Move to Uruguay
What the relocation process looks like, what you'll need, and how to start.
Overview
Uruguay is a small South American country of roughly 3.4 million people, bordered by Argentina and Brazil. Spanish is the working language of every official procedure.
Relocating here is mostly a documents exercise: civil records from your home country, authenticated, translated, and presented to the Uruguayan authorities in the right order.
Your free roadmap organises that work into twelve steps, in the order most people actually need to do them.
- Twelve-step roadmap adapted to your household, work and housing plans
- Document tracker with apostille and translation flags
- Every legal point linked to an official source, or clearly marked as unverified
- Optional professional help only where it is genuinely relevant
What your free roadmap covers
12 steps
1. Check how you get into Uruguay
First find out if you can simply buy a plane ticket, or if you need a visa stamped before you fly.
2. Collect your papers at home
Gather your birth, marriage and police papers, add an apostille stamp, and get them translated into Spanish.
3. Health card and vaccines
In Uruguay everyone does a simple health check and gets a plastic health card called carné de salud.
4. Open your gub.uy account and book the appointment
Create an account on the government website, fill in the residency form online, upload scans and pay the fee.
5. Hand in your application in person
Every adult goes to the migration office on the chosen day with the passport they entered the country with.
6. Get your first cédula (Uruguayan ID card)
The cédula is the plastic ID card everyone in Uruguay uses. Your first one is valid for 2 years.
7. Send in the missing papers
If some papers were not ready on appointment day, you add them now, one by one.
8. Receive the residency decision
When your file is complete, the office decides and emails you. If it is a yes, you pay for your status certificate.
9. Swap your cédula — welcome home!
With the approval certificate you exchange your card for one that shows you are a permanent resident.
NewHome.today is not a law firm. This is general guidance, not legal advice. Always confirm requirements with the official source before acting.