Visa information

Chile offers, in the 2026 guide, temporary residence for employment, investment or professional activity, and a Rentista temporary residence for retirees and passive-income earners on about $1,500/mo. Digital nomads have no finished visa in the guide: they use the tourist entry while the nomad visa is finalised. The guide scores Chile 58/100 for visa and bureaucracy, the lowest of its seven dimensions alongside belonging.

The routes the guide names

Temporary residence for employment, investment or professional activity — the guide's first listed route, stated in those terms with no further breakdown.

Rentista (retiree/passive income) temporary residence — listed on ~$1,500/mo.

Digital nomads — no finished nomad visa in the guide: nomads use the tourist entry (90 days, extendable) while the nomad visa is finalised.

The same three lines appear, in the same wording, in the guide's visa list and in the site data.

The income test — what the sources actually say

For the Rentista, the guide gives a specific figure: around $1,500/mo. Its retirement text widens what counts: Rentista residence is for anyone with stable foreign income (pension, rent, dividends) around $1,500/mo.

For the temporary-residence route (employment, investment or professional activity), the guide prints no income threshold, salary test, investment amount or savings requirement in the visa list — the schemes list mentions “investor and entrepreneur visas” without amounts (see Tax & Legal).

For nomads, there is no income test to quote: the guide's remote-work line is “Nomad visa in progress; tourist entry 90 days extendable widely used.”

At the guide's exchange rate of $1 ≈ $940 (Chilean peso), any dollar figure you are quoted converts at roughly that rate for planning.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government fees. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan — its own note under that line reads “government fees, apostilles, translations; luxury adds an immigration lawyer” — and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $950 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,350 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $3,200 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $2,450 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification”, covering an immigration lawyer, apostilled pension letters, medicals and translations.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — what is and is not sourced

For the Rentista, the guide does state a pathway: the residence is renewable, with permanent residence after a year. That sentence is the full extent of the sourced pathway material. Neither the guide nor the site data gives the length of a Rentista renewal period, absence limits, or a permanent-residence pathway for the employment/investment/professional route, and the nomad visa has no terms at all yet — it is described only as being finalised. Confirm the detail with an immigration lawyer or the consulate before you rely on it.

Frequently asked questions