Visa information

Peru offers an unusually welcoming retiree route in the 2026 guide: Rentista residence on about $1,000 a month in permanent foreign income, tax-free on that income — alongside a work visa via an employer, an investor visa from about $150,000, and a Digital Nomad visa on about $3,000 a month. The guide scores Peru 64/100 for visa and bureaucracy, and tourist entry of up to 183 days a year makes long scouting trips straightforward.

The routes the guide names

Rentista (retiree) residence — on about $1,000/mo permanent foreign income, tax-free on that income. The retirement text adds that the Rentista grants indefinite residence (see the Retirement page for the retiree-specific costs).

Work visa via employer; investor visa from about $150k — stated as a single combined line in the guide; no salary test for the work route and no eligible-asset rules for the investor route are printed.

Tourist entry up to 183 days a year — described as common for scouting, which is how the guide frames long research stays before a residence application.

A fourth route appears in the schemes and remote-work sections rather than the visa list: a Digital Nomad visa, covered in the next section.

The income tests the guide does print

Peru is one of the few guides in this set that prints its thresholds, and they are consistent across both sources:

• Rentista: about $1,000/mo in permanent (the retirement text says guaranteed) foreign income.
• Digital Nomad visa (2024): about $3,000/mo, for one year renewable — the guide's remote-work line, carried identically in the site data.
• Investor visa: from about $150k.

What neither source adds: the documents that prove “permanent” income, any dependants' uplift, the nomad visa's renewal conditions beyond the words “one year renewable,” or a work-visa salary figure. At the guide's exchange rate of $1 ≈ S/3.55 (Peruvian sol), those dollar thresholds are the planning figures to confirm with the consulate before filing.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not publish an itemised schedule of government application charges. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan, and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $750 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,050 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $2,550 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $2,000 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.” Tourist entry of up to 183 days a year is the guide's stated basis for scouting first.
• 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 — Peru's healthcare score makes this step matter more here than in most guides).
• 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 permanence — what is, and is not, stated

The guide's strongest permanence claim belongs to the Rentista: it grants indefinite residence. The Digital Nomad visa is stated as one year, renewable. Beyond those two wordings, neither the guide nor the site data gives renewal counts, absence limits, or a citizenship timetable for any route — so this page states none. Treat the Rentista's indefinite residence and the nomad visa's renewability as confirmed in the guide's terms, and the mechanics as something to confirm through the official sources below or with an immigration lawyer before you rely on them.

Frequently asked questions