Paraguay went from a country most people couldn’t place on a map to a fixture of relocation forums in about five years. Attention travels faster than accuracy, and the result is a thick layer of confident misinformation — some of it from articles that were true in 2018 and never updated, some from people who have strong opinions and no stamp in their passport.
Here are the five claims we hear most, and what the law and the numbers actually say.
Myth 1: “Paraguay is dangerous”
Where it comes from: a vague continental reputation, plus the specific image of Ciudad del Este — the tri-border trade city — quietly standing in for the whole country.
What’s true: Paraguay’s homicide rate sits in the lower-middle range for South America, far below Brazil, Venezuela or much of Central America. Asunción is a calm capital by regional standards. The realistic risk for a newcomer is not violent crime; it is opportunistic petty theft — a phone left on a café table, a bag hung on the back of a chair. Treat it like any mid-size Latin American city: phone in a front pocket, no devices out on the street, registered taxis or apps after dark.
The caveat: “lower-middle for the region” is not “Switzerland.” Ciudad del Este has its own dynamics as a border-trade hub, and a handful of neighbourhoods anywhere reward common sense. But the cartoon — a lawless narco-state — is simply wrong. We keep the current numbers, with sources, on the safety page.
Myth 2: “You have to lock up thousands of dollars in a Paraguayan bank”
Where it comes from: this one used to be true. For years, Paraguayan permanent residency required a “solvency” deposit — a sum parked in a local bank, often quoted around US$ 5,000 — as proof you could support yourself. A large share of the relocation articles still online describe that requirement in the present tense.
What’s true: the migration framework was rebuilt by Ley 6984/2022 and its implementing decrees. The standard route now begins with temporary residency, and it requires no frozen bank deposit and no minimum investment. You document your identity, a clean criminal record, and a lawful basis to be here — not a dead balance in a local account.
The caveat: the fast tracks are different by design. The SUACE business route and the Investor Pass involve real capital — but that is investment you direct and own, not a hostage deposit, and those routes are optional. If anyone quotes you a mandatory five-figure deposit for ordinary residency, they are reading from an outdated script. The current cost breakdown — government fees, translation, all of it — is on the cost calculator and the full guide.
Myth 3: “Once you’re a resident, Paraguay taxes your worldwide income”
Where it comes from: most people’s mental model of tax is their home country’s, and most wealthy countries tax residents on worldwide income.
What’s true: Paraguay runs a territorial tax system, set out in Ley 6380/2019. It taxes income earned inside Paraguay. Income earned abroad — a salary from a foreign employer, profit from an online business, dividends, capital gains realised on a foreign exchange — falls outside the Paraguayan tax base. Income that is Paraguayan-source is taxed at modest rates: the personal income tax (IRP) runs on progressive 8%/9%/10% brackets, with 10% the top rate. There is no wealth tax, and no inheritance tax on foreign assets.
The caveat: territorial taxation is not a magic “tax-free” badge. Your home country has its own rules about when you stop being a tax resident there, and some countries make that genuinely hard — Paraguay’s system does not override theirs. And Paraguayan-source income is, again, taxed. The honest version: Paraguay can be very efficient, but only as one half of a properly handled exit. The mechanics are on the taxes page and under tax residency — and you should get cross-border advice before you move money.
Myth 4: “It’s all jungle and dirt roads — there’s no real infrastructure”
Where it comes from: “small landlocked South American country” pattern-matches, in a lot of heads, straight to “undeveloped.”
What’s true: Asunción is a functioning capital — fibre internet, private hospitals at a standard that draws medical visitors from neighbouring countries, supermarkets, shopping centres, a visible café-and-coworking economy. Paraguay also produces far more electricity than it consumes: the Itaipú and Yacyretá hydroelectric dams make power cheap and abundant, which is a large part of why energy-hungry industry has looked here at all.
The caveat: it is not Singapore. Bureaucracy is paper-heavy and done in person, some government processes are slow, and the Chaco — the vast western half of the country — genuinely is remote, thinly populated scrubland. But almost everyone lives in the eastern region, and “no infrastructure” describes none of it. The cost of living and healthcare pages get specific.
Myth 5: “You’d have to actually move there and live there full-time”
Where it comes from: the word “residency” sounds like it ought to require residing.
What’s true: Paraguay has no minimum-stay requirement to keep residency. Under the current framework you preserve your status as long as you don’t spend too long continuously absent — the threshold is measured in years for permanent residents, and is shorter for temporary ones — and a single qualifying visit resets the clock. In practice, many people hold Paraguayan residency as a legal “Plan B”: a second base, a tax option, an insurance policy they may never need to occupy full-time.
The caveat: residency and citizenship are not the same promise. Naturalisation — available after three years of permanent residency under Constitution Art. 148 — expects genuine ties to the country, and “I was never here” is not a citizenship application. Residency as insurance is entirely legitimate; citizenship as an absentee is not. What each status actually lets you do is laid out on rights by status, and the second-passport logic on Plan B.
The pattern
Look at the five together and the same two failure modes show up every time. Either the claim was true once and never got a new battery — the bank deposit, the old residency rules — or it’s an assumption imported wholesale from somewhere else — worldwide tax, “South America is dangerous.”
The defence is dull but it works: check the date on whatever you’re reading, and check the claim against the actual law or the actual data, not against a vibe. That is the entire reason this site keeps a sources page, where every figure links back to where it came from. Start there, take the eligibility quiz for a fast read on your own situation, and treat anyone selling certainty about a country they have never visited with the suspicion it deserves.