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Last Updated Mar 5, 2018 - by Jackie Lange

The Tale of Two Expats In Panama

An “expat” is the nickname for an expatriate or someone who has moved from their home country to a foreign country. In Panama, we have a lot of expats from many different countries. Some make a smooth transition to living in Panama but unfortunately some do not.

I’d like to tell you the true story of two different expat couples to illustrate how to make the transition to living in Panama easier and how to avoid some pitfalls too.

Expat Couple #1 came on a Panama Relocation Tour. They spent 6-days touring Panama during an all-inclusive tour all while learning:

♦ which reliable and affordable attorney to use to get your Visa in a week
♦ what their Visa options are, which one is the best fit, and why they need a Visa
♦ how to find a rental & what not to do when renting
♦ which questions to ask and what to check out before renting
♦ how to bring their pets in to Panama (and get them out of other countries)
♦ how to save 30%-50% on health insurance
♦ how to get a Panama driver’s license
♦ what to do if you get pulled over by the police in Panama
♦ how to bring precious metals in to Panama
♦ the unique micro climates in Panama
♦ which towns/elevation have their ideal temperature
♦ which towns are the most affordable yet still offer the amenities you need
♦ what NOT TO DO and what to AVOID
♦ and much more!

Because they took a Panama Relocation Tour, they were completely prepared when they moved to Panama. They know what to do, when to do it, and how to relocate to Panama so the whole transition was smooth and easy.

Instead of renting a car then driving around Panama, those who take a Panama Relocation Tour get to sit back and relax in a very comfortable bus while our professional driver takes care of the driving.

Expat Couple #2 did not have such a pleasant experience. They did not go on a Panama Relocation Tour. Before moving to Panama, they did spend a week driving around Panama to decide where they wanted to live and talking to as many expats as they could find. But they had no clue how to get things done once they moved to Panama. They purchased a used car in Panama City when they arrived in Panama the second time. Little did they know that it is better to buy a car close to where you want to live because they will have to go back to Panama City every year to get their annual registration OR pay a lot of money to get their registration moved to the city where they live.

Next, they drove to Boquete where they rented a house after seeing an ad online. They signed a one-year lease by email, paid a $1000 security deposit through paypal, then paid the first month’s rent when they arrived. After a month of living in the house, they realized they made a big mistake. The metal roof is extremely noisy when it rains. To make matters worse, their neighbors have 6 dogs who bark all the time and roosters too. So, after a month, they moved to a different house (losing their $1000 security deposit because they broke their lease).

They paid $2000 to an attorney in David to get their Pensionado (retiree) Visa. But, unlike Expat Couple #1, instead of getting their Visa in a week, it has been 2 months and they still don’t have their temporary Visa let alone their permanent Visa. It is very possible that the attorney just took their money but they will never get a Visa. Yes, that can happen in Panama.

Expat Couple #2 went to one of the most expensive insurance brokers in Panama to get their car insurance and their health insurance. They paid WAY too much for both. This alone cost them an additional $3000! It is so sad. By the way, it is better not to use an insurance broker when buying health insurance in Panama.

After another month in Panama, Expat Couple #2 does not like the second house they rented either. They decided the weather is too cold and windy in that area even though they love the house and the views. They paid $800 for the security deposit and signed a one-year lease. They will lose another $800 if they move out early.

Now, in total frustration, Expat Couple #2 is moving back to the United States after being in Panama just a few months. They lost $1000 on their first rental, they will not get their $800 security deposit back on the second rental, they lost $2000 paying the wrong attorney to get a Visa, and they will likely lose $3,000 to $5000 when they sell their car. They will not be able to get a refund on the extremely expensive health insurance they purchased.

That’s at least a $10,000 mistake.. which could have been avoided!

Luckily, they did not rush in to buying real estate. They would have lost even more money if they tried to sell the house quickly. And they did not ship down their household goods to Panama since the houses they rented were completely furnished.

It’s too bad they did not take a Panama Relocation Tour because they could have saved all the frustration and avoided losing all that money too. During a Tour, we educate people about how to avoid all these costly mistakes and how to get everything done an easier and more affordable way.

You don’t know what you don’t know! Mistakes can be expensive.

A Panama Relocation Tour is not an expense, it is a WISE INVESTMENT in your future life in Panama. If you’re considering relocating to or retiring in Panama, you should consider taking a Panama Relocation Tours to avoid ending up like Expat Couple #2. We still have a few spaces available for 2018 Tours.

