I started thinking about retiring to another country and there are a handful of Latin American countries that seem like good alternatives to Europe which has a higher cost of living. The countries I have looked at are Uruguay, Chile, and Costa Rica. All have stable democractic governments with good scores for human rights. All three offer retirement visa programs open to people from the US who can show some kind of passive income, which I have from my pension. While it is easy to visit any of those countries with just a valid passport, living there longer than 6 months requires a temporary residence visa, usually a first step to a permanent residence visa, and possibly citizenship. The temporary residence visa for Chile is valid for two years. The requirements sound pretty easy: valid passport, proof of pension, clean criminal history, a passport type photo, and $200.
Back in January I was renewing my library card and one of the benefits of having a card was free online language lessons from a service called Mango. That got me looking up the best ways to learn language and Mango did not fare well, one site saying it teaches language in the most boring way possible. There are better alternatives that you pay for, sometimes a lot. But there was also Duolingo, which is incredibly popular and can be free, though I very quickly decided to get a 1-year subscription for $60. It does a much better job of keeping things interesting and is more interactive, though I don’t think it is that good at listening. Still, it is a good way to learn vocabulary, grammar, and practice listening. Lately the company has taken heat for trying to do too much with AI tools instead of having voice actors read scripts, and I think their AI stuff is definitely lower quality even though I am learning their most popular language.
Then in April I decided to go ahead and apply for a visa or at least begin the process, which is involved. The hardest part of that would be getting a criminal background check from the FBI. To do this you need to apply online at the FBI ($18) and then submit fingerprints. You can submit fingerprints electronically by paying a $50 fee or you can mail them in, so I wanted to mail them. Dekalb County has a cheap fingerprinting service (only $5), but they don’t do FBI fingerprints, even if you bring your own fingerprint card. It took a few days to figure that out after I applied online first and heard nothing back. So then I made an appointment with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who charge $15 for either scanned fingerprints printed on an FBI card or for old fashion ink prints. The technician gently coerced me to do the electronic system as neater and faster, but the machine was still pretty finicky. Still, I got two prints of the fingerprint cards and mailed one to the FBI on April 10. On May 2, I got a notice from the FBI that they had received my fingerprints and completed my background check, which I could download from the web. But for Chile to accept the FBI check, I had to have it apostilled, which is where some government entity confirms that a document is a genuine government document in a way that is accepted internationally. For federal government documents, you have to ask the State Department to do this, by mailing them an application, the document to be apostilled, a self-addressed stamped envelope, and $20. While I was waiting for that, I actually visited Chile for a week to see how it was (fine) and tried out my new Spanish skills, having gotten through all of the Beginner level lessons on Duolingo. This week, on June 9, I got the apostilled FBI report. The apostille consists of a cover letter they generate attached to the original document with a rivet.
Next I had to get the rest of my documents. Fortunately the pension system allows you to generate a letter verifying your benefits online, but of course it would need to be apostilled. Since it is generated by a state entity, I could have it apostilled by the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority, who are in an office park in Dekalb. But for them to apostille it, I had to have it notarized first. I thought notaries only witnessed signatures basically, so I called the Authority and they said I could download a form for me to sign where I said I was the account custodian and this was my document and the notary would witness me signing that form. I also had to prove to Chile that I actually receive the money, so I was going to do the same with a bank statement except my pension went to my Capital One checking account which isn’t based in Georgia, so back in April I started having my pension deposited to my Bank of America account, which at least has local branches that might notarize their own statement. I made an appointment with a notary at Bank of America and they said they do not verify documents and could not notarize a bank statement. The last time I tried to get them to notarize something was for probate and they said they don’t notarize things related to probate. So useless. City Hall will notarize things for residents, so I went there and they had absolutely no qualms about any of this, notarizing my bank statement, my pension verification, and another statement from the pension administration showing my payment history for the last two years. Though Chile’s visa does not require a birth certificate, I think Uruguay does, so I figured I may as well get one of those ($25, plus $5 each for two extra copies). It also had to be apostilled, but did not need to be notarized first. The next day I took my four different forms to the GSCCCA and in less than 30 minutes (and $12) had them all apostilled, again with rivets.
For a current passport photo I thought I could go to Walmart and pay $8, but I went to one and they said they don’t do that and that drugstores were cheaper, but actually drugstores charge more like $18. Since I didn’t need a hard copy photo, I thought I would try to make one at home which I had actually done when I renewed my current passport in 2018, with pretty poor results shown below, though it worked.
This time I feel like I did a much better job, using a white sheet taped to a wall, my digital camera and flash, plus some extra fill-in light from a couple of flashlights bouncing the beam off the ceiling. The first few pictures I took were horribly out of focus and I realized what was happening was that I was using the timer on the camera, but it would autofocus as soon as I pressed the shutter, so I had to point the camera just right when I pressed the shutter, then go get in position. The result isn’t exactly flattering, but I guess that’s what I look like. Retirement really ages you.
