Mercosur (Common Market of the South) was founded in 1991 and Paraguay is one of the four founder Member (with Argentine, Brazil and Uruguay).
There are also several associated States (Columbia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Guiana and Suriname). Columbia is about to join it and, since 2017, Venezuela has been temporarily suspended in a one-sided way because of non-compliance of trade agreements, immigration and human rights.
Its GDP is more than 80% of the whole South America and constitutes a world economic power. Paraguay is side by side with huge countries like Brazil or Argentine and it takes advantage of being associated with its big brothers, avoiding at the same time their problems like, for instance, runaway inflation, high rates of social inequality and criminality, pollution in the cities and more stressful life stages.
Furthermore, commercially speaking, Mercosur reached free trade agreements with other Latin American countries like Mexico or Cuba or several trade agreements with European Union, with Asian countries like the flourishing India, with Middle East in countries like Israel, Egypt and Palestine or with Customs Union of Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland), among many others. Accessing to Mercosur, allows you to access indirectly to many other markets.
If we are interested in free movement and residence, we must know that Mercosur countries, CAN Countries (Andean Community composed of Columbia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru) and Chile concluded an agreement establishing that their territories are an “Area of free residence with the right to work”. Actually, several representatives of the countries being part of this agreement have pointed out that their ultimate intention was to go on towards a convergence between CAN and Mercosur.
In brief, all those who reside in Paraguay can count on the following advantages:
- They can move freely and work without visa and passport across South America. If a person is a “digital nomad” or simply he/she wants to know places like Buenos Aires, Santiago (Chile), Rio de Janeiro, or to have a quick trip to Caribbean, he can move in total freedom.
- They can do business on that same territory. As a matter of fact there is another advantage: it is a zone of free commerce.
- If you have your residence in Paraguay, you do not have to pay taxes on income from abroad, for instance: pensions, dividends, billing related to your own business, fee related to teleworking, and it is really great for pensioners, investors, digital nomads etc….
- Since Paraguay is one of the most economic countries in the world you can live there very comfortably, even with incomes that in Europe or in other American Country are insignificant.
Livinginparaguay.com offers an absolutely confidential service for:
- Facilitating the process to obtain permanent residence with the support of its expert consultants.
- Providing an advice service for investments and financial managements. For instance: what kind of business is better for you if you are going to invest in Paraguay? What tax benefits can you obtain? Is your rental agreement according to the law?
- We organize trips to discover Paraguay and we take care of all logistic, legal, organizational and consultancy aspects, that a move requires.
Finally, Paraguay can count on an enviable position in the Latino American landscape, since it has excellent partners and it has access to a large market, without having to suffer their disadvantages. Paraguay is a country that for European immigration is a “win win situation”, in other words it is an huge advantage just for every opportunity it can provide (fiscal, social, investment opportunities) and because this country needs knowledge and experience provided by everyone who just moved to Paraguay. And, modesty aside, the last big Paraguay’s advantage, if we compare it to other countries, is just Living In Paraguay!