How to Obtain a Tax Residency in Uruguay

There are five separate routes to Uruguayan tax residency, and meeting just one is enough. The best known is spending 183 days in the country, but there is another that surprises many people: a property investment above 3,500,000 UI with just 60 days of presence. Here are the five grounds with their exact conditions, how the days are counted, and what tax residency actually means.

Verified against the Directorate General of Taxation. Criteria and thresholds can change: confirm on the DGI site or with an accountant before planning.

Tax residency is not legal residency

This is the most frequent confusion and worth clearing up first. Legal residency is an immigration procedure with the National Directorate of Migration: it lets you live and work in the country. Tax residency determines where you are taxed, follows the DGI’s own criteria and is assessed year by year.

You can hold one without the other. Having legal residency does not automatically make you a tax resident, and vice versa.

The five grounds

Meeting one alone is enough.

1. Physical presence: more than 183 days

The most direct ground: staying more than 183 days during the calendar year in national territory. It can be evidenced before 31 December.

The counting rules have details that decide whether you get there:

All days with effective physical presence count, regardless of the time of entry or exit.
Days spent in transit through Uruguay while travelling between third countries do not count.
Sporadic absences are included — that is, they count as if you had been present. An absence is sporadic when it does not exceed 30 consecutive days.

There is one exception worth understanding properly: if you evidence tax residency in another country with a certificate from the competent authority, those sporadic absences are not added. But that certificate only serves that purpose: once past 183 days you are a Uruguayan tax resident anyway, certificate or not.

2. Vital interests: your family lives here

It is presumed — unless proved otherwise — that your vital interests are in Uruguay when habitually resident in the country are your spouse, provided you are not legally separated, and your minor children under parental authority.

A detail many people miss: if you have no children, the spouse’s presence alone is enough.

3. Main centre of activities: greater volume of income

This applies when you generate in Uruguay income of greater volume than in any other country, understood as greater gross income.

Here is the decisive nuance: the comparison is made country by country at 31 December, not the sum of all countries against Uruguay. If you earn USD 50,000 in Uruguay, 20,000 in Argentina and 20,000 elsewhere, Uruguay wins the comparison even though the foreign total is higher.

Pure capital income is not considered, provided it is obtained exclusively, even if the asset generating it is in the country.

4. Property investment above 15,000,000 UI

This applies if you hold property investment above 15,000,000 Indexed Units. The value is determined for each property by taking the acquisition cost adjusted for the increase in the UI between the first day of the month following purchase and 31 December of the year in which residency is evidenced.

Ownership must be verified at 31 December of each year.

5. Investment above 45,000,000 UI in a company with a promoted project

Direct or indirect investment in a company whose activities or projects have been declared of national interest under Law 16.906, exceeding 45,000,000 UI.

A practical point: it is irrelevant whether the project obtained promotional status before or after your investment. It is enough that the declaration is still in force at 31 December.

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The most used route: 3,500,000 UI and 60 days

This one deserves its own section because it is by far the most accessible and the least known.

It applies with property investment — one or more properties — above 3,500,000 UI, provided the investment was made from 1 July 2020 onwards. And it requires, each year:

Retaining ownership at 31 December.
Registering effective physical presence of at least 60 days during the calendar year. For counting these 60 days, sporadic absences are not considered — they must be days of real presence.

Watch the cut-off date: only investments made from 1 July 2020 count. A property bought before then does not qualify for this ground, however high its value.

If you are considering this route, see how buying property in Uruguay works: there are no restrictions by nationality and you do not need to be resident.

What it is for: the regime for new residents

This is why it matters to many people. Anyone acquiring Uruguayan tax residency gains access to a special regime for their foreign capital income. That regime changed under Law 20.446, in force from 1 January 2026, so there are now two distinct situations.

If you acquire tax residency from 2026 onwards. You may elect to be taxed as a non-resident (IRNR) during the year of the change and the ten following years — eleven in total — paying nothing on that income. The difference from the previous regime is that the benefit is no longer automatic: you must meet and maintain one of these conditions:

Spending more than 183 days per calendar year in Uruguay.
A property investment above UI 12,500,000 (around USD 2,000,000).
More than UI 625,000 per year (around USD 105,000) in productive or innovation funds.
A direct investment in a company that increases productive capacity, under the conditions of Decree 188/026.

Once the eleven years are up, the rate halves to 6% for five further years provided the investment is maintained, and then moves to the general 12%. There is also an alternative fixed annual payment regime.

If you acquired it up to 31 December 2025. You keep the regime you chose for the period originally granted: the eleven-year tax holiday, or IRPF at 7% with no time limit. That cover also extends to the income that only becomes taxable in 2026, so the wider scope does not expose you.

The option is exercised on acquiring tax residency and on declaring you did not hold it the previous year. It is worth settling before the move, not after.

The tax residency certificate

This is the document the DGI issues evidencing your status to third parties — typically to another country’s tax authority, to apply a double taxation treaty or to show you are no longer resident there.

It is requested from the DGI, evidencing the ground you meet. The means of proof vary by ground: immigration records for physical presence, corporate and accounting documentation for income volume, title deeds for investments.

What being a tax resident means

That Uruguay treats you as a taxpayer. In practice: you pay IRPF on your Uruguayan-source income — under the dual system of 7% to 12% for capital and progressive rates to 36% for employment — and certain passive income from abroad falls within scope, unless the special regime applies. Full picture in taxes in Uruguay.

Frequently asked questions

What are the requirements for tax residency in Uruguay?

Meeting one of five grounds: more than 183 days of presence, vital interests (spouse and minor children in the country), greater income volume than in any other country, property investment above 15,000,000 UI, or investment above 45,000,000 UI in a company with a promoted project. There is also the route of 3,500,000 UI in property plus 60 days of presence.

How many days do I have to spend in Uruguay?

More than 183 in the calendar year for the physical presence ground, or at least 60 when combined with property investment above 3,500,000 UI made from July 2020 onwards.

Do days spent outside the country count?

Sporadic absences — those not exceeding 30 consecutive days — are included in the 183-day count. For the 60 days of the investment ground, however, they are not considered.

Are legal residency and tax residency the same?

No. Legal residency is an immigration matter allowing you to live and work; tax residency determines where you are taxed, follows DGI criteria and is assessed annually.