Paraguay against the alternatives: Dubai, Panama, Georgia

Every founder who starts looking at territorial-tax residency ends up with the same shortlist: the UAE, Panama, Georgia, Paraguay. They get talked about as if they were interchangeable. They are not — they differ on the three things that actually decide it: what you have to lock up, how much of your year you have to spend there, and whether the thing you get is permanent.

This is the comparison run properly, with the places Paraguay loses left in.

The four, side by side

The UAE: a written rule, at Dubai prices

The UAE's advantage is real and it is specific: Cabinet Decision No. 85 of 2022 writes the test down. Be there 183 days, or meet the 90-day route with a permanent home continuously available to you plus employment or business in the UAE, and you can obtain a tax residency certificate a foreign authority will recognise — backed by a broad treaty network.

When you are arguing with a European tax authority about where you actually live, an article number beats a documentary procedure every time. That certainty is worth paying for.

The price is the point, though. 183 days in Dubai is half your year at global-city housing costs, plus a company licence and its annual renewal on most routes. If your plan is to be somewhere half the year, the UAE is excellent. If your plan is to move around, its rule is unusable at any price.

Panama: $200,000, committed

Panama's Friendly Nations route stopped being the cheap option in 2021. Executive Decree 197, amended by Decree 226, narrowed the economic-solvency requirement to employment at a Panamanian company, real estate of at least USD 200,000, or a fixed-term bank deposit of at least USD 200,000. The same decrees turned it into a two-year provisional residence first, with permanent residence applied for afterwards.

That USD 200,000 is capital committed, not a fee. It may be a fine investment. It is still money you cannot deploy elsewhere while your residence depends on it. And Friendly Nations only works if your nationality is on the published list.

Paraguay's equivalent requirement is evidentiary rather than financial: you show verifiable income and proof that you genuinely carry on the activity you declare, across twelve published applicant categories. There is no published monetary threshold — which is a real advantage if you don't want capital tied up, and a real ambiguity you should go in knowing about.

Georgia: the cleanest rule, and the biggest ask

Georgia is the sharpest contrast on this list because it writes everything down. Article 34(2) of the Tax Code makes you resident for the whole tax year if you actually stayed in Georgia for 183 or more days in any continuous 12-month period ending in that year. Article 82(1)(u) then exempts a resident individual's non-Georgian-source income outright. Article 81(1) taxes Georgian-source income at 20%.

There is even a small-business regime at 5% on Georgian-source business income up to GEL 100,000 — something Paraguay has no direct equivalent to.

The ask is the same as Dubai's: half your year, in one place. If you can genuinely do that, take the written test. If you can't, Georgia gives you nothing, because there is no second route to meet.

Where Paraguay actually wins

1. 1It ends in permanent, not renewable. You get temporary residency valid up to two years, then apply to change category to permanent in the three months before it expires. After that the cédula renews every ten years and nothing depends on maintaining a company licence, a lease or a deposit.
2. 2Nothing is locked up. No property threshold, no fixed deposit, no minimum capital on the general route.
3. 3The presence to obtain it is short. Two short trips, or one with the fast-track add-on — against half a year for the UAE or Georgian day tests.
4. 4No nationality restriction on the general route, unlike Panama's Friendly Nations list.
5. 5The shortest constitutional path to a second passport. Article 148 sets a minimum of three years of settled residence plus regular exercise of an occupation in the country. It is a prerequisite, not a countdown — but it is the shortest of the four.
6. 6The total cost is four figures. Government fees are published in guaraníes and are small; the professional work is a fee, not a capital commitment.

Where Paraguay loses

Any comparison that doesn't include this section is selling you something.

• No published day count is a double-edged thing. Paraguay has no bright line for individual tax residence — Resolución General N° 65/2020 asks for your migration record, a valid cédula and, where you're registered, a RUC in good standing. No day figure appears in it. That means no rule to fall foul of, and also no rule to point at when a foreign authority asks you to prove where you live.
• The treaty network is narrow. Several of Paraguay's agreements are transport-specific. The UAE's breadth is a genuine advantage if you need a tie-breaker to argue under.
• Connectivity and banking are worse. Asunción is not a hub, and the banking system is harder for a new arrival to enter than Panama's or Dubai's.
• Less English. Translation and accompaniment cover the process; daily life is Spanish.

The part that is identical in all four

None of them ends your current country's claim by itself. Exit taxes, centre-of-vital-interests tests, controlled foreign company rules and automatic information exchange apply to someone moving to Asunción exactly as they apply to someone moving to Dubai. Spain has Article 9 of Ley 35/2006 and the exit tax in Article 95 bis; Argentina requires a filing under RG 4760/2020; Mexico wants notice 15 days before the change. US citizens are taxed on worldwide income wherever they go.

That work is a separate exercise with a separate adviser, and it usually decides your timetable regardless of destination. See becoming tax resident somewhere new and exit taxes: what it costs to leave.

Which one, for which person

The honest summary: if you can be somewhere half the year, take the country with the written rule. If you can't, Paraguay is the only one of the four that still works — and it is also the cheapest, the fastest to obtain and the only one that ends in something permanent.