Cuba or Paraguay
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 | Paraguay | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | — | 3 years |
| Partner can work | — | — |
| Parents | — | — |
| Pets | no trouble | no trouble |
| Pet limit | no limit | 5 |
| Quarantine | no | no |
| Residence permit fee | — | — |
| Rent, 2 bedrooms | $ 399 · estimate | $ 687 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 42,4 | $ 22,9 |
| Life expectancy | 78.26 | 73.98 |
| Homicides/100k | 4.46 | 6.88 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 4.8 | 2.6 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Cuba — 25, Paraguay — 11. Types present in both: family and investment. Cuba adds: work, study, talent and repatriation.
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. Paraguay: fees range from 585,385 to 2,926,925 PYG. Routes with no fee: 2.
Beyond the first permit
Permanent status: Cuba after 5 years, Paraguay after 2 years. Citizenship: Paraguay after 3 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.
Paraguay in brief
Paraguay stands out for two things. The first is nature: earthquakes 0.1 out of 10, cyclones 0.0, an overall risk of 2.6 on the INFORM scale. That is one of the calmest profiles in this guide; what remains is river flooding and heat. The second is how residence is built: the temporary status under law No. 6984/2022 carries the right to work and study from the moment the application is filed, becomes permanent after two years, and three years after that opens the way to citizenship with no language exam. Count the whole chain, though: about five years from arrival, not three. The main constraint is that citizenship here replaces the old one rather than adding to it — multiple nationality is allowed only by international treaty, and a naturalised Paraguayan loses the passport on voluntarily acquiring another. Control of corruption at −1.02, among the worst in the region, also deserves weight.
Other comparisons
More on each: Cuba · Paraguay. 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.