Residency in Argentina, September 2011 update

More and more people visit Argentina every year and more of them stay for longer periods of time as well, either on sabbatical, for work or, as in my case, because they ended up with an Argentinean partner.

Since bureaucracy in Argentina can work in mysterious ways, especially if your Spanish is not yet perfect, it seems a good idea to post the current (september 2011) procedure here in Buenos Aires.

This may be of help if you want to stay in Argentina for a longer period of time without renewing your 90-day Tourist Visa every time by crossing the border with Uruguay.

Of course not everybody can apply for permanent or temporary residency, but there are quite a few categories that qualify. These range from spouses and relatives of Argentines to work visa and from students to persons who can show enough foreign income to qualify as “pensionado”. Requirements for each category can be found here for permanent residency and here for temporary residence.

I qualified for permanent residency because of my marriage to an Argentine spouse, so details and needed documents may be different depending on your situation, but the basics are the same for most residency appointments (tramites) at Migraciones in Buenos Aires.

Most important change of late is that since the 29th of August of this year, they no longer give out numbers for an appointment on the spot. The only way to get one is online at this website: http://www.migraciones.gov.ar/accesible/?residencias and then click on the "continuar para obtenar su turno online" button on top of the page.

You can then choose from three dates and a timeframe on those dates (8-10, 10-12, etc). Waiting time normally is around a week. To make the appointment online you need to enter the name of the neighborhood where you live in Buenos Aires.

More importantly you need to enter the Tramite number on your Argentina criminal record (or more accurately: the lack thereof) that you get at the Registro Nacional de Reincidencia. The number is at the top right corner below the barcode and starts with the letter P followed by 7 numbers.

So make sure you get this first (all info here: http://www.dnrec.jus.gov.ar/AtPartic_Personalmente.aspx ) before you attempt to get your turn online.

When you actually go to the appointment at Migraciones at Avenida Antartida Argentina 1355 you enter almost the first door coming from the direction of Retiro train station. This is called "building number 4" and it has some big signs outside and a stream of people entering, so you should have no trouble finding it. Inside it's one big open space with attendance windows with immigrations staff on both sides and seats in the middle. The windows are divided in different sections, clearly labeled above each section.

One thing not mentioned on the website or anywhere else that I could find, is that your Internet turno does not mean you can sit down in the Tramites Non-Mercosur section for example and wait for them to call you. You first have to attend another section. As you enter building number 4, immediately to your left you will see a section of windows labeled "Biometria/Biometrics". This is the only section that has a long line in front of it, often extending to the back of the building, and this is the one you first have to enter.

After about 45 minutes you’re at the front of the line and go up to the window. Here you show your proof of appointment as printed from the Migraciones website, your passport, hand over one of your 4x4 cm photos (see required paperwork below) and have your fingerprints taken electronically. This takes about 5 minutes and from this window you receive a piece of paper that has your photo glued on and the actual number of your turn as shown on the electronic boards above the other sections of windows inside building number 4. Only then are Mercosur (most countries in the cone of South-America are part of this economic union, comparable to the EU or NAFTA) and Non-Mercosur nationals separated and attended to in different sections.

I was early for my official appointment but in the end nobody looked at that paper (you leave it at the Biometrics window) and the number you receive at Biometrics is the only one that counts. Going earlier therefore seems a smart idea, specially given the line at Biometrics.

With the paper received at the Biometrics windows you move about 5 meters to the section of windows directly to the right after the entrance of building number 4 labeled "Tramites Non Mercosur". It has an electronic sign and your turn should come up within a few minutes.

When called up to the window, it's time to show all your paperwork.

The paperwork needed for temporary residence (study, work, rentista, pensionado, priests, etc) can be found here by clicking on your category: http://www.migraciones.gov.ar/accesible/?nomercosur_temporaria

All the papers you need for permanent residency for non-Mercosur nationals (as in my case) are listed here: http://www.migraciones.gov.ar/accesible/?nomercosur_permanente

In short they are:

1. Passport with valid visa stamp (may be a tourist visa)
2. Birth certificate from country of birth with apostille, both translated in Spanish by official translator and legalized by the Colegio de Traductores
3. Proof of lack of criminal record from your home country with apostille, again both translated as under .2 if not in Spanish. In the USA this is given out by the FBI, but in the Netherlands by the Department of Justice for example, so make sure to check the procedures for your country of origin
4. Proof of lack of criminal record in Argentina as given out by the Registro National de Reincidencia (the one you need to actually make the appointment at Migraciones as mentioned above)
5. Certificado de Domicilio, obtainable for 10 pesos at your local neighbourhood police station by showing your passport and leaving the address you currently stay at. This may even be a hotel. A cop will bring it by your place within 2 or 3 days normally
6. Photocopy of all pages in your passport even the blank ones
7. 2 photos 4x4 cm from the front with a white background showing your face and upper part of your chest and shoulders

