Argentina Will Sell You a Passport for About $350,000, Here’s What It Actually Gets a Traveller

Argentina announced on 2 October 2026 that it will sell citizenship for a non-refundable contribution of about €311,000 (roughly US$350,000), and the passport it comes with is accepted visa-free in more than 140 countries. For a traveller, the useful question is what that buys at a border, and for most people the honest answer is less than the price suggests.

What exactly did Argentina announce?

Economy Minister Luis Caputo unveiled a citizenship-by-investment programme at an investor event in Paris, and it is billed as the first of its kind in South America. There are two routes: a one-off non-refundable contribution of €311,000, or €711,000 put into a new government bond that must be held for seven years. Costs rise with family size, and a family of four is expected to pay about €444,000.

The motive is money. President Javier Milei’s government faces nearly US$25 billion in foreign-currency debt payments in 2027, and a consortium of investment firms estimated the scheme could raise up to US$2.5 billion. Applications are expected to open before the end of 2026.

Is the passport actually worth that at a border?

For most buyers, it is not a travel purchase. The Argentine passport opens more than 140 countries without a visa in advance, including China, Russia, the Schengen area and most of Latin America. A buyer who already holds a US, UK, Australian or EU passport gains almost nothing on the road, because those passports already travel freely almost everywhere.

The people it helps are holders of restricted passports, plus wealthy buyers who want a second nationality as insurance. Caputo says intelligence and financial oversight agencies will check applicants’ identities, criminal records and sources of funds. Golden passports have drawn legal trouble elsewhere: the EU’s top court ruled Malta’s scheme unlawful in April 2025.

What does a passport change when you travel to Nepal?

Very little, because Nepal sells tourist visas on arrival to most nationalities rather than rationing them by passport strength. The fees are US$30 for 15 days, US$50 for 30 days and US$125 for 90 days, paid at Kathmandu airport or the main land borders. A trekker on a 12-day Everest Base Camp trip needs the 15-day visa, which is US$30. Check our Nepal visa guide for the documents and the extension process before you fly.

The arithmetic is blunt: US$350,000 would pay for 2,800 of Nepal’s 90-day visas. The permits are the other cost a trekker should plan for, and they are separate from any visa, so see our Nepal trekking permits pages for the current fees.

What should you do now, and what is still unknown?

If you are a traveller rather than an investor, do nothing, because no application is open and nothing changes at any border today. The reports we checked did not set out residency requirements, processing times or whether buyers must keep their current nationality, and those details will decide who this suits. Treat any agent selling a place in the queue before the rules are published with suspicion.

We will update this page when the Argentine government publishes the application rules and the vetting process.

Cover photo: Alex Steffler via Openverse/wikimedia (BY 2.0). Section photos: Kenneth Surillo via Pexels (Pexels licence); Valentina Rodriguez via Pexels (Pexels licence); dongfang xiaowu via Pexels (Pexels licence); Harm Jakob Tolsma via Pexels (Pexels licence); Sandra Mosconi via Unsplash (Unsplash licence).