I also had to scan my passport, which took some time since it is 20 pages long, most of it blank. The first time I did it, the scanner used the whole scanning bed instead of trimming it, so I did it all again to get something that could be flipped through a little easier. I also had to scan all of my apostilled documents.
Next step was to apply for a visa online using Chile’s immigration website, which is mostly only in Spanish. However, Google lets you translate any website. Chile doesn’t want you applying for a visa from within the country and their approval takes about a year. Their site was a little more confusing than I thought it would be. For instance they ask you for your given name and the last name of your mother and father which they used to generate my full name in the Spanish convention as Edward Cashin Grant. Then I found out that my mother’s name wasn’t required, so I fixed that. They also said my uploaded documents were limited to 2 MB each, which is not very much. My passport was 5 MB and my apostilled bank statement (6 pages) was 3 MB. I tried scanning my bank statement at a lower rate, which got it down to size, but I didn’t want to try to do that with the passport and it let me upload it anyway. They also said I needed to show 3 months of payments, not just one month like I thought, so instead of my bank statement I uploaded my payment history from the pension system even though that doesn’t technically show that I received that money in my bank account. Then the last step was to pay the fee and by the time I got everything done, their payment system was offline which it does for about an hour at midnight. I went back the next day and paid on June 11, so now all I have to do is wait.
The nice thing about applying online was that the documents were allowed to be in English. Uruguay has you apply in person and all of your documents have to be translated and notarized locally into Spanish. Any language other than Spanish or English would have had to have been translated for Chile. Because it takes so long for them to process the application I have heard a lot of people get their applications rejected because by the time anyone looks at it, the criminal background check is over 6 months old and you have to get a new one (which takes 2 months!). If and when the application is approved, I can download an electronic stamp, after which I have 3 months to enter Chile. Then I have to get an appointment within a month to get an ID card which is required for just about anything: getting a cell phone plan, a lease, a bank account, etc.
In early September I got an email from immigration saying my application was being processed, which I guess is better than just being received, which is what they showed in June. Then, two days later I got an email saying I needed to report to my nearest Chilean consulate so they could review some of the documents I had submitted electronically. Although there is an honorary consul in Atlanta, I needed a consul general and the nearest offices were in Miami, Chicago, and Washington, DC. I have been wanting to go to Chicago, so if I had to go on a trip, I’d rather go there. I called the Chicago office and they told me I had to go to the Miami office which is my nearest office. I called Miami and their answering message was entirely in Spanish and said basically they don’t answer the phone and I needed to send an email. I sent them an email asking if I had to appear in person. Meanwhile, I thought if I had to go in person I could drive down there and take the dogs and make a week of it. Or I could fly down for a day trip, so I looked at flights and ground transportation and calculated that if I caught MARTA at 5:25 AM I could catch a 7:45 AM flight, arrive in Miami at 9:35 and be at the consulate by 11:00. After a week of not hearing anything, I called Chicago again since at least they have people who answer the phone and give you the option of using English. This time the person said that any consulate can verify documents and sometimes they do it by mail, but I would have to put my real passport in the mail to them. I decided that was still a way better option than a flight to Miami and trying to make a meeting on time and hoping they don’t cancel on their end. I figured if mail is good enough for the State Department to use to send me my passport, that I could put my passport in the mail. Anyway, Chicago said write to them and explain and ask and they would respond back the next day. So I did that (still took them a week). Then there were some Chilean holidays and Miami responded with an email and said, yes, I needed to be there in person, but didn’t give me a name or direct phone contact. To get the best deal on a flight, I needed to schedule it about 3 weeks out and since I wouldn’t know my appointment day until they responded, probably in 10 days again, I asked for a date 5 weeks out, really pushing my 60-day time limit, after which my application would be automatically denied. Then a couple of days later, a real person emailed from Chicago and said I could send in my documents to them by mail if I included a return postage envelope. So I sent that in last week. They got it on Monday and wrote to me on Tuesday that they were able to verify the documents and put my passport back in the mail to me. Still haven’t heard from Miami about a potential appointment (which, happily I don’t need), but it looks like I am back on track. Now I’m wondering if this means I am actually close to my visa approval (which I was thinking would take a year) or if asking to verify documents is just an early stage filter to weed people out. I did find out that if it is approved I have 120 days to activate the visa, then 90 more days to actually get to Chile before the visa expires, so that is up to 7 months once they say it is approved. If all of this goes through and I show up in Chile, I can stay for 2 years before applying for an extension or permanent resident status.