El Salvador Dangles a Tempting Carrot for Expats

Do you have $0?

Strange question, yes, but $0 is all you need to apply for one particular passport these days.

The real question is, though: Would you move to El Salvador to collect that free passport?

Just recently, the tiny Central American nation announced a plan to give away—free of charge—5,000 passports. These passports come with full Salvadoran citizenship, no taxes, and no tariffs on assets relocated into El Salvador.

As I write this, El Salvador has not yet released full details of the plan. But Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele announced via his X (formerly Twitter) page that the passports will go to highly skilled scientists, engineers, doctors, artists, and, uniquely, philosophers from abroad. (I’m eager to find out what falls under the "philosopher" category, given that President Bukele refers to himself on his X profile as "Philosopher King.")

A free passport is certainly an enticing proposition.

Various polls and studies I’ve seen over the last year indicate more and more Americans—and increasingly, Canadians—are looking to build a Plan B into their lives because of homegrown worries related to political divides cleaving society apart; increasing gun violence; inflation that’s making a middle-class life too expensive; and extreme US debts that threaten America’s financial stability.

Owning a second passport has become the Plan B version of "the little black dress"—a must-have for anyone who’s seriously considering the possibility that social and/or economic life in the West, and the US in particular, goes pear-shaped before the decade is over.

Those who want a way out need a place to land where they can live and/or work legally. And for that you need either a residence visa or a passport.

But is a passport from El Salvador the answer, and is it worth the effort?

A Powerful Passport That Will Let You Travel Visa-Free

Well, Latitude, a London-based residency and citizenship consultancy, ranks a Salvadoran passport at #29 globally, with visa-free and visa-on-arrival access in 122 countries. That’s a fair bit lower than an eighth-ranked US passport offering visa-free/visa-on-arrival access to 153 countries.

Still, a Salvadoran passport will get you into pretty much every European country, all of Central and South America, and most of Asia and the Caribbean without needing to apply for a visa first.

So, from a travel practicality perspective, a Salvadoran passport is respected globally and, thus, just as useful as a US passport. The only substantive difference between a US and Salvadoran passport is greater visa-free access to some African countries and parts of Central Asia… though one could legitimately argue that traveling on a Salvadoran passport instead of Uncle Sam’s is probably safer in some parts of the world.

Then again, El Salvador itself was once home to a bloody civil war, and over the last 20 years or so has become known for gangland crime. But life has certainly changed in El Salvador under President Bukele, who, after four years as mayor of the capital city, San Salvador, won the presidency in 2019.

Back in 2015, El Salvador’s murder rate had reached a high-water mark of 106 per 100,000 people, one of the worst murder rates in the world, according to the United Nations. Today, after Bukele’s multi-year crackdown on gangs, the UN says the country’s murder rate has plunged to just 2.4 per 100,000, well below the global average of eight per 100,000 (and the US’s average of 6.4). That dive has not come without controversy.

"Digital nomads are flooding into the country… and they report life is serene."

Human-rights groups question the methods Bukele has used in deploying the military and local police in rounding up, prosecuting, and incarcerating nearly 80,000 suspected gang members—1.2% of El Salvador’s population—often without due process or trials. Bukele even built Central America’s largest prison to house all the people who’ve been arrested. Amnesty International calls his tactics "disproportionate."

But after 40 years of civil war and gang violence, the local electorate largely seems content. In February, Bukele was elected to another five-year term as president, winning nearly 85% of the votes. The Organization of American States, which monitored the election, reported that it "did not observe actions which indicate that the will of the citizenry expressed at the polls was altered."

Tourism to El Salvador is Booming, Thanks to Increased Safety

These days, local media write about kids playing in parks again, and residents able to travel on buses without fear of extortion or the possibility of death. Restaurants are staying open late into the night because of customer demand, and many have begun delivery services.

And tourism is booming.

El Salvador recorded tourism-based income of nearly $2.8 billion in 2023, up nearly 50% from a year earlier.

