Argentina’s citizenship-by-investment program, authorized under Decree 524/2025, is entering its final implementation phase, with an executive director appointed in late April 2026 and a launch targeted for the second half of the year.

It would be South America’s first golden visa. The Argentina golden visa citizenship route promises a direct path to a passport, no prior residency required, but the terms that decide whether it’s worth chasing don’t exist yet.

President Javier Milei signed the decree in July 2025, and the government published it in the Official Gazette on July 31. It waives the two-year continuous residency that Argentina’s 1869 nationality law otherwise requires for naturalization. A foreigner who makes what the government calls a “relevant” investment can apply for citizenship directly.

What the decree actually establishes

The framework is built; the operating rules are not. Decree 524/2025 sets the institutions and the procedure, then hands the hardest questions to later regulation.

What the law fixes in place:

• Decree 524/2025 lets foreigners naturalize through a qualifying investment without meeting the standard two-year residency requirement under Nationality Law No. 346.
• The Agency for Citizenship by Investment Programs, a unit of the Ministry of Economy, receives applications, vets them with security and financial-crimes bodies and recommends approval or rejection.
• The National Directorate of Migration has 30 business days from the agency’s report to grant or deny citizenship.

What it leaves blank is the part that matters most. The Ministry of Economy will define which investments count as “relevant,” and that definition, the qualifying sectors and the application mechanics all wait on regulations the government hasn’t issued.

The number nobody has confirmed

No official minimum exists. Relocation firms marketing the program cite a $500,000 threshold, but Argentina has not set one, and the decree leaves the figure to the economy ministry. Treat the half-million-dollar number as a sales estimate, not a rule.

The government’s own framing is about volume, not price. Officials projected the program could attract up to $2.5 billion in investment, the Buenos Aires daily Infobae reported in January. The sectors said to be under consideration include energy, agribusiness, technology and infrastructure, though none is fixed in the decree.

Why this matters for Americans eyeing the region

A direct citizenship, rather than a residence permit, is the unusual part. Most golden visas sell residency first and citizenship years later, if at all. Argentina’s design would hand qualifying investors a passport on a roughly 30-business-day government decision, without requiring them to move.

The reach extends past Argentina’s borders. An Argentine passport carries Mercosur mobility, the right to live and work across member and associated states including Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay.

For Americans who want a Southern Hemisphere base or a second passport that opens a whole trade bloc, the Argentina golden visa citizenship pathway is the first of its kind in the region. Americans already form a measurable share of foreign residents in the country, a population AER tracks in its count of how many Americans live in Argentina.

US citizens carry a complication no decree erases. The United States taxes its citizens on worldwide income regardless of where they live, so a new Argentine passport adds a tax residence without removing the American one. Acquiring a second citizenship doesn’t end US filing obligations.

What’s still unknown

The launch date is a projection, not a commitment. Industry trackers expect applications to open in the second half of 2026, with the first citizenships possible by early to mid-2027 if the 30-day window holds, but the government has not published a firm calendar. The decree and the agency are real. The price, the qualifying investments and the open date are not yet on paper.

For Americans modeling Argentina as a long-term base, that gap is the story. The pathway is now law, the institution is staffed, and the single most important figure, what it costs, remains whatever the Ministry of Economy decides to write down.