Applying For Residency In Panama

We’ve been living in Panama for almost two years now. Even though we’re here full time, year round, officially we are tourists. We’ve made no effort to “regularize” our status, as they say in the immigration biz, because we weren’t ready to commit to staying here.

When we arrived, a tourist visa let you stay in the country for six months at a time. Renewing it was easy – you made a border run. It was a simple, straightforward process that took us 5+ hours of driving each way, but only had us at the Panama/Costa Rica border crossing for about an hour.

A pain, but not a problem.

Now, though, Panama is making it much more difficult. So much more difficult, in fact, that we’re preparing to apply for residency rather than have to deal with the border issues...

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