Cuba or Venezuela
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 | Venezuela | |
|---|---|---|
| Salary in IT | — | — |
| Citizenship | — | — |
| 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 | $ 784 · estimate |
| Basket | $ 42,4 | $ 33,9 |
| Life expectancy | 78.26 | 72.67 |
| Homicides/100k | 4.46 | 13.81 |
| Natural hazards, 0–10 | 4.8 | 5.9 |
How the two sets of routes differ
Long-stay routes in this reference: Cuba — 25, Venezuela — 15. Types present in both: work, study, family and investment. Cuba adds: 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. Venezuela: the fee is 50 USD wherever it is published. Routes stating an income threshold: 1; the lowest is 1,200 USD a month.
Beyond the first permit
Permanent status: Cuba after 5 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.
Venezuela in brief
Venezuela has the lowest rule-of-law score in this set and a high seismic risk. On the World Bank scale from −2.5 to +2.5, rule of law stands at −2.20, political stability at −1.74, control of corruption at −1.59 and government effectiveness at −1.47. Life expectancy is 72.67 years, health spending 185.99 dollars per person per year, basic access to water reaches 93.33 per cent of the population, and mean PM2.5 concentration is 19.2 micrograms per cubic metre. Homicides run at 13.81 per 100,000 and road deaths at 13.2 per 100,000. Overall natural risk is 5.9 out of 10 on INFORM, and it is varied: earthquakes at 8.1 are among the highest figures in this set, coastal risks 6.7, floods 5.7, cyclones 5.6, tsunami 5.4, while droughts sit at just 1.9. The immigration system is split between two authorities: the visa is issued by a consulate abroad, while status inside the country is administered by SAIME. Statuses divide into transients, carrying letter codes by ground of stay — work, private income, family, study, religion — and residents. The work category is arranged so that the work authorisation is issued by the labour ministry rather than the migration service. The private-income category names an income threshold: the equivalent of 1,200 US dollars a month. The family category is unusually broad: the status covers a spouse, minor children, parents and parents-in-law. What this data does not contain, and why: neither SAIME nor the foreign ministry publishes statutory processing times or fees — the ministry's visa page refers applicants to the specific consulate for the fee. The qualifying period for permanent status is set by the Aliens and Migration Act, whose text is on no accessible official platform, so the number of years is left empty even though permanent status itself exists. The population of Caracas is not given: the official statistics institute does not respond from the checking machine, and the capital district cannot be mixed with an agglomeration spanning two federal subjects.
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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.