How Many Americans Live in Guatemala
Guatemala publishes residence permits by nationality, an openness many larger systems lack. It publishes little else, so the settled American population itself goes uncounted.
The American Emigration Revue counts US citizensPeople holding United States citizenship, as counted by Guatemala's own official records. A separate population from US-born residents; the two are never added. Definitions ›, US-born residentsPeople born in the United States living in Guatemala, whatever citizenship they hold today. A separate population from US citizens; the two are never added. Definitions ›, naturalizations and long-term permits from official government sources, with every figure cited. This page sets out what Guatemala publishes, what it does not, and how far the published record can be trusted.
Why Guatemala's Records, Not Washington's
The ContextThe context every page needs: who counts Americans abroad, and who doesn't.
The United States publishes no count of its own citizens abroad. Its best federal figure, 3.3 million Americans worldwide, is a statistical model built to size the overseas electorate, and the same model said 4.4 million two years earlier. The Census Bureau decided in 1976 to exclude private Americans abroad from the decennial enumeration (overseas federal employees and military are still counted). What Washington publishes instead is fragments: Social Security checks mailed to foreign addresses, tax returns claiming foreign income, quarterly lists of people who gave up their citizenship. See what each federal source actually counts ›
So this project counts from the receiving side. Every figure on this page comes from records Guatemala itself publishes, read under the same rules applied to every country in the project. Where Guatemala publishes, it is counted and cited. Where it does not, the gap is shown rather than filled: no estimates, no models. How openly each country reports ›
What the Research Found
The FindingsFindings from the Guatemala research, drawn from the official record.
The Figures as Data
The EvidenceMachine-readable copy of the figures on this page, each with the year its source published it. Free to download and reuse with attribution.
| Figure | Value | Vintage | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| US citizens | 3,716 | — | — |
| US-born residents | 12,870 | — | — |
| US-citizen arrivals (2024) | 574 | 2024 | — |
| US-citizen arrivals | 575 | — | — |
| Long-term residence permits | 1,008 | — | — |
Vintage is the year the publishing authority reported the figure. A dash means the year or publisher is not yet recorded in our dataset for that figure; the Sources and Datasets section below names every publisher behind this page. The free CSV covers the years shown to readers without an account.
Obtained by Records Request
Data released by government institutions in response to formal freedom of information requests.
The most common legal status held by Americans in Guatemala is religious ministry: 1,008 of 1,190 temporary residents hold the ministers-of-religion permit, and with the permanent religious categories the church accounts for roughly 29% of all American residents — predominantly non-Catholic.
Released to AER under Access to Public Information Law (Decree 57-2008) — available on request, not proactively published. It does not affect the Data Visibility Index, which scores only what governments publish.
57% of Guatemala's US-born population is under 15. This is not an expat colony — it is the US-born children of returning Guatemalan families, a mirror image of the migration the US debate usually tracks.
Released to AER under Access to Public Information Law (Decree 57-2008) — available on request, not proactively published. It does not affect the Data Visibility Index, which scores only what governments publish.
Pathways, Status & Geography
How Americans get here, what permits they hold, and where they settle within the country.
Guatemala's US-citizen residency stock breaks into 22 distinct residency types under the IGM's own classification, of which the single dominant category is Residencia Temporal para Ministros de Culto o Religiosos with 1,008 of the 1,190 US temporary residents (85% of US temporary residency; 27% of all valid US residency in Guatemala). Category frameworks are country-specific and not comparable across countries.
How Far to Trust These Figures
The Publishing RecordWhat Guatemala publishes, how often it publishes, and the sources behind every number on this page.
The gaps: Published as a regular series: annual arrivals. Published only partially or as one-off estimates: resident US citizens, US-born residents, residence or work permits. Not published: naturalizations: those gaps set the grade; they do not make the published figures wrong. What the partial figures can support: Permits, US-Born, Citizens come as a one-off figure rather than a yearly series: good for a snapshot of today, not for reading a trend.
Every figure on this page comes from one of the publishers below. Links go to the authority and, where stable, straight to the dataset.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick AnswersEvery answer is drawn from the official record, from the same sources cited across this page.
How many Americans live in Guatemala?
How many Americans move to Guatemala each year?
Does Guatemala recognize dual citizenship with the United States?
Where do the figures for Americans in Guatemala come from?
News stories our newsroom has published about this country.
The full series, every year, every country
The public view shows a limited year window for each series. Researchers and journalists can request access to the complete annual record for every country in the project.