds are paid and the total processing time.

Applications are not open. We update this guide as each rule is published. For every development so far, see the live status tracker.

The Argentina Citizenship by Investment Application at a Glance

The application runs in six steps. You control the first four. The Argentine state carries out the last two.

Who Can Apply

The program is designed for foreign nationals who make a qualifying investment in Argentina. On 2 October 2026 the Ministry of Economy announced that the main applicant's family may apply alongside them, provided each member proves the family relationship and makes the contribution set for their category:

• a spouse
• children aged 18 to 25 who are unmarried and have no children of their own
• children under 18

Parents and other relatives are not covered by the announcement.

No period of residence in Argentina is required. That principle comes from DNU 366/2025, which two federal courts declared invalid in June 2026 and which is now before the Supreme Court on the government's appeal, so the final rule depends on that outcome.

Two questions are worth settling before anything else. The first is whether your current country lets you hold a second nationality. Argentina does not require you to give up yours, but some countries do, as our guide to Argentina's dual citizenship rules explains. The second is tax. Citizenship through the program does not, by itself, make you an Argentine tax resident, although your position at home depends on your own circumstances.

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Step 1: Choose Your Route and Who to Include

The Ministry of Economy officially announced two routes for the main applicant on 2 October 2026:

• Contribution route: a non-refundable contribution of USD 350,000 to the National Treasury.
• Bond route: a subscription of USD 800,000 to a government security created for the program. Its term, repayment conditions and transferability have not been published.

Each family member adds a contribution of their own: USD 100,000 for a spouse or for each unmarried, childless child aged 18 to 25, and USD 25,000 for each child under 18. A main applicant, a spouse and two children under 18 come to USD 500,000 on the contribution route. The announcement does not say how family contributions work on the bond route.

These figures are officially announced, not yet codified in a published regulation, and they may change. The choice between the routes comes down mainly to liquidity: the contribution is a one-off cost, while the bond ties up a larger sum on terms that are not yet known. Our cost breakdown for every family size works through the totals on both routes.

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Step 2: Prepare Your File

According to the Ministry of Economy's announcement of 2 October 2026, the evaluation of each application will cover six areas:

• identity verification
• the traceability and lawful origin of the funds
• a review of assets and finances
• an assessment of jurisdictional risk
• criminal and reputational background
• migration history

Your file needs to answer each of them. The official document list has not been published, but these six areas show what it will have to cover, and the checklist further down sets out what to start gathering now.

Most of the preparation time goes into two things. The first is funds. The Ministry has said that all funds must move through the formal financial system and meet anti-money-laundering standards, so the origin of the money needs to be documented, not only its current balance. The second is foreign documents. Argentine authorities generally require foreign public documents, such as birth, marriage and police certificates, to carry an apostille and to be translated into Spanish by a sworn public translator. Both depend on authorities in each issuing country, so they are worth starting early.

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Step 3: Make the Qualifying Investment

Decree 524/2025 treats the applicant as someone who has already made the investment. Once an application is filed, the Agency assesses whether that investment qualifies as relevant under criteria set by the Ministry of Economy. In practice, the contribution or the bond subscription is expected to come before, or alongside, the application.

Three points have not been published: how and where funds are paid, at what point in the process payment is due, and what happens to a contribution if an application is refused. These are among the first questions the detailed rules must settle, and the order of this step and the next may change when they do.

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Step 4: Submit Your Application to the Agency

Applications go to the Agency for Citizenship by Investment Programs (Agencia de Programas de Ciudadanía por Inversión), a decentralised body within the Ministry of Economy. Its first task is to decide whether your investment qualifies. If it does, the Agency moves your file on to due diligence.

Article 6 of Decree 524/2025 gives the Agency the power to issue the detailed rules for how applications are filed and assessed. Those rules have not been published, so there is no application portal yet. Until then, no application can be filed with the Agency. Registering interest, as our Launch List does, is not an application.

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Step 5: Due Diligence by the Argentine State

Once the Agency accepts that an investment qualifies, Decree 524/2025 requires it to request reports from other state bodies. The decree names the Ministry of National Security, the Financial Information Unit (UIF), the National Criminal Records Registry, the National Registry of Persons (RENAPER) and the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE), and it allows the Agency to consult any other body it considers relevant.

The 2 October announcement confirmed that the Agency will lead the evaluation together with SIDE, the UIF, the Ministry of Security and the Ministry of the Interior. It also confirmed that due diligence, financial transparency and risk management will follow standards aligned with OECD and FATF recommendations. In plain terms, every applicant will be checked for who they are, where their money comes from, and whether anything in their background or their jurisdiction raises a risk.

The time this stage takes has not been announced.

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Step 6: Decision, Citizenship and Passport

When the reports are in, the Agency sends the National Directorate of Migration a detailed report recommending approval or refusal. Under Article 4 of Decree 524/2025, the Directorate must analyse that report and decide, by a reasoned decision, within 30 business days of receiving it.

If the decision is positive, the applicant is granted Argentine citizenship. RENAPER issues the Argentine identity document (DNI) and passport. The steps for investment-route citizens to obtain them, including whether any part must be completed in person, have not yet been published.

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Documents to Prepare Now

The official list will come with the detailed rules. Given what the evaluation covers, these are the documents any file is likely to need, and the ones that take longest to obtain:

• A valid passport for every applicant, with enough validity left to cover the process.
• Birth certificates for every applicant, and a marriage certificate if a spouse is included.
• Civil status evidence for any child aged 18 to 25, showing they are unmarried and have no children.
• Police certificates from each country of nationality and residence.
• Source of funds: documents showing how the money you will invest was earned, such as a business sale agreement, dividend statements, employment records or an inheritance.
• Asset and financial records: a summary of your assets and how they were built, with supporting statements.
• Bank statements showing where the funds are held now, and how they will move through the formal financial system.
• A plan for apostilles and sworn Spanish translations of every foreign public document.

How Long the Application Takes

Only one stage has a published deadline: the 30 business days the National Directorate of Migration has to decide after receiving the Agency's report. The time the Agency needs to assess the investment, and the time the reporting bodies need for their checks, has not been announced. No total processing time has been published, so any figure you see for the whole process is an estimate rather than a rule.

The part you control is the file. A complete, translated and well-documented file is the most reliable way to avoid delays once the process opens.

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What Is Not Yet Published, and What Could Change

The detailed rules will need to settle:

• the application channel and portal
• the official document list
• government and due diligence fees
• when and how funds are paid, and what happens to them if an application is refused
• the terms of the USD 800,000 bond
• how family members are included on the bond route
• whether any step must be completed in Argentina
• the total processing time

Two legal questions could also affect the timeline. The Supreme Court is reviewing the government's appeal on DNU 366/2025, the decree that removes the residency requirement. Our analysis of the Supreme Court appeal explains what each outcome would mean. Opposition bills to prohibit the program have also been filed in Congress. They have no legal effect unless passed into law.

The government's target is to begin receiving applications in Q4 2026. That is a target, not a guarantee, and slippage remains possible. Launch List members hear from us the day the rules are published.

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Preparing with ArgentinaCitizenships.com

ArgentinaCitizenships.com is dedicated entirely to Argentina's Citizenship by Investment program. We follow every decree, ruling and announcement from the primary sources in Spanish, and we help investors and families prepare before applications open.

Before launch, that means a private pre-assessment: who in your family can be included, which route fits, what your total comes to, and which documents to start on first. When the detailed rules are published, Launch List members hear from us that day, with what has changed for their application.

About the author: Diego Jäggi is the founder of ArgentinaCitizenships.com. Half Argentine and half Swiss, he has been involved in investment migration since 2016.