Road to Becoming a Legal Resident in Argentina

 Watch the video interview "Becoming a Permanent Resident of Argentina"

After nearly a year in Argentina, my spouse has finally become a legal resident. Getting the paperwork processed in Cordoba's Immigration Office was easy, but getting all the paperwork together, legalizing it, and translating it was a major hassle.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we had never heard of an apostille until we moved to Argentina, and by that point it was too late. We were faced with two options. We could either pay a company in the United States an insane amount of money to add apostilles to my spouse’s documents or we could return to the States, get all our paperwork in order, and return to Argentina once the task was complete. Unfortunately, we only had enough money to send one of us back and my spouse volunteered to go. 

Watching him leave on his own back in December, three weeks before Christmas, was heart wrenching, but this isn’t the first time we’ve had to part ways in order to go on a life changing quest. It’s been a recurring theme in our twelve-year relationship, but ironically the pain and anxiety of the separation always hits us hard. 

This trip worked out well for him though. Not only was he able to get all the paperwork notarized and apostilled, but he was able to spend some quality time with his family and properly say goodbye to them. 

After two months, which included the first Christmas and New Year’s that we hadn’t spent with each other ever, he returned to Cordoba with the paperwork and two pieces of luggage full of items we had left behind the first time we left the States.

Shortly after his return, we began translating and legalizing the apostilled documents at the Colegio de Traductores Publico in Cordoba. After everything was complete, we got our immigration appointment, and a month later we presented all of my spouse’s paperwork.

I’m happy to report that three weeks later, we received his DNI card (the equivalent of a social security card in the U.S.) in the mail. He is now a permanent resident of Argentina, and with this residency, he can legally find work, open up a business, and have a better future.