Visas and residency

Some ask about the visa situation if they come to Guatemala for any length of time. Here are some notes. I hope it is correct. Please consult an immigration attorney or something more official to get the exact information you seek. 

You will first come in on a tourist visa. It’s free, and lasts for 3 months. We are still on tourist visas after four years - we never got around to upgrading our visas to let us stay longer. This is probably the biggest pain of living here. 

In doing some research, I found some wrong information online. For example, a webpage incorrectly says you need to pay $25, or have a local sponsor, or show your bank account info, etc. I have never ever been asked for anything like that. You get off your plane, walk a ways to Immigration, show your passport (making sure you have at least six months before it expires), and they review it, and stamp it. Make sure that the person stamping it hand-writes "90" in the stamp. If not, you will have problems when you try to leave. 

So, on a tourist visa, with a 90 day duration, you have to do one of the following: 

• Go out of the country every 3 months. This is what we did mostly, with no problems. It involves a trip to Mexico, often to Tapachula Mexico, about 5 hours away in a colectiva (shuttle). You could go with some others from here and make it a mini-vacation though! Tapachula is a clean, modern small city where you can stay cheaply at a hostel, or at a Holiday Inn (~$100).  Plus in Tapachula there is a WalMart, Sams Club, Home Depot etc - a big deal once you’ve been here in Pana with only little tiendas. The law says you need to be out of the country for 72 hours (3 days) but in reality, if you don’t wait til the very last moment, if you go out for less (like, overnight), you can still get your passport stamped on your way back into Guatemala and get another 90 days. If you do wait til the last minute, they will not let you back into Guatemala til you've been in Mexico three days - not something that you want to hear if you're in a colectiva on your way home. 
• You could go to Guatemala City, 2.5 hours away (also in a bus or shuttle) and go to the Guatemala Immigration office. You would need to drop off your passport and they will process it and have it ready in a few days. Then you’d have to go get it on a separate trip. We never did this because it seemed like almost as much of a pain (two trips) as a Mexico visa run. Plus, you can’t do that more than one time in a row. You could alternate if you wanted. 
• If you overstay your visa, it’s $1.30 per day. And if you do it a lot, you could be in jeopardy with immigration, getting back in. 

So, visa runs need to be built into the budget. 

What about getting a longer-term visa? What types of visas are there? 

Here is a quick unofficial summary of what I recollect from when I researched it. Again, please rely on official documentation or a qualified immigration attorney if you want to be sure. 

1. First, you’ll come in on a tourist visa, 90 days. Easy, automatic. A pain to renew every 90 days, but not complicated legally. 
2. Next step, you could opt to get a two-year Temporary Residency Visa. This allows you to stay in the country two years, and you can even work here if you wanted or buy real estate. You will need to supply a lot of paperwork and pay money either in fees or to lawyers. You will need to provide paperwork from the US showing you don’t have a criminal record and lots of other paperwork. (I can refer you to someone who is still working on hers after a couple year but hopes to be making progress). The longer you are here in Guatemala on Tourist Visa, the easier this is to get (supposedly). 
1. If you read Spanish, here is the official Guat webpage about it: http://www.migracion.gob.gt/index.php/servicios/extranjeros/residentes-temporales.html.  And links on the right with more info about other visas. I was told not try to get the Religious visa, and wouldn't have anyway. 
2. This is better, and in English: http://www.guatemala.se/?page_id=153 Though that is from the Guatemalan embassy in Sweden. If I find a better link, I'll post it. 
3. Finally, Residency visa. Once you have been here on a Temporary Residency Visa, you can apply for Permanent Residency.  This doesn't expire.