Chile - Investor Visa
Chile's $500,000 investor visa only counts if the money produces something
A Chilean government agency has to vouch for your project before the immigration service will even open your file.
There's no passive route here or menu of qualifying assets. When you renew, you have to show what the promised investment actually built. That makes this a permit for people who were going to run something anyway, not for people parking capital.
What Chile is asking for
$500,000
The investment InvestChile has to sign off on
One figure, whatever currency you hold it in
US$205
What the visa itself costs a U.S. citizen
Dependents are billed at US$15 each
Zero
Residency you can buy with Chilean property
Foreigners can buy freely, and it counts for nothing
Two years
Temporary residence before permanent is on the table
Naturalization comes at five years
Chile wants a business, not a buyer
Chile isn't testing the size of the transfer. It's testing where the money goes. Under Decree 177 of 2022, and on SERMIG's own page, that money has to be destined for the production of goods or services. An apartment you rent out doesn't qualify. Neither does a portfolio.
There's a second door with no price tag
The same subcategory covers senior managers and specialized technical staff hired by a Chilean company that a foreign investor controls. The test there is ownership, not cash. The foreign investor needs at least 10 percent of the voting rights. If a parent company is sending you to run its Chilean arm, you don't need half a million dollars of your own.
Here's the catch
SERMIG's English page describes the first door as a route for legal representatives and managers of a foreign company. InvestChile, the agency that issues the letter, opens it to foreign individuals too. Two government pages, two scopes. Ask InvestChile which one fits you before you build a structure around either.
Investor Visa
For individuals making a significant investment in Chile. Applicants must provide documentation of the investment and demonstrate financial stability. The application is submitted online, with possible interview or biometrics appointment. Processing times and fees may vary by case.
- Processing time
- ~60 days
- Timeline
- Varies, typically 2–4 months
- Difficulty
- Moderate
Key requirements
- Valid U.S. passport
- Background check from the U.S.
- Proof of investment in Chile
- Health insurance coverage
About that data card
The requirement list on that card leaves out the one thing that can stop you cold, which is the InvestChile sponsorship letter. It also lists health insurance, and that appears nowhere on SERMIG's document list for this subcategory, though you'll still want coverage for the weeks before your Chilean ID card shows up. The 60-day processing figure is the optimistic half of a two-stage clock. Practitioners put the SERMIG decision at roughly one to four months once a complete file lands, and the InvestChile review happens before any of that starts. Budget from the day you start assembling the letter.
InvestChile decides before SERMIG does
You don't start with the immigration service. You go to InvestChile first, through its online form, and the agency reviews the technical and economic case for your project. If it's satisfied, it issues a carta de patrocinio, a sponsorship letter. Only then can you open the residency application on SERMIG's portal.
The letter is a key, not a decision
InvestChile says so itself, twice. The letter doesn't guarantee the visa, because granting residence is SERMIG's call alone. And it doesn't make you a qualified foreign investor under Law 20.848, so none of that statute's protections ride along with it.
Sixty days, and they're calendar days
The letter expires 60 calendar days after InvestChile issues it. Everything else has to be ready to upload before that clock runs out, and anything signed by a private party goes stale 30 days after it's issued.
There's no switching from a tourist stamp
You can't start this from inside the country. You file from where you live, and Chile grants the visa before you travel.
What SERMIG asks you to attach
The InvestChile letter
SERMIG won't process an investor file without one.
What the money is for
A document naming the purpose, the amount and your own role in it.
Proof of a clean record
From home, and from anywhere you've lived in the past five years.
A passport with a year left
It has to stay valid at least a year past the day you file.
An apostille on anything foreign
Chile signed the Hague convention, so no consular legalization.
Translations only if it isn't English
SERMIG asks for one when a document is in neither Spanish nor English.
Your company's tax bill, and then yours
Chile taxes company profits at 27 percent in 2026. Congress passed the Kast government's tax package in July 2026, stepping that rate down toward 23 percent by 2029. One article on compensating municipalities was still unsettled when we checked, and the opposition said it would go to the Constitutional Court. Treat the schedule as a direction, not a date.
