Visa information

Ecuador's guide names a pensioner route, income and investor routes, a professional route, and a digital-nomad route — most of them tested against the same figure of about $1,410 a month. The guide scores Ecuador 78/100 for visa and bureaucracy, and because Ecuador uses the US dollar as its official currency, the dollar figures in the guide are the local figures, with no conversion to make.

The routes the guide names

Pensioner (Jubilado) residence — residence on a lifetime pension of about $1,410/month, held for 2 years and then permanent.

Rentista and Investor visas — the guide groups these together, with the investor test given as about $47k as a CD deposit or property.

Professional visa — listed for degree holders, with no further test stated in the guide.

Digital Nomad (Rentista Remoto) visa — on about $1,410/month for 2 years (see the nomad section below).

The guide also lists the schemes that attract expats to these routes: the Jubilado visa with permanent residence after 2 years, over-65 discounts, the US dollar economy with no exchange risk, and the Digital Nomad visa.

The income tests — what the sources actually say

The guide gives the Jubilado test in two places. In the visa list it is a lifetime pension of about $1,410/month; in the retiring text it explains the figure as roughly three times the basic wage, and adds plus $250 per dependant. That dependant figure appears only in the retiring text, not in the visa list.

The Rentista Remoto nomad test is the same headline figure: about $1,410/month, for a 2-year visa.

For the Rentista route the guide prints no separate monthly income figure — it names the route alongside the Investor visa and gives only the investor's about $47k CD deposit or property figure. This page does not split the two routes or invent a Rentista threshold the guide does not print.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

What the guide gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan, described in the plan notes as government fees, apostilles and translations, with the luxury tier adding an immigration lawyer. Those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself, and they are plan budgets, not a published fee schedule:

• $700 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,000 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $2,400 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $1,850 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.

Pathway and absence rules — the honest limit of the guide

For the Jubilado route the guide does state a pathway, in full: temporary residence for two years and then permanent residence. That 2-year step is stated in the visa list, the retiring text and the schemes list alike.

Beyond that, neither the guide nor the site data gives renewal intervals for the other routes, absence limits for keeping residence, or a route or timetable to citizenship, so this page does not state them. Confirm those points with an immigration lawyer or the consulate before you rely on them — the Retirement plan's lawyer line exists for exactly this kind of question.

Frequently asked questions