Plus the specific documents depending on why you can claim residency. In my case:

8. Marriage certificate
9. DNI of my wife
10. Photocopy of the main pages of wife's DNI
11. Photocopy of marriage certificate

Bring 2 copies of everything with you, just to be sure, as it says in a couple of places that if you don't have all your copies, you will forfeit your turn. In actual fact they hardly look at most of it.

One thing I already heard earlier, which I can confirm from my own experience, is that they do not want to see your birth certificate anymore. This can save you some money on obtaining and translating, though is of course at your own risk, as it is still listed at the website as obligatory.

You also need to write down the names of your parents on a piece of paper and a telephone number where you can be reached.

From the criminal records and certificado de domicilio they keep the originals, so you do not need photocopies. Passport, DNI and original marriage certificate are returned directly and they keep the photocopies, which is why you only need those. In the end you do not need any more photos either as the one you gave at Biometrics is scanned later, so one photo seems to be enough nowadays.

After handing over the papers and waiting for some 5 minutes, you receive two invoices. One for 600 pesos (300 pesos for Mercosur nationals) for your immigration and one for 40 pesos for your DNI.

With these two invoices you walk to the left far corner of building number 4, where there are 4 cashiers windows. You pay the immigration invoice at cashier "1" or "2" whereas the DNI invoice needs to be paid at cashier window "4". This whole part takes no more than 10 minutes and after that you return with the stamped invoices to the person who helped you at the Tramites Non-Mercosur where you should be attended almost directly.

You get to check if all your registered details are correct and sign for them. After that they print your Temporary Residence paper (Certificado De Residencia Precaria) valid for 3 months which already allows you to work, study, travel outside the country etc., as long as you show it together with your foreign passport.

They also hand you the invoice for the DNI that has a barcode at the top which you have to hand over to the mailman to take delivery of your DNI which is sent automatically to your home address in around 30 days.

All in all you are normally in and out of there in about 1,5 hours with most time spent in line for the Biometrics window. Everybody is very friendly and helpful and if you follow the steps lined out on their website or in this posting, things could not be more simple, even if you speak very limited Spanish.

Unless you are in special circumstances regarding your immigration status, there seems absolutely no need to spend a lot of money on handlers or immigration experts. The process seems smooth and Argentine bureaucracy really seems to have been coming a long way compared to my first visits here some 15 years ago.

The only remaining advantage I noticed was some foreigners with local handlers jumping the queue at the Biometrics window, which saved them maybe 30 minutes, but on all other windows they had to wait their turn just the same, so you might well be tempted to spend your hard earned money on enjoying BA nightlife instead.

Hope this helps some people, feel free to update or correct as things inevitably change over time and enjoy your extended stay in this sometimes weird but, for me at least, above all wonderful country.

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Wednesday Nights: Club Museum is back!

After being closed for more than a year, we are happy to report that the famous Wednesday After Work nights are back at the former Club Museum. A beautiful building in Microcentro/San Telmo, Museum was originally designed by French engineer Gustave Eiffel, better known for designing a landmark in Paris bearing his name.

Wednesday is the official beginning of the nightlife in Buenos Aires and about the only night that people go out a bit earlier in the evening with After Work parties going on from about 9 pm to 1 am. Dresscode is a bit more formal as well with most guys wearing business shirts and, depending on the season, their jackets as well.

Museum was always the Wednesday hotspot but after its closure, their After Work was moved to a club and restaurant named Godoy, housed in an old railway depot. The new location never quite caught on however and multiple venues tried to become the new Wednesday "It" place, with Terrazas del Este on the Rio de la Plata riverfront near Punto Carrasco, probably being the most succesfull.

We will have to see if Boutique, as the former Museum location is now officially called, manages to win back it's former glory, but at least we are happy that they are trying and will make sure we give them a fair chance to win our Wednesday hearts back.