El Salvador has also launched a number of initiatives aimed at attracting foreign capital to help grow the economy.

Last December, the country announced a plan to sell up to 1,000 passports/citizenships yearly for a $1 million donation to the country. For those heavily involved in crypto, the fee is payable in bitcoin, which is on-brand with the country’s adoption of bitcoin as legal tender back in 2021.

"A Very Different El Salvador Is Emerging"

But, we return to the question… Would you move to El Salvador to collect that free passport?

Well… could El Salvador provide a safe and engaging lifestyle?

Last time I ventured to El Salvador was October 1986. I was a college newspaper photographer who, on a whim, flew down to the country to photograph and write about the devastation caused by a 5.7 magnitude earthquake that leveled buildings across San Salvador.

Frankly, that was not the best time to be a traveler in El Salvador.

The country was in the midst of a violent civil war that raged for more than a decade (watch the 1986 movie Salvador with James Woods for a good sense of that period). I was told by hotel staff not to venture too far afield, and definitely refrain from traveling out of San Salvador and into the countryside.

Roads were often mined, they warned me, and a couple of journalists had recently died trying to drive into the jungle to report on skirmishes between government forces and the rebels.

"The ‘Freedom Visa’ lets you collect a passport in two weeks."

That war ended more than 30 years ago, but was replaced by gangland violence instigated by Salvadoran refugees. These refugees convened into two rival gangs in Los Angeles; the US began deporting them back to El Salvador in the late ‘90s. Those gangs—the notorious MS-13 and Barrio 18—re-formed in their homeland and began taking over the country to such a degree that, for years, El Salvador was a no-go zone for tourists.

Today, a very different El Salvador is emerging. President Bukele came to power on a platform that promised to rid the country of gangs. Now that he’s accomplished that to a large degree, he’s looking to "investment migration" as the next stage of elevating El Salvador.

Travel writers, bloggers, and YouTubers have been flooding into the country in the post-COVID years, and they’re reporting that life seems serene—particularly in the cities along the Pacific that are popular with beachgoers, nature enthusiasts, and surfers.

Major roads between cities are easily navigable. And a police/military presence is heavy—a show of force to remind remaining gang members that a new sheriff is in town.

Of course, these digital nomads are seeing the "tourist El Salvador," but still, they’re not being warned like I was back in the mid-80s. They’re venturing all over the country. Hotel giant Hilton even returned to El Salvador in 2020 after abandoning the country nearly a quarter century ago.

The "Freedom Visa" and Digital Nomad Visa

San Salvador’s lively streets offer a glimpse into the heart of El Salvador’s capital.|©iStock/undefined undefined

Despite the million-dollar cost, the passport-by-donation program—what El Salvador calls a "Freedom Visa"—has attracted a number of investors who are in turn collecting their passports in as little as two weeks. That’s an unbelievably fast turnaround time, unavailable anywhere else in the world of citizenship-through-investment programs.

Those whose pockets aren’t quite so deep are instead latching onto El Salvador’s new digital nomad visa. For a provable, minimum monthly income of less than $1,500, El Salvador will issue a digital nomad visa, allowing the recipient to live in the country for up to two years. The visa is then renewable for another two years.

Along with those efforts, El Salvador earlier this year eliminated its income tax for foreigners.

The free 5,000 passports is the country’s next step in luring foreign wealth and foreign talent to El Salvador.

Is a Free Passport From El Salvador Worth the Effort?

The country is certainly no Panama or Costa Rica, which have decades of stability and stronger institutions (though their passports, at #20 and #24, respectively, aren’t substantively better). Panama, I will note, sells passports for between $500,000 and $750,000; Costa Rica does not sell passports.

Frankly, though, if a second passport is all you want, then a free passport is a free passport… particularly when it’s respected globally and gets you into over 120 countries without a visa.

Yes, El Salvador comes with certain baggage, but it’s close to the US, it offers quite the affordable lifestyle—about 56% cheaper than the US—and if current trends persist, the country is primed to emerge as an increasingly desirable location.