Dominican Republic

Visa speed

The department publishes a term for every one of its forty-six services — a minority practice among migration authorities, and the reason almost every ground here has a term at all. Ninety days: ordinary temporary residence, employment residence, religious worker residence, dependent residence, permanent residence, the student permit, the business permit and the temporary worker permit. Forty-five working days: the investor, pensioner and rentier residences and the residence for managerial staff. Thirty working days: definitive residence RD-1. Seven working days: PADEI and the short-term permit. **The word beside the number matters more than the number.** The employment residence RT-3 and the temporary worker permit count their ninety days as CALENDAR days, while the ordinary, religious, dependent, permanent and student grounds — indistinguishable in structure — count them as WORKING days. Ninety working days is roughly a third longer. On the investor residence the term is printed self-contradictorily: “Noventa (45) días laborables”, ninety in words and 45 in figures; it is therefore not carried into the numeric field at all. Renewal is faster than issue everywhere, and on the investment grounds faster by a wide margin: ten working days, with the card handed over ON THE DAY OF THE APPOINTMENT. Renewal of temporary and permanent residence takes thirty working days, renewal of the student permit and of PADEI seven. There is one exception: renewing the temporary worker permit takes the same ninety working days as the first issue. The department allows a renewal to be filed no earlier than forty-five days before the card expires, and names the same period as mandatory on the pages of individual grounds. The exception is the religious worker residence, where it says thirty days. Separately the department answers when it is worth asking about a first application at all: the status of a temporary residence case may be checked STARTING FROM THREE MONTHS after filing. And a deadline running the other way, equally firm: an application begun on the digital platform and left without action for ninety calendar days lapses automatically, after which the case must be started again. Other services for comparison: a migration history certificate — seventy-two working HOURS; certificates for citizenship, study, court and customs purposes — fifteen working days; a duplicate of a lost card and a re-entry permit — five; an extension of a tourist's stay — three; the e-ticket — five minutes.

Visa types: Residencia Temporal Ordinaria (RT-9) — the basic temporary residence, up to 1 year with annual renewal; the general route to permanent status runs through it (Ley 285-04, art. 31, 33, 35, 61; Reglamento 631-11, art. 43, 50–51) · Residencia Temporal Laboral (RT-3) — employment residence for hire by a Dominican or foreign company, up to 1 year with renewal; the document package requires an employment contract registered with the Ministry of Labour (Ley 285-04, art. 35 para. 2; Reglamento 631-11, art. 48) · Residencia por Inversión — Inversionista — permanent residence is granted immediately, bypassing the temporary step, for an investment of at least US$200,000 (Reglamento 631-11, art. 54–58) · Residencia por Inversión — Pensionado o Jubilado — permanent residence immediately for recipients of a foreign pension of at least US$1,500 a month (Ley 171-07 “sobre Incentivos Especiales a los Pensionados y Rentistas de Fuente Extranjera”; Reglamento 631-11, art. 59–66) · Residencia por Inversión — Rentista — permanent residence immediately for recipients of a stable foreign income of at least US$2,000 a month (salary income does not count; +US$250/month for each accompanying relative) (Ley 171-07; Reglamento 631-11, art. 59–66) · Residencia Permanente — Pariente — for the spouse and minor/unmarried children of a Dominican Republic citizen or a foreign permanent resident; the status is permanent from the outset (Ley 285-04, art. 33 para. 4; Reglamento 631-11, art. 56)

