Cuba or Peru
Two countries side by side across the same rows as the full comparison. A dash means the value is missing: fields are not filled with guesses. about the data
| Cuba | Peru | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | — | 2 years |
| Partner can work | — | — |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | no trouble | no trouble |
| Pet limit | no limit | no limit |
| Quarantine | no | no |
| Residence permit fee | — | — |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 399 · estimate | $ 846 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 42,4 | $ 25,9 |
| Life expectancy | 78.26 | 77.94 |
| Homicides/100k | 4.46 | 8.6 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 4.8 | 6.4 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Cuba — 25, Peru — 41. Types present in both: work, study, family, investment and talent. Cuba adds: repatriation. Peru adds: retirement and working holiday.
Fees, thresholds and deadlines
Cuba: the fee is 1,000 USD wherever it is published. Routes with a published decision deadline: 24; the shortest is 10 days. Peru: fees range from 19.1 to 162.5 PEN. Routes with no fee: 2. Routes stating an income threshold: 4; the lowest is 1,000 USD a month. Routes with a published decision deadline: 29; the shortest is 5 days.
Beyond the first permit
Permanent status: Cuba after 5 years, Peru after 3 years. Citizenship: Peru after 2 years; the other country publishes no term.
Cuba in brief
Cuba combines things rarely found together in this set: high life expectancy and clean air alongside expensive communications and utilities. Life expectancy is 78.26 years and mean PM2.5 concentration just 9.45 micrograms per cubic metre — one of the best figures in this guide; basic access to water reaches 95.15 per cent of the population. Road deaths at 5.4 per 100,000 are likewise among the lowest. On the World Bank scale from −2.5 to +2.5, political stability stands at +0.32 (a positive value is rare here), control of corruption at −0.23, government effectiveness at −0.27 and rule of law at −0.62. Overall natural risk is 4.8 out of 10 on INFORM and almost entirely weather-driven: cyclones 8.0, coastal risks 5.7, earthquakes 5.0, against floods at just 0.5. Prices are distributed unusually: internet at 68.65 dollars a month and utilities at 94.11, against a transport pass at 41.6 and fuel at 1.37. The immigration framework was rewritten wholesale by the 2024 laws — on Migration (171), Citizenship (172) and Foreigners (173) — and published together with their regulations in the official gazette. It rests on one principle: a foreigner holds exactly one migratory classification at any time, and everything else follows from it, including the right to work. A work permit is required of temporary residents and real-estate residents, but not at all of provisional and permanent residents. The route to permanent status necessarily passes through the provisional resident stage, granted for up to a year precisely to verify social integration; a refusal at that stage bars a further attempt for two years. Permanent residence is granted after five years of residence under a resident classification, or with no qualifying period on grounds of marriage to a citizen, kinship with a citizen by birth, high qualification or substantial assets; it is approved for five years and renewed until the age of sixty, after which it runs indefinitely. The authority publishes concrete standards: up to 180 working days to consider a permanent residence file and up to 60 days for the decision, three working days for the real-estate resident classification, 15 calendar days for the applicant to remedy deficiencies and 10 days after entry to register. What this data does not contain: the population of Havana is not given, as no official source separating city from province could be found; the country's second city is not included in this guide because the price source reports a one-bedroom flat there at three times the cost of a three-bedroom one, so that data is plainly corrupted.
Peru in brief
What makes Peru interesting is the wait for citizenship: two years of legal residence, one of the shortest in this guide, with no renunciation of the previous passport and permanent residence after three years. That is exactly what is changing. Law No. 32421, published on 14 August 2025, raises the period to five years and adds proof of annual income of at least 10 tax units and a broader exam. It is not in force: commencement is tied to publication of its regulation, and the regulation has not appeared. So the country runs on the old rule, which could switch at any moment, and planning a move around the two-year figure is a bet on how fast your own case moves. The second thing that defines Peru is nature: earthquakes 9.6 out of 10 and tsunamis 9.1 on the INFORM scale, with El Niño flooding added along the northern coast. The cost of living outside Lima is low: rent in Chiclayo and Piura is a third of the capital's.
Other comparisons
Cuba or… Panama · Costa Rica · Ecuador · Trinidad and Tobago · El Salvador · Guyana · Honduras · Nicaragua
Peru or… Belize · Bolivia · Colombia · Greenland · Jamaica · Bahamas · Guatemala · Dominican Republic
More on each: Cuba · Peru. Build your own comparison — up to four countries
This material is for reference and is not legal, tax or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax thresholds and prices change. Before deciding anything, check the official sources and consult a licensed professional in the relevant country.