Boutique After Office (formerly Museum) is located at Peru 535. Entrance is free till 21:30 and you can register for the guest list by sending an email to Ronnie Ariel at arielrrpp (at) gmail.com

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Netflix arrives in Argentina

As of today movie streaming service Netflix is available in Argentina and Uruguay. Brasil started of the South American expansion earlier this week and the rest of Latin America will follow in the coming days. Price in Argentina is 39 pesos a month for unlimited streaming and you can sign up for a free trial month at www.netflix.com.ar or just at www.netflix.com.

First impressions today are somewhat mixed. Instant streaming on my Macbook over wi-fi functions almost flawless even with the lower average bandwidth on Argentine internet connections compared to the USA and Europe. It's a lot faster for example than the likes of (the probably not so legal, but locally very popular) Cuevana streaming service.

The available selection of movies and tv shows seems a lot smaller than the USA version for now and most annoying for me, quite a lot of series are not yet available in all languages and subtitles. This ranges from American TV series only available in a dubbed Spanish version and not the original English to movies that only come with Brazilian subtitles and no Spanish versions which does not seem very customer friendly to the local market.

For the moment does not yet work on Ipad!

Hopefully the selection of movies and available languages will widen in the coming weeks, but for now it still seems a very nice addition to our regular cable tv channels here in Buenos Aires. It also works great on the iPad and iPhone, making for a very relaxing movie experience on the couch or in bed. The official Netflix app is not yet available in the local app store, but the free Cinetap app takes care of that for the moment.

The Cinetap app only shows the US Netflix content for now, so you would need a VPN for it to work. With some trying I got the official Netflix app from the US iTunes Store to work on my iPad, but it would be very handy if Netflix urgently released the official app in the local App stores across Latin America as well. Nintendo Wii and PS3 console owners can use the service as well on their TV apparently, though I have not been able to test that yet.

All in all, it's a thumbs up, though with some reservations for now regarding content on offer and the language/subtitle issue. Give it a try for a month and see what you think.

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Hollywood in BA

National newspaper Clarin reports today that Buenos Aires is now the 4th most popular movie location in the world after Prague, Paris and New York. In the first 6 months more than 300 film permits were given out by the city authorities. Apart from the obvious drama and documentary features, by far the most permits were given out for commercials as Buenos Aires has a very good reputation for creative art directors. Lower costs in Buenos Aires also factor in though it is no longer as cheap to hire qualified technicians as it once was.

Set in Tibet, shot near Mendoza in the Andes around Uspallata

Most people know that 7 years in Tibet was shot in Argentina and that Francis Ford Coppola has a production office here and even his own boutique hotel in Buenos Aires that he rents out to visitors. However with it's many different neighborhoods and architecture from all era's, Buenos Aires can pass for almost any city in the world and the landscapes of Argentina for almost any country.

This even starts to influence local filmmakers now and the northern province of Tucuman has just presented itself as a prime candidate for shooting new westerns by financing the gaucho adventure "Aballay, The Man Without Fear", using local scenery that can put Arizona to shame on any day.

Argentina wasn't always a film maker's dream though, as can be seen on the DVD version of the terrible Highlander II: The Quickening which was entirely shot in Argentina. It includes a great 50 minute documentary called Seduced by Argentina, that is the official making-of documentary.

Probably not the best movie ever, but also shot in Argentina

 According to the review on DVDTalk.com: "Whatever could go wrong went wrong during the shoot, leaving the producers vulnerable to all types of trouble, corruption, and fatigue in South America. It's an amazing story to hear, told with a great degree of honesty, passion, and behind the scenes footage. It's hard to stay mad at "Highlander 2" after watching this."

Fortunately things have changed and Argentina only looks to become more popular as a production location in the coming years.

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Fangio 100 years

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Juan Manuel Fangio's birth. The legendary racer won 5 Formula One world championships, a feat only surpassed by Michael Schumacher. This is even more impressive when you take into account that due to the Second World War halting racing for many years he only started in his first F1 race at the age of 37.

An age at which Schumacher already had won his 7 championships and retired for the first time. Before his years in F1, Fangio also won the Argentine Touring Car championship two years in a row in the time that this still involved racing from city to city on open roads, sometimes without pavement, so he was truly versatile.

Since 1986, the most impressive monument to Fangio is the beautiful museum in his birthplace Balcarce, about three hours south of the capital. It's a very worthwhile day trip if you have the time but the city of Buenos Aires itself has a few sights connected to the champion as well.