The U.S. treaty is worth real money
When a Chilean company pays a dividend abroad, the total Chilean tax, company level included, is 35 percent if the shareholder sits in a treaty country and 44.45 percent if not. The U.S. treaty has been in force since 2024. That gap is 9.45 points you get for holding a U.S. passport.
Then you move, and it changes
Those figures describe a shareholder living outside Chile. Once you're tax resident here you file a Chilean return of your own, and the credit runs against your personal rates instead. PwC also notes that foreigners pay Chilean tax only on Chilean-source income for their first three years. The two systems only make sense modeled together. Modeled apart, they hand you a number that doesn't exist.
When this is the wrong permit
Half a million dollars is a lot to spend on a residency you might reach another way. If your money arrives as a pension, rent, dividends or royalties, Chile's retirement and periodic income route tests documented income rather than capital, and it publishes no legal minimum. If a Chilean employer is hiring you, the work route is simpler. The investor permit earns its keep when you were going to build the business anyway and want the residency to follow it.
Both ends of this move
Beacon Global Advisors
Financial Planning
The money has to come from somewhere, and moving it out of U.S. accounts is a decision of its own. Beacon Global Advisors works on retirement accounts and investment portfolios. Settle the sequencing before the wire, not after.
MyExpatTaxes
U.S. Expat Tax Service
A Chilean company you control becomes a reporting event back home, with its own forms and its own deadlines. MyExpatTaxes handles expat filings. Ask what your ownership percentage triggers before you settle on a structure.
ExpatInsure
Global Health Insurance
Production happens where the inputs are, which is rarely down the road from a major clinic. ExpatInsure handles the international side of health cover. Price a policy around the region you'll operate in, not the city on your letterhead.
Hunter Schultz
Healthcare Coach
Capital is the least reversible part of this move. Hunter Schultz does the medical planning that sits underneath an insurance decision. Find out what treating a condition in Chile involves while the money is still in your account.
Straight answers on the investor route
Do I have to keep the investment running?
Yes, and that is the part that separates this from a golden visa. To extend the permit you attach documents showing progress on the investment you promised, along with the company's electronic tax folder from the Chilean revenue service and proof its municipal license is paid. Chile's immigration service expects an extended execution period and a record as a consolidated company.
What is the InvestChile sponsorship letter?
It is a document from Chile's foreign investment promotion agency confirming it has reviewed the technical and economic case for a project. Chile's immigration service will not process an investor application without one. The letter stays valid for 60 calendar days from the day it is issued, and holding it does not guarantee that the visa is granted.
Does Chile have a golden visa?
No. Chile runs no residency-by-property scheme and no citizenship by investment. The investor permit is the closest thing it has, and it requires money aimed at producing goods or services plus a sponsorship letter from InvestChile. Buying an apartment is open to any foreigner and carries no immigration benefit at all.
How much money do you need for a Chile investor visa?
Decree 177 of 2022 fixes it at US$500,000. Chile accepts the equivalent in any other freely convertible currency. The money has to go into producing goods or services. A second track carries no cash figure. It covers senior managers and specialized technical staff at a Chilean company whose foreign investor holds at least 10 percent of the voting rights.
How long until permanent residency and a Chilean passport?
Permanent residence opens after two years of temporary residence for applications filed since May 2022. Naturalization comes at five years of legal residence, counted from your first residence stamp, and you have to hold permanent residence when you apply. Dual citizenship has been legal there since 2005, so the American passport stays.
What does the Chile investor visa cost an American?
The government fee follows nationality. On the table Chile's immigration service links from its own fees page, a U.S. citizen pays US$205 for a temporary residence visa and dependents are charged US$15 each. That is the state's fee only. Legal help, apostilles, translations and setting up the Chilean company are separate, and together they dwarf it.
Can I apply for the Chile investor visa from inside Chile?
Generally no. Temporary residence applications are filed from outside the country on the immigration service's online portal, and the visa is granted before you travel. Article 69 of Law 21.325 carves out a few narrow cases: a close relative who is Chilean or a permanent resident, dependents of a temporary resident, and humanitarian situations.
Is Chile where your money should land?
Half a million dollars is one way in. The Expatsi Test starts from what you've got, where you'd go and who's coming with you.
Why not you?