The law requires at least 90 percent of a company's workforce to be citizens, and a newcomer's spouse cannot work. Path to citizenship scores 90.
El Salvador's shop window looks welcoming: low thresholds for rentistas and remote workers, an inexpensive digital nomad visa, talk of 5,000 free passports for talented people. But the 2024 announcement never got criteria or a procedure, and the attractive statuses forbid working in the country. Anyone who wants a local job has to take the work route, and it is harsh.
The core problem is how fragile the work status is. The permit is issued for a specific company, and the law requires at least 90% of a company's staff to be nationals and at least 85% of its payroll to go to them; the Labour Ministry checks this for every permit. After a dismissal the employer notifies the migration agency within 8 working days, there is no period to find a new job, and changing employer means the whole process again at both agencies. Working without updating the permit counts as unauthorised work and leads to cancellation of residence.
Families have it hard too. A spouse has no derived right to work and needs their own authorisation through the general procedure, quota check included. There is no income threshold for reunification, and state schools are free for residents' children. The state does not publish refusal statistics, and the law says nothing about your status while a renewal is pending.
The backdrop is a state of exception in force since March 2022 and extended more than 45 times. Over 90,000 people have been detained, and human rights groups document arbitrary arrests and deaths in custody. It targets nationals and suspected gang members; we found no documented detention of legally resident foreigners. But the decree suspends procedural guarantees for everyone in the country, foreigners included.
Day to day, friction is moderate: a bank account needs a tax number (NIT) and proof of address, and residents have it easier. There is no address registration tied to status, but you must report a change of address within 5 working days. There are no mandatory integration exams.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa needed to enter. After that, the same work route with a Labour Ministry permit as for everyone.
Treated as Salvadorans under the Labour Code quotas and work on a migration authorisation without a separate Labour Ministry permit.
One year to permanent residence and one year to citizenship instead of three and five, and dual citizenship is recognised.
The migration agency's list shows no visa needed to enter. El Salvador is not in the EU, so EU temporary protection does not apply; residency is on the general terms.
The migration agency's list (the CA-4 classification of January 2019) shows no visa needed to enter. We found no special nationality restrictions or advantages for residency: permanent residence after 3 years, citizenship after 5.
The same list requires a consular visa, issued at a consulate without prior approval from the agency. Residency follows the general rules: permanent residence after 3 years, citizenship after 5.
The place interval 27-45 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Path to citizenship: 90 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 57.1. The weakest is Status security: 42 against 57.9. Above the world average: 4 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
By rule the migration agency answers within 45 working days and the Labour Ministry issues its permit within 30. In practice residency takes 60-120 days, and the work permit often runs past its legal deadline.
Yes, but without the right to work locally: the digital nomad visa covers foreign income only, and rentistas and pensioners may not work. Local work is possible only through an employer or an investment of about $1.45 million.
Migration agency fees of $70-260 per procedure, renewed yearly, plus Labour Ministry fees, apostilles and translations. There is no single official fee schedule, so we do not quote a five-year total.
Yes. The law gives no time to find a new job, and unauthorised work, false documents or a sham marriage lead to cancellation. Since 31 March 2026 temporary residence can be cancelled if you spend fewer than 90 days a year in the country.
Permanent residence after 3 years of continuous temporary residence; you can stay a temporary resident for no more than 5 years. Citizenship after 5 years with no language exam, but dual citizenship is not recognised for naturalised citizens.
People living on foreign income are welcomed. Working locally is hard: a 90% quota for local staff, a permit tied to one company and no grace period after dismissal. The state of exception is not aimed at foreigners, but it suspends guarantees for everyone.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.