First there is the headquarters of the ACA, the Argentine Automobile Club, at Libertador 1850. Directly as you enter the main hallway you will see the blue and yellow Ferrari 166 that the ACA helped sponsor to give Fangio his first opportunity to race in Europe. Somewhat hidden away on the third floor (but freely accessible, just head for the elevator) is the small ACA Museum, that has some more cars and memorabilia related to Fangio and other famous Argentine racers, such as Carlos Reutemann.

After this visit you might find it time for some refreshments and if you follow Avenida Libertador back towards the Microcentro and stop at the intersection with Recoleta cemetery, you will find the La Biela cafe on the opposite corner at Quitana 600. A legendary place and one of the "bares notables" of the city, this is where Fangio and his racing friends spend many hours. So many hours apparently that the owners of this 1850's bar, even changed the original name to La Biela in 1942. Not surprising if you understand that La Biela is the Spanish word for an engine rod, a vital part in all cars, but especially in race engines with their high rpm's.

Finally Buenos Aires offers you the possibility to cross one more of the Fangio statues of your been- there-done-that list. Spanish sculptor Sabate made a famous statue of  Juan Manuel Fangio standing next to his Mercedes F1 car and in the end it became so popular that six versions of it were made and ended up in different locations around the world. At the F1 racetracks of Catalunya, Monza, The Nurburgring and Monaco, in front of the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart, Germany and the latest one in front of the Mercedes-Benz Argentina HQ at Azucena Villaflor 435 in Puerto Madero.

Fangio statue in Puerto Madero

Even though he raced in an era when up to 20% of the F1 racers in a season died or seriously injured themselves, Fangio lived to be 84 years old and for many years ran the Mercedes-Benz importer in Argentina. He also kept driving till the end of his life and when a law was introduced that people over 80 (which Fangio was by then) could no longer hold a license, he threatened to race from Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata in under two hours, a 400 kilometer distance! In the end an exception was made for the champion and he got to keep his driving license.

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Only in Argentina: the new football season

Though I love Argentina with all my heart, it's renowned for it's many rules and huge bureaucracy which make sure that every document you need requires at least 3 visits to different locations that then try to make sure they never open on the same days of the week. It's also renowned for there almost always being a more practical unofficial way of getting the same thing done, resulting in almost everybody knowing somebody who will arrange what you need.

Permits, taxes, concert tickets or money changing, there's a "grey" way of doing or getting almost anything. The more and higher placed people you know, the bigger the things you can arrange. Today however something happened that even for Argentina is quite unique in it's audacity.

At the end of last football season, legendary local footballclub River Plate was relegated to the second division after performing terribly for quite some years already. As a protection against the big teams relegating, the results of the last 3 years (6 seasons) are measured in Argentina, so you really have to have quite a bad streak to relegate.

Riots during the River vs. Belgrano relegation match

Everybody was already preparing for the first year without a Boca vs. River Plate Superclasico between the two most popular teams, when the Argentine Football Association (AFA) announced today that as of immediately they have decided to merge the first and second division in to one big division with 38 teams. And so River Plate is no longer relegated! Teams will play in two divisions of 19 with the best 5 from each division then competing in play-offs for the championship.

The spokesman of the AFA even honestly announced that the only reason that they did this was because of "this whole mess with River". Turns out that they got a call from their television partner that they only pay this much for the rights because of the big clubs, so River needed to be reinstated.

Funny thing is that the television rights partner is the official government owned Canal 7. The Kirchner presidency bought the television rights as a political stunt under the name of "Futbol Para Todos" or "football for everyone", so everybody could watch all matches for free. Christina Kirchner earlier also personally decided that River fans could attend the last match of the season even though they were supposed to be banned after earlier riots, resulting in huge damage to the "Monumental" stadium

Canal 7, the state owned football rights holder

Seems that now they also try to placate the millions of River fans by interfering directly with the AFA. Did I mention it's an election year?

The press are up in arms and early opinion polls see huge majorities against this plan as well, so we will have to wait and see how it all turns out, but if the government really can get away with this one, it shows yet again what a long way we still have to come in this beautiful country to get rid of corruption. Here's hoping.

Update August 2nd 2012: Good news! It's only a few days later and after huge protests in the media and on social networks and a demonstration in front of the AFA headquarters today, it was announced that the plans have been cancelled and the current league system will stay in place after all.  

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Winter in BA: Ice Skating

With lots of water and fairly cold winters (at least before global warming), every Dutch kid learns to skate from an early age and especially in speed skating we liked to think of ourselves as the true and only world experts (at least before Eric Heiden). Winter in BA, where the newschannels start to panic when what they call "arctic winds" make temperatures drop below 10 degrees Centigrade, therefore is always a bit of an anti climax for me.

