Dominican Retirement Visa

Conchman

Silver
Jul 3, 2002
4,586
160
63
57
www.oceanworld.net
My mother, who is American, has been staying here in the DR for a little while and now wants to retire here. With some preliminary inquiries it seems in order to get her residency, she first needs to get a Dominican Retirement Visa from a Dominican consulate in the US, before she can start the residency process here. I have never heard of this before, and it seems strange that this visa cannot be obtained here in the country.

Can somebody shine some light on this, or know how to avoid having to go to the Dominican consulate?

Thanks.
 

Cdn_Gringo

Gold
Apr 29, 2014
8,671
1,133
113
Possibly a poor choice of words on the part of the speaker or perhaps an inaccurately translated understanding of what was said.

As far as I know, nothing of substance has changed. There is a specific residency program for retired people, perhaps this is the source of the confusion. A retired person who wishes to apply under this program needs to apply for, qualify for and receive a residency visa in their home country before they can apply for residency status here in the DR.
 

Matilda

RIP Lindsay
Sep 13, 2006
5,485
338
63
These are the new rules which have been in place for a few years now. She first has to obtain a residency visa from the Dominican Consulate in her home country. For this she has to provide all the usual paperwork such as birth cert, medical, proof of income etc etc, apostilled and translated into Spanish. There are various categories to apply under and assume she would apply as a pensioner with a minimum pension of US$1500 (I think) a month. Once she has the stamp in her passport - the residency visa - she then has 60 days to come back to the DR and hand in similar documents to the Migration Office and then she receives her temporary residency valid for a year which has to be renewed 4 times before getting the permanent one. You can see more information on the Migration site here https://www.migracion.gob.do/Menu/Index/18 (in Spanish) on the DR embassy in Washington site here http://drembassyusa.org/visas/ or at an immigration lawyers site here http://www.abreuimmigration.com/

Matilda
 

Kipling333

Bronze
Jan 12, 2010
2,528
829
113
It is a misnomer. It is yet another step towards citizenship if you wish to proceed that way .
 

LTSteve

Gold
Jul 9, 2010
5,449
23
38
My mother, who is American, has been staying here in the DR for a little while and now wants to retire here. With some preliminary inquiries it seems in order to get her residency, she first needs to get a Dominican Retirement Visa from a Dominican consulate in the US, before she can start the residency process here. I have never heard of this before, and it seems strange that this visa cannot be obtained here in the country.

Can somebody shine some light on this, or know how to avoid having to go to the Dominican consulate?

Thanks.

It becomes problematic for those ex-pats who are already in the DR. Basically all the necessary documents need to be gathered together, apostilized (international stamp placed on the document, recognized by the DR, which makes these legal under DR law, translated and submitted to the Consulate for approval. Once you have the necessary documents then the process continues in the DR. One of the documents you need is a criminal background check with digital fingerprinting. This has to be done in your home state. The process is a long and expensive one and difficult for those already in the DR, however to obtain residency there is really no way around this. Good luck in your quest.