Collected on 24.08.2026 from the service catalogue of the Directorate General of Migration (`migracion.gob.do`): 46 cards, each with a description, the circle of applicants, a list of documents, a cost and a TERM. The department names a term for every service without exception — a minority of migration authorities do. **There are two steps, and the first is not taken here.** A DGM permit is issued to someone who has already entered on a visa obtained at a Dominican consulate, and the type of visa differs for every ground: the residence visa (RS) for ordinary temporary residence and for the investor, pensioner and rentier ones; the multiple business visa for work purposes (NM1) for the employment residence RT-3 and for managerial staff; plain NM for the religious worker, the business permit and PADEI; DPM for the RT-7 dependant; VTT for the temporary worker; E for the student. The only one that can be requested inside the country, at the foreign ministry rather than a consulate, is VTT. Renewing a visa inside the country is impossible altogether: only at a consulate. **The law and the service catalogue say different things about residence by investment.** Under regulation 631-11 (art. 54) residence by investment is “a legal privilege exempting its beneficiary from obtaining temporary residence first”, that is, permanent status is granted straight away. The service catalogue of the same department gives an investor, a pensioner and a rentier a card for ONE year and sets up a separate annual renewal service for each. Both records are official, and they differ not in a detail but in the nature of the status. What is recorded here is what the service catalogue prints — because that is what people apply through. **A pensioner resident and a rentier resident may not work** without separate permission from DGM and the Ministry of Labour (law 285-04, art. 98). The ground itself rests on law 171-07 on special incentives for pensioners and rentiers of foreign source, under which income in the form of a SALARY does not count in any case. **Solvency: the service page and the frequently asked questions contradict each other.** The page for ordinary temporary residence requires the applicant's OWN bank certificate, while the FAQ section, asked directly whether a foreigner may prove solvency himself for a residence application, answers NO: a guarantor is needed — a Dominican, or a foreigner, and a foreigner only with PERMANENT residence. The discrepancy stands between two sections of one site. **The solvency threshold is printed in words, and is therefore not carried into a number.** Ordinary temporary residence requires “a bank certificate for a minimum of 300 thousand pesos” — the magnitude written as a word. For permanent residence and for the business permit the sums are printed in figures (150,000 and 200,000 pesos) and are recorded. **Over and above the case fee one pays for the stay itself, by a ladder.** The “pago de estadía” table is the same for all categories: 30–90 days — 3,500 pesos; 3–9 months — 5,600; 9–12 months — 7,000; 12–18 — 9,100; 18–24 — 11,200; 24–30 — 13,300; 30–36 — 15,400; 36–48 — 22,400; 48–60 — 28,000; six years — 42,000; seven — 56,000; eight — 70,000; nine — 84,000; ten years — 98,000 pesos. It is paid on LEAVING the country; paid in advance at DGM, it gives thirty days to leave. **A lost card grows dearer in steps and costs more than some permits.** For a temporary resident the first duplicate is 7,500 pesos, the second 15,000, the third 22,500, the fourth 30,000, the fifth 37,500. For a permanent and a definitive resident the ladder starts at 15,000 and reaches 45,000. For students and special permits it runs from 5,000 to 15,000. A fifth duplicate of a permanent resident's card costs more than filing any application in the country. **An application left untouched for ninety calendar days lapses by itself.** The rule is written identically on every service page and covers all categories and all online services; after the lapse the case is started again. Documents filed for temporary residence are valid for a year — except the birth certificate, which does not expire. **Permanent residence is described self-contradictorily within a single page.** The description says the right to it comes from ONE year of annual renewal of the ordinary temporary residence RT-9; the list of documents requires the first card PLUS FOUR renewals, that is five years. The categories are unreconciled there too: the description names only RT-9, while the requirement is written about “a temporary residence card” in general. **The age boundaries for the medical examination contradict themselves within one list.** On the employment residence: “medical tests for adults (over 10 years) — 6,300 pesos, medical tests for children (under 13 years) — 4,200”. A twelve-year-old is, by that list, both an adult and a child. On neighbouring grounds the boundary is drawn consistently at 13. **The requirements for a temporary worker were tightened by a resolution of March 2026, and the service page does not know it.** Resolution DGM-001-2026 of 16 March 2026 requires, for renewing a TT-1, a passport valid for at least eighteen months; the service page still says six. The same resolution introduces a certificate of the worker's registration with the social security treasury, an employer's letter guaranteeing maintenance and payment of repatriation, and a NEW employment contract, and forbids accepting sworn income declarations in place of the Ministry of Labour's resolution. The numbering of the articles in the resolution itself runs first to seventh and then straight to eleventh: three articles are missing from the published text. **The “Legal framework” section of the department's site does not contain the migration law.** The “Laws” folder holds seventeen, “Regulations and resolutions” thirteen, “Decrees” eighteen. Neither migration law 285-04, nor regulation 631-11 implementing it, nor law 171-07 is among them: what is posted is the archives law, the civil service law, the procurement law, the budget and treasury laws. The same case as the Solomon Islands, and now the second. **Dependants are provided for on some grounds only.** The separate residence RT-7 serves the dependants of the employment residence RT-3 and the religious worker residence RT-4 ONLY. For ordinary temporary residence RT-9, for the business permit, for the student permit and for the short-term permit the service catalogue has no separate family route. **What is not listed as a ground.** Four re-entry permits (while a case is being examined, during naturalisation, on expiry of permanent residence and on expiry of residence abroad) — 9,800 pesos each, for three or six months: that is a right to return, not to live. An extension of a tourist's stay — from thirty days to a hundred and twenty. A change of residence category (15,000 pesos, ninety working days) — a procedure, not a ground. The e-ticket for entry and exit (free, five minutes), the calculation and payment of the stay fee, a duplicate of a lost card, five kinds of certificate and three kinds of naturalisation are not grounds for living.

Permanent residence after

5 years

Citizenship after

2 years

Dual citizenship

allowed

Dual citizenship: The 2024 Constitution, art. 20 “Doble nacionalidad”: “Se reconoce a dominicanas y dominicanos la facultad de adquirir una nacionalidad extranjera. La adquisición de otra nacionalidad no implica la pérdida de la dominicana” — acquiring another citizenship does not entail losing Dominican citizenship. The naturalisation law No. 1683 (1948) contains no requirement to renounce one's original citizenship when a foreigner naturalises as Dominican.

Absence limits: A resident whose residence (temporary or permanent) is still being processed may not leave the country for more than 6 consecutive months without a valid reason — otherwise, on return, the full set of documents must be resubmitted (Reglamento 631-11, art. 85, paragraph). A resident who already holds their status and needs to be absent longer than the validity of their ID card must obtain a “Permiso de Reentrada” from the DGM in advance — a re-entry permit valid for up to 6 months (Ley 285-04, art. 79; Reglamento 631-11, art. 86).

