I’ve just been through the visa process in Peru. And I’ll tell you now, don’t believe everything that you read online. Most of it is outdated junk. Instead, you should investigate whether you are eligible to extend your tourist visa in Peru, based on your own personal circumstances.
In this article, I’m going to detail how I deal with visa issues as an expat living in Peru. And I’m going to give you all the websites and tools that you’ll need to use in order to fix your visa problems in Peru.
Extending a tourist visa in Peru
Visa Entry Stamps In Peru
Peru no longer uses entry stamps at its major airports like the Jorge Chávez International Airport. And the amount of time that you can be granted on arrival into Peru, is at the discretion of the migraciones staff member who checked you into the country.
There are daily fines and penalties for overstaying your visa. So, it’s critically important to know how long you can stay legally in the country. You need to know what date you arrived into Peru and when you need to exit. And you can do this online for free.
Travel Tip: Do not overstay your visa in Peru. It will get expensive for you. And overstaying your visa in Peru will complicate any future trips that you might want to take.
How To Check Your Visa In Peru?
When you entered Peru, the migraciones staff member who checked you into the country, basically issued you with a time limit. And they did that in their computer system. Which you can check online for free.
To see how long the migration officer gave you on arrival and what date you need to have exited the country, you’ll need access to a smartphone or computer. Visit this page on the Migraciones Peru website. The page is available in both english and spanish.
To check your visa status in Peru:
- Visit the Migraciones Peru portal for the Tarjeta Andina de Migración (TAM) Virtual (Click Here);
- Select your prefered language (english or spanish) in the top left corner;
- Enter your details as shown in the image below;
- Make a note of the date on the popup;
- Scroll down and click ‘Descargar TAM‘ for the PDF version that you can save.
Extending A Tourist Visa In Peru
There’s a lot of websites stating that you can extend your tourist visa while in Peru. They say that you can extend your tourist visa in Peru from 90 days granted on arrival upto 180 days online. And I fell for this myself.
Unless you’re a citizen of Bolivia, Colombia or Ecuador it’s not possible at this time to extend your tourist visa in Peru. And you haven’t been able to extend a tourist visa in Peru for more than a year. Things might change in the future, but you can’t do it now.
How To Check If You Can Extend Your Visa In Peru?
Because the situation can and does change in Peru without notice, and because most websites give terrible advice, I’d suggest checking for yourself. You can check at anytime, if you’re eligible to extend your tourist visa in Peru.
To check if you can extend your tourist visa in Peru, you need to go to this page on the Migraciones Peru website. To log in and check if you can extend your tourist visa, do the following:
- Visit https://agenciavirtual.migraciones.gob.pe;
- Log in to the portal (see screenshot);
- Once logged in, on the left hand side of the screen select ‘Prorroga De Permanencia‘ and then ‘Turista‘ (see second screenshot);
- In the ‘Seleccione país de residencia‘, check if your country is in the drop down list. If it’s not in the list on this section of the website, you can’t extend your tourist visa (see third screenshot).
Note: If your country is not in the drop down list on the portal, using the steps above, there is absolutely no way you can extend your stay as a tourist. You cannot extend your tourist visa in Peru, either online or in person. It will not work.
Other Visa Options To Stay Longer In Peru
If the country from which you have a passport is not listed in the above steps, you’re not eligible to extend your tourist visa in Peru. You won’t be able to do it online or in person. Trust me, I’ve tried it both ways and I even took my lawyer and he had a go at it with the migration staff. It can’t be done.
Instead of extending your tourist visa in Peru, you’ll need to either exit the country before the date stipulated on your current tourist visa. Or change to a different visa before your current tourist visa expires.
Some of the options suggested by the migration staff to my own lawyer, were to enrol in a local course and change to a student visa, finalise my company paperwork and switch to a business visa, get a rentista visa or an inversionista visa.
Now, with the exception of the student visa, all are going to be expensive. And too expensive for the average person who just wants an additional 3-6 months in Peru. Excluding the student visa, the rest start at over $5000 USD and go as high as about $150,000 USD. Plus, everything except the student visa has a mountain of paperwork that will need to be completed.
My advice to you, if you want to spend longer in Peru without leaving the country, would be to consider enrolling into a course in Peru and switching to the peruvian student visa. Courses at private institutions can be found for as low as s/500 ($131USD). And the change of visa status can be done online, once you’re enrolled.
Note: The digital nomad visa touted all over the internet doesn’t yet exist. The government hasn’t published the rules for the digital nomad visa.
Can I Do A Visa Run In Peru?
The advice I was given by the migration staff when I visited the central migration office in Lima with my lawyer, was that visa runs are now somewhat sketchy in Peru. The migration officer when you try to enter the country, may decide to decline you. Meaning you won’t be able to get back into Peru for a year.
In theory, you are permitted to spend up to 180 days out of every 365 days in Peru. And in theory you should be able to take a 2-3 day trip to a neighboring country and then return. But, the migration officer when you try to come back, may decide to decline you entry.
So, before trying a visa run to extend your time in Peru, consider that you might not be able to re-enter the country. You might not be let back into Peru for a year.
Where Can I Get More Advice?
I’m not a lawyer. And a Peruvian lawyer is what you need. So, my strong advice to you would be to consult a lawyer who is registered to practice law in Peru. Give your lawyer your exact circumstances and let them deal with the migration paperwork for you.
You don’t need a specialist migration lawyer. And in fact, I doubt that any of the peruvian lawyers I’ve met are ‘specialists’ in migration law. Instead of looking for a migration lawyer in Peru, find a reputable lawyer that will have your best interests at heart and one whom you can trust.
I used the same lawyer for my property purchase in Lima and my visa extensions in Peru. That lawyer is Dr Lara and you can find his details here.
Where Can I Ask Questions And Get More Information?
Because I get a lot of emails about this process, I’ve created a facebook group for digital nomads, foreign students and others that is dedicated to this topic. If you want to ask questions about changing from a tourist visa to a student visa in Peru, and explore your options for staying longer than 90 days in the country, join the facebook group.
Digital Nomads and Residency Options: https://www.facebook.com/groups/digitalnomadslimaperu
