Newcomer guide
Landing in Buenos Aires
The paperwork and errands nobody warns you about, in the order they actually come up. Every step links to the office that runs it, so you can check the rule yourself instead of trusting a blog post from 2019.
Rules, fees and waiting times change often and many cases are personal. This is a map of the steps, not legal or tax advice: confirm on the official page linked in each step, and for visas or taxes ask a professional.
What changed lately
- June 2026. The Cámara Nacional Electoral annulled the part of Decree 366/2025 that moved citizenship applications from federal judges to Migraciones, calling it beyond what the Executive can do by decree. The government appealed to the Supreme Court, so the citizenship route is unsettled right now: ask a lawyer where your file goes before starting one. Official text
- July 2026. Decree 681/2026 added new grounds to refuse entry or cancel a residency: hate messages or incitement to violence against Argentines because of their nationality, and desecrating national symbols. The text says ideological disagreement and political, academic or citizen criticism do not count. Official text
- May 2025. Decree 366/2025 rewrote much of the migration law and its residency rules still govern today: the precaria lasts up to 90 days, is renewable, and time on it does not count toward arraigo for permanent residency or naturalization. Applicants must show means of support and no disqualifying criminal record, and arriving foreigners declare they hold health insurance. The health charge it created was put into practice by Resolución 1066/2026: outside emergencies, hospitals run by the national government only give routine care to people who are not permanent residents against insurance or payment. The citizenship piece of the same decree was annulled in June 2026 and is now before the Supreme Court. Official text
Immigration rules checked against the Boletín Oficial and the official trámite pages on 2026-09-07.
Pásala picks
The people I send my own friends to
Paperwork goes faster with someone who has done it before. For residency and asylum, this is who I call. Nobody pays to be on this list.
I&A Consultoría y Gestoría
Immigration and asylum · Online
The team I call when the residency or asylum file gets complicated. Flor and Bruno explain every step and stay with you well past the paperwork, which is the part that actually matters.
Open I&A profileResidency and the precaria
First week
Almost everything else waits on this one. Residency applications start online through RaDEX, the remote system run by Migraciones (now under the Ministerio de Seguridad Nacional), and the category you apply under (Mercosur nationality, worker, rentista, pensioner, student, family of an Argentine) decides which papers you need. Once your file is accepted you get a residencia precaria, valid for up to 90 days and renewable, which lets you stay, leave and re enter, work and study while the case is open. Since Decree 366/2025 that precaria time does not count as arraigo toward permanent residency or citizenship.
- Passport, plus your entry stamp or entry record
- Birth certificate, apostilled and translated by a sworn translator when it is not in Spanish
- Criminal record certificate from your country and, after six months here, the Argentine one
- Proof of means of support, and health insurance, which you already declare on entry
- The documents your specific category asks for, listed on its own Migraciones page
Migraciones says the process is personal and does not need a gestor, and that the only payments are the ones the platform itself generates. The law has been changed twice by decree since 2025, both under congressional review, so read your category's page the week you apply and talk to an immigration lawyer before paying anyone.
DNI, the local ID card
First month
The DNI is the card everything asks for: banks, phone plans, leases, health coverage, even some ticket sites. You can only start it once you hold a residency, temporary or permanent, and it is done in person at a Renaper documentation center with fingerprints and a photo. Renaper publishes the fee list and a map of where to go.
- Your residency resolution or precaria
- Passport
- Proof of address in Argentina, a utility bill or the certificate you are asked for
- The fee paid online before the appointment
CUIL or CUIT, your tax and ID number
First month
This number identifies you for work, invoices, bank paperwork and most public systems. Employees get a CUIL through ANSES, which is quick once you have a DNI. Anyone billing for their own work, freelancers included, registers a CUIT with ARCA (the former AFIP) and sets up a clave fiscal, the login for every tax procedure. Monotributo, the simplified small taxpayer regime, is handled from the same account.
- DNI in hand for either number
- An email address you control, the clave fiscal recovery depends on it
- Your registered address, it has to match what you declare elsewhere
Whether you owe tax here, and under which regime, depends on your residency and income. That is an accountant question, not a checklist one.
A bank account or a peso wallet
First month
Banks generally want a DNI, a CUIL or CUIT and proof of address, so most people start with a digital wallet or a fintech account, which usually asks for less and opens in a day. Either way you end up with a CBU or CVU and an alias, the two things anyone uses to transfer money here, and a QR you can pay with in most shops. Every bank and wallet that holds your pesos should appear in the BCRA registries.