SEE DETAILS & OUR DATES HERE

To Life in Paradise,
Jackie Lange

P.S. Next Article – Amazing Incentives for Agriculture Businesses in Panama.

Last Updated Aug 13, 2019 - by Debbie

Driver’s License Requirements in Panama

As a foreigner, you can legally drive in Panama for up to 90 days using a valid driver’s license from your home country. As a tourist, you can leave the country for a minimum of thirty days and return to start the 90 days over again. This is why you must show your passport along with your foreign license at checkpoints – the guards are looking for your last entry date stamp. If you leave Panama a few days before your 90 days is up, you only need to be out of Panama for 3 days before you can come back in to Panama to drive another 90 days.

To avoid this madness, you will need to get a residency Visa to live in Panama indefinitely and get a Panama driver’s license.

When you get a residency Visa, you will be able to obtain a Panamanian driver’s license. You will be able to keep your current country’s license also, so you can use it when you visit back home. Understand that once you get a residency Visa, even the temporary Visa, you are required to get a Panama driver’s license right away if you plan to drive in Panama. If you are leaving Panama right after you get your temporary Visa and do not plan to drive in Panama, you can wait until you get your permanent Visa to get your Panama driver’s license.

Are you thinking about moving to Panama? Check out our guide to living in panama and learn more about our relocation tours.

The minimum driving age in Panama is 18 years.

In order to apply for a Panamanian License you must have residency Visa. Initially, you are issued a temporary, or processing Visa, which is only valid for 6 months. So, your Panama driver’s license will only be valid for 6 months.

Once you get your permanent Visa, you will need to renew your Panama driver’s license. Your Panama driver’s license will valid for to four years, until you reach age 70, then it is only valid for two years. If you are over age 70, in addition to the steps listed below, you must obtain a doctor’s certification to prove that you are healthy enough to manage a car. This certification has to be from either a Gerontologist or a Doctor of Internal Medicine.

If you do not currently have a driver’s license from your home country, or your license is expired, your application process will start from square one. You will have to attend classes and be certified through an approved driving school, take a practical driving test in a car that you provide, and pass a written exam to demonstrate your knowledge of the laws of the road. (Warning: this test is administered only in Spanish!)

If you already have a valid driver’s license from another country, the process to obtain a Panamanian license is much easier. SERTRACEN is the private company which has been contracted by the Panamanian government for the issuance of driver’s licenses. It takes about 2 days because there are several steps.

In Panama, visit your country’s embassy to complete a notarized affidavit of your driving history (which usually involves setting up an advance appointment and paying a fee. The US Embassy charges $50). You have to bring your valid passport and driver’s license with you.
Go to the Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Relations to have your affidavit validated. You will have to pay a small fee for this, $2 paid to a nearby bank. This step can take a day because they will tell you to return later to pick up your documents.
Step three is to document your blood type through a SERTACEN-approved lab. I paid $5 for my blood test.
Bring your residency documents, your passport, your current driver’s license, your notarized documents and your proof of blood type to a SERTRACEN service center. Be sure to bring both the originals of all these documents and a photocopy of the front and back of each. Vision and hearing tests will be required, along with the payment of all fees which is $40 as of this writing. Once you get your permanent Visa, if you are a Pensionado, you will get 10% off the cost of getting a driver’s license.

I know it sounds complicated. Don’t worry, your attorney can help you get a Panama Driver’s License while you are in Panama to get your residency Visa.

In Panama City, you must do the authentication of your current drivers license and the authentication at the Ministry of Foreign Relations. But the rest of the process can be done in the province where you live.

You will need to renew your Panama driver’s license every 4 years, unless you are 70 years old, then it will need to be renewed every 2 years. To get your license renewed, you do not need to go through the authentication process again. You will only need to take a vision and hearing test to renew your license. If you are over 70, you will also need a letter from a doctor that you are ok to drive.

It cost $40 to get a driver’s license initially. Once you have your permanent residency Visa, you will get a 10% Pensionado discount so you can renew for $36.

Last Updated Apr 17, 2019 - by Jackie Lange

What Does It Cost to Get a Residency Visa in Panama?

The two most popular and affordable residency Visas are the Pensionado Visa and the Friendly Nations Visa.

