Moving to Ecuador from the US

Tourists may not work. If you plan to work for a year, research the residence route below instead of relying on repeated tourist entries. Check passport validity with your airline or an Ecuadorian consulate: we did not find the passport-validity rule for a US passport.

The Law of Human Mobility says temporary residence is renewable, but the 2021 text says on multiple occasions and the text quoted on gob.ec says once only, so the renewal limit is unconfirmed. Other temporary routes: the rentista category for rents or investment income at the same three salaries; the retiree category for a foreign pension at the same three salaries; and the investor category, which asks for at least 100 salaries (to be safe, have more than US$49,000) as a fixed-term deposit of at least 730 days, a property purchase or shares in an Ecuadorian company. After more than 21 continuous months as a resident you can apply for permanent residence before the temporary visa expires; the regulation (article 84) does not let you be away more than 90 days in total across the temporary visa, and the ministry's June 2024 means-of-living agreement asks for proof of income of at least one salary a month over the last three months. The online fee for permanent residence on gob.ec (US$50 plus US$225) comes from a 2023 page, so it may have changed.

You also need foreign bank statements showing the income, documents proving you work for a foreign employer or clients or own a foreign company, and health insurance valid for the same period as the visa that states cover in Ecuador. Documents that are not in Spanish need a translation. If you are already in Ecuador when you apply, you must be in regular status, as a tourist or on a visa. The Law now also asks for a migratory record certificate, as set out in the regulation, and we did not find what that is for a US citizen. You apply online only, through the e-VISAS platform. After registering the request you pay straight away, online or at Banco del Pacífico; requests not paid by 23:55 Ecuador time the same day are deleted. The fees are US$50 for the application and US$270 when the visa is granted, with no VAT, and half price from age 65 (the page was last updated on 31 December 2024). After the visa is issued, the regulation says you must send the original supporting documents to the office that issued it within one month, or the visa can be cancelled; how that works with online filing is unconfirmed. Once the visa is issued, an order to get your Ecuadorian identity card follows (see the setup section). We found no official processing time, so it is unknown.

The tax year is the calendar year, and individuals file in March. The 2026 table for individuals taxes the first US$12,208 at 0%, then 5% to 35% in steps, and 37% above US$109,956. Residents who pay tax abroad on the same income can claim a credit up to the Ecuadorian tax on it.

You cannot take a foreign tax credit for tax on income you exclude. Foreign accounts that together exceed $10,000 at any time in the year must be reported on an FBAR. The IRS list of US income tax treaties does not include Ecuador, and the SRI's list of agreements does not include the United States, so there is no treaty tie-breaker.

You need it to join the IESS. We could not open the Registro Civil's pages, so the fee and the appointment steps are unknown.

We did not find a bank's published requirements for a personal account for foreigners, so what a bank asks for is unknown. A bank account outside the US counts toward the FBAR $10,000 threshold.