- DNI or, in some wallets, passport plus precaria
- CUIL or CUIT
- Proof of address, ask what each one accepts before you start
- Save your alias somewhere, you will type it constantly
SUBE card for buses, subte and trains
First week
One card covers colectivos, the subte and the trains. Buy it at a SUBE point, a kiosco, a subte station or online, then register it in your name: an unregistered card cannot be blocked if you lose it and does not get the discounted fares that registration and social tariffs allow. Top it up at kioscos, terminals or from the app.
- Buy the card, then register it with your ID number
- Load credit before your first trip, drivers do not sell it
- Keep the card number written down in case of loss
A local phone line
First week
A local number unlocks WhatsApp, which is how almost everything here is arranged, including messages about a sofa you are selling. Prepaid SIMs are sold by the three carriers and in their shops, and you can start prepaid on a passport in many cases, then move to a monthly plan once you have a DNI and a local payment method. Ask in the shop which documents that specific plan needs before you queue.
- Passport or DNI, depending on the carrier and the plan
- An unlocked phone
- Register the line in your name so you can recover it later
Renting without a garantía
First month
Since DNU 70/2023 repealed the old rental law, leases run under the general Civil and Commercial Code: term, currency, deposit and the index used to update the rent are all freely agreed between the two of you, so read the contract closely rather than assuming a legal minimum protects you. In the City, agency commission charged to a tenant is still capped at 4.15% of the total contract, about one month, by City law. The usual blocker is the garantía propietaria, a local property owner who backs your lease. Newcomers rarely have one, so the two common routes are a seguro de caución, an insurance policy that replaces the guarantor, and temporary furnished rentals, which skip the guarantee but cost more per month. The City runs Garantía + Fácil, which subsidizes part of the caución premium, and the Instituto de Vivienda publishes a plain guide to what a landlord may and may not charge you at signing.
- Ask early whether the owner accepts a seguro de caución
- Check the term, the deposit and the update index in writing, nothing is set by law now
- Read the initial costs guide so you know what is legitimate at signing
- Get the contract in writing, with the term, the adjustment and who pays expensas spelled out
- Photograph the apartment's condition the day you move in
Changing money
First week
There are legal ways to turn foreign currency into pesos and there is the informal street market, and the gap between them moves constantly. The safe routes are casas y agencias de cambio authorized by the Central Bank, your own bank, international transfer services, and buying or selling through a broker at the MEP rate once you have a local account. The BCRA publishes the list of authorized operators with their addresses, which is the one thing worth checking before handing anyone cash.
- Check the operator appears in the BCRA registry
- Count the money before leaving the counter, and know what current notes look like
- Compare the rate you are offered against the published bank and MEP rates that day
- Never change money on the street with someone who approaches you first
Counterfeit notes and short counts are the two classic problems with informal exchange. Pásala does not recommend any cueva or informal changer.
Health cover and emergencies
Settling in
Emergencies are covered for everyone, whatever your migration status, and the emergency number is 107 for SAME ambulances. City hospitals in Buenos Aires charge nothing at the counter. Routine care is where it changed: since Resolución 1066/2026, hospitals run by the national government only give non urgent care to people who are not permanent residents against health insurance or payment. Salaried workers get an obra social through their job, and everyone else can pay into a prepaga, private cover sold by plan and age, regulated by the Superintendencia de Servicios de Salud.
- Save 107 for ambulances and 911 for police
- Find your closest public hospital and its guardia entrance now, not during an emergency
- If you take medication, bring your prescription and check the local equivalent name
- Compare prepaga plans and confirm the company is registered before signing
Spanish, and meeting people
Settling in
Porteño Spanish has its own pronoun, its own accent and a lot of lunfardo, so even confident speakers arrive slightly deaf for a few weeks. The UBA language lab runs Spanish courses for foreigners and the university's official proficiency certificate, which employers and universities accept. The rest is repetition: the same feria, the same café, the same neighbors.
- Learn vos and its verb endings early, nobody here uses tú
- Pick one weekly fixed thing, a class, a feria, a workshop, and go every week
- Say yes to the first three invitations, even the awkward ones
Pásala picks
Settle in, step by step
Once the paperwork is moving, these practical guides take over: the home, the kids' school, a pet, a car, the mail and the tax picture.
Once the paperwork is moving
The rest of settling in is furniture, food, a haircut and people. That part lives on Pásala.