The Pensionado Visa is the most affordable Visa because the Panamanian government waives all their fees for all retirees (a $1050 savings). To qualify for the Pensionado Visa, you must plan to be retired in Panama. You’ll need to prove a lifetime income of $1000 a month for a single person or $1250 for a married couple. You will never be able to get a work in Panama. Which means you cannot sell any products or services in Panama. If you’re living in Panama but doing online work in another country you will not need a work permit.

The Friendly Nations Visa is ideal for those who are not retired and/or cannot prove a lifetime income, like Social Security or a Pension. The only income you will need to prove is putting $5,000 in a Panama bank account. For each additional dependent, you will need to add an extra $2,000 to the bank account. The Friendly Nations Visa allows you to get a work permit so you can sell products or services in Panama.

To get any Visa in Panama, you will need to provide a nationwide criminal report, like an FBI report. If married and applying together, you’ll also need a certified copy of your marriage certificate.

Are you thinking about moving to Panama? Check out our guide to living in panama and learn more about our relocation tours.

Why should you consider getting a Residency Visa?

If you plan to live in Panama, you can only stay six months then you need to leave for at least 30 days before you can come back. If you’re driving, you can only stay for 90 days, then you need to leave before you can come back. To avoid this problem, you will need to get a residency Visa. Once you have a residency Visa, you can live in Panama as long as you want to.

However, you are not required to live in Panama full time. You only need to come back to Panama every two years and stay for a few days.

Five years after getting your permanent Visa and Cedula, you can apply for Panama citizenship and a Panama passport and it only cost $600!

Once you get your permanent Pensionado Visa or a Friendly Nations Visa and you meet the age requirements (55 for women and 60 for men), you will qualify for these discounts:

50% off on recreation and entertainment such as movies, theaters, sports, etc.
50% off hotels Monday through Thursday (30% off on weekends)
50% off passports
50% off movie theaters (about $2 with your discount)
30% off public transportation like buses, trains, and boats
25% off airfare
25% off restaurants (15% off fast food)
25% off electrical, telephone, and water service
20% off doctors and specialists
20% off prosthetics and other personal assistance devices
15% off hospitals and private clinics
15% off dental and optometry services
10% off prescription medications
tax-free importation of household goods, up to $10,000
tax-free importation of a vehicle, or tax-free purchase of a local vehicle

These discounts alone pay for the Visa within a few years!

Getting a Visa is an easy three step process.

The process always starts with talking to your attorney about which Visa is best for your needs. Your attorney will email you a list of documents you need to bring with you to Panama to apply for a Visa. Some of the documents will need to be authenticated. Yes, you do need to be in Panama to apply for a Visa. For the temporary Visa, you can start the process at immigration offices throughout Panama instead of being stuck in Panama City. Initially, you will be issued a temporary Visa card which is good for six months.

To reduce your expenses with multiple trips to Panama, plus hotel & eating out expenses, you may want to wait until you actually move to Panama to apply for a Visa. This will save you a lot of money.

About three months after you get your temporary Visa, your permanent Visa will be ready and requires a trip to Panama City to pick it up. About 30 days later you can get a Cedula and it will require another trip to Panama City. A Cedula is a national ID card. You are not required to get a Cedula but I highly recommend it because it will make your life so much easier when you live in Panama. If you are not already living in Panama, all these trips to Panama can really add up in expenses.

During the time between getting your temporary Visa and your permanent Visa, you are required to stay in Panama UNLESS you get a multi-entry Visa stamp in your passport. The multi-entry Visa stamp allows you to leave the country and come back any time while you are waiting for your permanent Visa. If you leave the country without a multi-entry Visa stamp then attempt to come back in to Panama, there is a $2,000 fine. So you definitely want to get the multi-entry Visa stamp if you plan to leave the country. There is no extra fee to get your multi-entry stamp with our attorney. I recommend getting the multi-entry stamp even if you are already living in Panama because you just don’t know when a situation might come up which requires you to leave Panama for an emergency.

Seems pretty straight forward, right? Wrong!

Unfortunately, the prices that lawyers charge to get a Visa is not regulated in any way. Lawyers can charge whatever they think they can get away with.

Last month I received an email from someone asking if $1250 was a reasonable price to pay for a multi-entry Visa stamp. That’s what his attorney, who frequents the living overseas seminars, was asking. I told him NO WAY, a multi-entry Visa stamp is only $50 and my attorney does not charge anything extra to get it. Big price difference!

