The Visa Issue / Being a Foreign Internet Entrepreneur in Peru (Part 1)
If you’ve made the decision to be an Expat Entrepreneur, then you will quickly come up against this topic and it’s a minefield of questions. Do I need to get a visa before I leave my home country? What kind of visa? How long can I stay? Can I work on this visa? etc etc. My suggestion to you would be to research this as much as humanly possible before you hop on a plane to some random country. Alternatively, you can do like I did and show up in Perú and figure the rest out as you go. :-) Luckily for me, Americans don’t need a special visa to enter Perú… as long as you’re okay with being a “tourist.” At customs, you can ask the official to kindly give you the maximum stay allowed (183 days) and they will generally stamp your passport without too much trouble. This will give you the time you need to figure out how long you’ll really be staying in the country and if you need to think about a different type of visa. For countries other than Perú, be sure to check BEFOREHAND if you need a special visa to enter the country. For example, U.S. citizens will need to pay a fee and get an try visa ahead of time to enter Bolivia. For the purposes of this post (and pretty much all posts for that matter) we’ll continue to use my own situation as our use case. The facts of the matter:
- U.S. citizen expecting to spend 6+ months in Perú
- Owns U.S. based Limited Liability Company
- Performing work for this company while in Perú
- Clientele hails from around the globe, but is generally US-based. No local (Peruvian) clients to speak of.
- All bank transactions are happening in the US.
There are 8 different types of visas in Perú that allow for long-term stays in the country. They are: Artista (Artist), Trabajador (Worker), Trabajador de Empresa Extranjera (Worker of Foreign Company), Estudiante (Student), Religioso (Religious), Inversionista (Investor), Profesional (Professional). There is also a special visa in the case of marriage with a Peruvian.
Of all of these options, it appears that the fastest and easiest route to a long term (resident) visa is to marry a local.
Artists are required to have a contract for an expo/show. Workers need a work contract from a Peruvian company. Students have to enroll in school (how novel!). Religious workers need a letter from The Church. Investors need $25,000 deposited to a Peruvian bank. Professionals need a college degree. There is no visa that let’s someone who is an internet entrepreneur, without a college degree, with 100% foreign (non-Peruvian) clients to legally stay/work in the country. As my initial tourist visa is coming to an end in a month, I’m now scrambling a bit to figure out if I’m going to try to get a long-term visa of some sort, or do the old border hop routine. Unfortunately, the U.S. Embassy here in Peru doesn’t offer citizens any help over the phone in these matters, and I don’t know if going there will be of any help either.. quite surprising really. So, I’ll be speaking with some local attorneys to see what my best options are and we’ll see what happens. If I end up border hopping, it will be a two day trip to Ecuador for me. This whole experience has made me so much more understanding of what a nightmare it is for foreigners to come to the U.S. Stay tuned for part 2…