Luckily this year the city government has decided to follow the example of many large cities around the world and install an open air ice rink for the the winter month of August. Opening this Wednesday the 27th of July and until the 25th of August, every day from noon, you will be able to show your best triple axel to the locals. Entrance is free and temporarily handing over your DNI (Argentine ID) or passport (if you happen upon a friendly official) should even supply you with free rental skates for an hour.

The ice rink is located at Plaza Uruguay in Recoleta at the corners of Tagle and Figueroa Alcorta. This is in front of the Buenos Aires branch of Tiffany's and the Canal 7 television studios, so that Rockefeller Plaza feeling is thrown in for free. Only the tree will be missing.

Should you miss the ice in other months of the year, Buenos Aires actually has a few permanent ice rinks as well, mostly left over from the eighties, when there was a short boom for a few years and there were almost 30. Now it's down to about 5 with My Way (Palermo), Ice Planet (Flores) and Winter (Caballito) the most conveniently located ones.

And if you should really get homesick for Canada or one of the Scandinavian countries, Buenos Aires even has it's own ice hockey league. Finally your well deserved chance to become the Argentinean Wayne Gretzky.

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Dia del Amigo

If your spouse arrives at home on a weeknight at 2 AM "slightly" drunk and very happy, you might wonder what's going on. However, if she's Argentinean, she might very well be returning from yesterday's famous Dia del Amigo.

July 20th is the day that Argentina and some of its surrounding countries celebrate the Day of Friendship. The day on which you get together with your best friends. Those friends that you have known for many years, since highschool or from your first football team and will always be there for you, no matter what. Whatever the political, economical or atmospherical climate, the Portenos, as inhabitants of Buenos Aires are known, never need much incentive to go out and have a good tine, but Dia del Amigo is one of those days that every restaurant, bar and cafe in the city is especially crowded with people hanging out with their longtime friends and often making some new ones in the process.

The Dia del Amigo was created by Argentine musician and odontologist Enrique Febrraro after the successful lunar landing by Neil Amstrong, Edwin Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on that same date in 1969. For him this new era of technology should also usher in a new age of making friends all over the planet.

Though in the end it became more popular as a day to celebrate existing friendships instead of forming new ones, in these days where people have hundreds of digital Facebook "friends", it's a very nice idea that we still have this analogue way to get in touch with our oldest and bestest friends. So next 20th of July don't forget to invite your best friend to a night of unbridled drinking to celebrate. The headache the next day at work is more than worth it. After all: that's what friends are for!

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BA fashion on the cheap

In these times of a lower US dollar and with local inflation in Argentina still at around 20%, more and more tourists discover that Buenos Aires is no longer the affordable shopping paradise that it once was. Of course all the big brands are still there but normally at higher prices than in the States and even locally or Mercosur produced clothing is getting ever more expensive in downtown Buenos Aires.

Luckily Argentina still allows you to cut out the middle man on most goods. For produce you can get head to the Mercado Central just outside of town where all the groceries buy their products and for brand clothing there is of course the outlet district that I wrote about in an earlier post

Av. Avellaneda wholesale clothing district

However there is also a place in the city where all local boutiques and even street vendors go to buy their merchandise and that's Avenida Avellaneda. Between the blocks of about 3000 and 3500 and it's direct side streets in the neighborhood of Floresta. Literally 100's of shops stuffed full of clothes from bottom to ceiling line these streets, all competing for the wholesalers attention. Clothes here sell from 30 to 60% of their final sale prices in downtown Microcentro and the bazaar like neighbourhood of Once and there is something for every taste from jeans to evening wear.

upscale boutiques buy inventory here as well

Of course there are some catches to all this shopping goodness. First of all: get there early! As these stores cater to other vendors who have to be in their shops during regular business hours, most open around 7 am and even at 9am you can sometimes find long lines in front of the most popular ones.

Waiting in line for the best deals or newest styles

The second catch is that it's officially a wholesale location and quite some stores have signs in the windows that they will only sell to end consumers (as in you) on Saturdays. End consumers are referred to as "minorista" and business customers who buy for their own stores as "mayorista". On the other hand, buying 3 items in one store (not necessarily of the same model, color or size) normally makes you a mayorista in these stores, so you might as well avoid the Saturday crowds and get three new jeans for the price of one pair downtown on any weekday. Enjoy your shopping!

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