5 years is the figure for the ordinary route: an application to change from temporary residence (RT-9) to permanent can be filed no earlier than five years of continuous temporary residence (Reglamento 631-11, art. 51, §III: “La solicitud de cambio a la categoría de Residente Permanente puede ser hecha a partir de los cinco (5) años de poseer Residencia Temporal”; the DGM director may shorten this period as an exception for sought-after specialists, art. 51 §II). Investors, pensioners, rentiers and “Parientes” (the spouse/children of a citizen or permanent resident) receive permanent residence immediately, without this five-year step (Reglamento 631-11, art. 54, 59; Ley 285-04, art. 33 para. 4) — for them only 2 years remain before citizenship. 2 years is the period of holding permanent residence before becoming eligible to apply for naturalisation (Reglamento 631-11, art. 52: “dos (2) años de permanencia continua posterior a la obtención de la Residencia Permanente”, the procedure follows Ley sobre Naturalización No. 1683 of 16 April 1948, G.O. 6782). No language or history exam is mentioned in the text of Ley 1683 or Reglamento 631-11. Separately: after 10 years of lawful residence as a permanent resident, a “Residencia Definitiva” (RD-1) is issued for 10 years with the right of renewal (Ley 285-04, art. 46) — this is not citizenship but the highest tier of residence.

Document certification

apostille

The country is party to the 1961 Hague Convention: a degree or certificate is authenticated with a single apostille in the country that issued it.

Limit

no limit

Quarantine

no

Antibody titre test

not needed

Preparation

~1 months

The requirements are set out in the bilateral form "Health Certificate for the Exportation of Dogs and/or Cats from the United States of America to the Dominican Republic". Rabies vaccination is mandatory and must be current within the period of validity stated by the vaccine manufacturer; for a first vaccination it must have been given at least thirty days before departure — hence the value of the preparation-time field. The veterinarian may instead certify that no vaccination was given because the animal is too young under the vaccination schedule for its species: the APHIS page specifies the threshold as twelve weeks, below which the animal need not be vaccinated, and the form carries an attestation for exactly that. The certificate is valid for ten days from the date of issue. Consular endorsement is not required for personal dogs and cats. The form provides for neither antibody titration nor quarantine on arrival, and names no banned breeds. Two things that are easy to confuse with personal import. Commercial import of dogs and cats requires an import permit from the General Directorate of Livestock (Dirección General de Ganadería), which does not apply to personal animals. Import of pet birds, by contrast, always requires an import permit, obtained through the same directorate and the Department of Biodiversity and Wildlife of the Ministry of the Environment. The source is a bilateral veterinary certificate that the U.S. authority (APHIS) publishes as the form the receiving side accepts; the requirements are read from its mandatory fields and attestations. This describes import FROM the United States: the values (vaccination intervals, certificate validity) are set by the receiving side and do not depend on the country of departure, while the procedural part — accreditation of the veterinarian with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and endorsement by APHIS — is replaced by the equivalent of whatever country the animal leaves from. Read on 06.08.2026.

Bread, 500 g

$ 1,57

Milk, 1 l

$ 1,29

Eggs, 12

$ 1,91

Chicken breast, 1 kg

$ 4,50

Cheese, 1 kg

$ 6,99

Rice, 1 kg

$ 1,40

Potatoes, 1 kg

$ 2,22

Apples, 1 kg

$ 3,15

Coca-Cola / Pepsi, 2 l

$ 1,45

Total

$ 24,5

The same set for every country, so the comparison is fair.

Rent, 1 bedroom

$ 474 a month

Rent, 3 bedrooms

$ 982 a month

Utility bills

$ 86,3 a month

Home internet

$ 36,8 a month

Monthly transport pass

$ 29,5 a month

Single transport ticket

$ 0,72

Petrol, litre

$ 1,32

Cold medicine

$ 6,91 for a week

Country averages. City prices, where collected, are shown above and are more precise.

Life expectancy

73,9 years2024

Homicides

9,1 per 100k2024

Road deaths

27,4 per 100k2021

Unemployment

5,1 %2025

Unemployment, ages 15–24

12,3 %2025

Inequality (Gini)

392024

Health spending per person

$ 489 a year

Air pollution, PM2.5

13,5 µg/m³2023

Access to clean water

97,5 %2024

Internet, fixed line

73,5 Mbit/s2026

Internet, mobile

125,4 Mbit/s2026

Governance

Political stability

above average · 0,6

Control of corruption

below average · -0,3

Rule of law

below average · -0,2

Government effectiveness

above average · 0,1

World Bank estimates on a −2.5 to +2.5 scale, higher is better.

Natural hazards

Earthquakes

9,2 out of 10

River floods

2,2 out of 10

Coastal floods

4,8 out of 10

Tropical cyclones

10 out of 10

Droughts

0,4 out of 10

Tsunamis

5,2 out of 10

Each value carries the year it refers to. “Data lags behind” means this country's figure was collected noticeably earlier than the rest. Natural hazards use one 0–10 scale and are meant to be compared against each other.

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