Permament Residency Visas Ecuador (2017) - Travel restrictions and fines

Since February 6th 2017 the new Human Movility law (Ley de Movilidad Humana) become effective and the immigration laws of Ecuador ruling from the 70´s were derogated, in this informative capsule we are going to explain in a very simple and straight forward way how the immigration rules about how much time a person can stay out of Ecuador when is the holder of a Permanent Residency Visa in Ecuador.

The Permanent Residency Visas can be obtained under very specific circunstances:

1.- Being a Temporary Resident at least for 21 months

2.- Be married or having common law duly registered with an Ecuadorian citizen

3.- Under age or with any disability dependent of an Ecuadorian citizen or a foreigner with a Permanent residency visa.

4.- Be related under a second grade of consanguinity or affinity of an Ecuadorian citizen or a foreigner with a valid permanent residency visa.

Regarding what the law says about the time allowed for a Permanent Residency Visa holder is: “Art. 65 (Human Movility Act).- Continuity of Residency. …..The permanent resident may leave and come back to the country, but, it will not stay outside more than 180 days of each year, counted from the date the visa was obtained, for the first two years.

In case of infringement, the authority of migratory control will impose a punishment as indicated in the migratory faults of this Law. In case of recidivism, the person will lose the migratory status.

The permanent resident can leave the country for UP TO 5 YEARS after the first two years; past this time, the person will lose the residency”

It is important to clarify for all those who obtained their residency visas (Visas 9-I, 9-II-9-III, 9-IV, 9-V and 9-VI) prior the effectiveness of the Human Mobility Act, there is a Transitional provision fourth within this new law, that clarifies for all those in this situation: “All the visas will remain their validity as it was established on the typology before this law and at its renewal will be updated to the new migratory categories and respective visas. In the case of permanent residency all those will be recognized with the same attributes (and rights) of the Permanent Residency Visa established in this law”

The economic fine established on the rule number 8 of the article 170 of The Human Mobility Act: "The permanent resident who stays out of the country more than 180 days each year counting since the date of issuance of its migratory condition (visa) during the first 2 years, will be facing a fine of 4 minimum wages. In case of recidivism within the same period of time it will lost its migratory condition. The person after the first 2 year and stay out of the country for 5 or more years and hasn’t coming back to Ecuador will lost its residency status”.

In any case, is our recommendation to keep yourself aware of the time you spent out of the country and a good way to keep track of this is requesting at the airport a Movimiento Migratorio, this document only costs $5 USD, and will let you know how many days you have registered at Immigration official system.

Below an informative diagram on how the time travel restriction rule works: