Ecuador Visa – Easy 3 Step Advice for Residency

We paid for expediting services where possible to simplify the process. We used these services to get our birth certificates, marriage license, and FBI background checks. It took between 1 and two weeks to get all of these documents. The documents had to have the apostille certificate. We thought it best to use a service to help us with this. All took about one week additional.

University Documents

The documents that took the longest to get were from the University. We had to send in extra paperwork (actually the Ecuadorian lawyer did) to get the school approved since it was not already on the approved list. We needed the diploma, the transcripts and a letter from the university registrar stating how we attended classes. What they want to know was if we attended in person or if it was a remote study type school. They instituted this new rule midway through our process. One reason we hired a lawyer to assist was that the rules change often, and lawyers must stay abreast of any new ones.

Now that we had assembled all the required paperwork (easier while in your home country), we scanned and emailed copies to our Ecuadorian lawyer. She reviewed everything to make sure it was right. Once she gave us the OK, we sent all of the originals to her via FedEx and FedEx delivered it in 2 days at a cost of $85.

Step 2 – Pick up Your  Ecuador Visa

It took about two months for the school to get approved. Then our lawyer submitted our Ecuador visa for residency application. In about another two months, we got a notice that our visas were ready to be picked up at the nearest Ecuadorian consulate office (in our case, Los Angeles). The process at the office was simple but time-consuming. Because they were very busy, it took us two trips to get the visa stamps in our passports.

Step 3 – Entry into Ecuador

Your residency visas don’t get “activated” until you enter Ecuador. The only thing you do differently from a regular visit is when you fill out the customs form on the plane, instead of putting tourist for visa type, you put resident.

There is one final step to completing the Ecuador visa process, and that’s a trip to the immigration office where they record where you are living. We again did that visit with our lawyer.

Dual Resident

That’s it! Not really hard. You just need to be patient and decide how much you want to do on your own or if you don’t mind paying for some expert help along the way. My advice, pay the money. After all, retirement or living abroad is supposed to be fun and less stressful.

Find out about getting an Ecuador Cedula here.