That same over-priced attorney above charges $5,000 for one person to get a Pensionado Visa and $7500 for a couple. Our attorney charges $1200 for a Pensionado for one and $1600 for a couple. Our attorney only works with our Tour clients. You can see how the cost of the tour can actually save you money!

Last year someone came on my tour six months AFTER he got a Friendly Nations Visa. He was charged $15,000 for his Visa by a company who advertises all over the place! Yikes!!! The lawyer we use charges about $2600 for a Friendly Nations Visa. You’ll also need to set up a corporation if you don’t own property in Panama. The corporation is an additional $1400 fee however, for our tour clients I can usually find a corporation for sale for less than $500. (more savings)

Another lady was told by her attorney that it would be $500 to get a work permit plus she would need to pay $500 every month to keep it. This is a total rip off! It cost $500 one time to get a work permit.

YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW!

Going to the wrong lawyer to get your Visa can cost you a lot more than the cost of a Panama Relocation Tour! Even buying health insurance at the wrong place can easily cost you an extra $4000 per year for a couple.

Hopefully, you can see why coming on a Panama Relocation Tour and getting our verified contact list can actually SAVE you money and help you avoid these costly mistakes!

During a Panama Relocation Tour, you’ll learn the BEST sources for getting an affordable Visa and getting it quickly, how to find a rental and not get a gringo price, how to save 30% on health insurance, how to save on prescriptions, and much more.

During a Panama Relocation Tour, you’ll see a variety of towns by the beach and in the mountains. Well show you some rentals but there are absolutely no sales pitches! You will get to meet with expats who live in these areas every day. You’ll learn everything you need to know to make a smooth move to Panama without any hassles and without getting taken advantage of by unscrupulous lawyers.

Come see how you can live better for less in Panama! Join us for a 6-day, 7-night All-Inclusive Panama Relocation Tour to learn how to save money and avoid costly mistakes when you move to Panama.

We have limited space available for each tour. SEE THE DATES AND REGISTER HERE. We require a $500 per person deposit to reserve your spot. The remainder is not due until 30 days before your tour. If you have questions, email [email protected]

P.S. See what some of our recent tour guests have to save about a Panama Relocation Tour:

THIS TOUR COULD VERY WELL SAVE YOU LITERALLY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS, AND A LOT OF HEARTACHE, BY AVOIDING THE MISTAKES THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE MAKE BY NOT BEING PREPARED

I recently participated in Jackie Lange’s Panama Relocation Tour. I would highly recommend that anyone who is considering relocating to Panama, to take one of Jackie’s Tours … the experience was not only very enlightening, but also a lot of fun. You will be interacting with people who share the same interests and objectives as you … that of checking out the various areas of Panama to see if it is somewhere you would like to live in or retire to. Jackie is very knowledgeable not only of the various places & climates of Panama, but of the ‘details’ of exactly what you need to learn about the country, the rules involved with living here, and what pitfalls to look out for.

Taking this tour will provide you with ‘invaluable’ information about the process of moving to Panama, and could very well save you literally tens of thousands of dollars, and a lot of heartache, by avoiding the mistakes that a lot of people make by not being properly prepared before jumping into something like this. You will visit a variety of locations, both by the beach, and in the mountains … and hear first hand from expats and locals who live in each location. They will pull no punches and provide you with both the pros and the cons of each area, to ensure that there are no ‘surprises’.

Jackie will introduce you to speakers who will talk to the group very frankly about their specific areas of expertise, and she will provide you with contacts to advise you in any area, legal, health care, etc. You can rest assured that you will not be given any ‘sales pitches’ … this is ‘not’ what the Tours are about … they are strictly about giving you ‘information’ and ‘experiences’!

Stephen Douglas Stenberg (Doug),
Alberta, Canada
March 2017 Tour

OUTRAGEOUSLY FANTASTIC!

Thank you Melissa and Jackie for the pleasure of experiencing a whole new world for 10 days with Panama Relocation Tours. Outrageously fantastic! Right from the start of the initial planning to arriving and enjoying our relocation tour everything was professionally handled and we were in the best possible hands. Not knowing what to expect we were somewhat apprehensive but once the adventure began that all went out the window. Cannot thank you enough…especially since we found our new home that first day out on the tour bus. The Beach!! This has been a lifelong dream and we are so excited to begin our new adventure. Thank you again.
Best wishes,
Linda and Bruce
March 2017 Tour

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