Argentina — Tourist Stay: 90 Days per Entry

Summary

Allowance

Up to 90 days per entry

Extension

One prórroga of a similar period

Rolling cap

None — no 90-in-180 rule

Reset

Each new entry, at officer discretion

Since mid-2025

Health-insurance declaration on entry

Authority

Dirección Nacional de Migraciones

Argentina grants visa-exempt visitors an authorised stay of up to 90 days per entry — "hasta tres (3) meses, prorrogable por otro período similar" — extendable once through Migraciones before it expires. There is no 90-in-180 rolling cap: leaving and re-entering starts a new stay. What is not guaranteed is the re-entry itself. Every admission is a discretionary decision, and repeated back-to-back visa runs can be refused.

Who it applies to

This matters most if you are:

• A visa-exempt visitor (most of Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and much of Latin America) on a long trip.
• A remote worker basing yourself in Buenos Aires and refreshing your stay with trips to Uruguay or Chile.
• Someone who read that Argentina now uses a Schengen-style rolling window and planned around it.
• Approaching the end of a 90-day stay and deciding between a prórroga and an exit.

Visa-required nationalities are a different case: your consulate or the officer at the border may authorise a shorter period than 90 days, and the stamp governs. Set the counter to whatever you were actually granted.

The rule — and why it exists

The Dirección Nacional de Migraciones describes the tourist category as carrying "un plazo de permanencia autorizado de hasta tres (3) meses, prorrogable por otro período similar" — an authorised stay of up to three months, extendable by a similar period. The Cancillería's tourist visa page states the same 90-day maximum. Three things follow:

• The allowance is per entry. It attaches to your admission, not to a window. Nothing in Argentine migration law aggregates separate visits.
• One extension. The prórroga de permanencia is applied for through Migraciones before the stay expires and extends it by a similar period.
• Re-entry is a new discretionary admission. There is no rule entitling you to return, and no rule prohibiting it. The officer decides, every time.

Why it exists: Argentina has historically run an open visitor regime with generous per-entry stays and a formal extension route. The absence of a rolling cap is a policy choice, not an oversight — the control mechanism is discretion at the border, which is also why enforcement posture can tighten without any change in the written rule.

Counting the days

1. 1Day 1 is the day you are admitted. Check the period actually stamped or recorded — it can be shorter than 90 days.
2. 2Count to 90. Day 90 is your last authorised day; day 91 without an extension is an overstay.
3. 3A granted prórroga moves your leave-by date by a similar period. The counter tracks the base 90-day stay, so treat an approved extension as a new date rather than expecting the app to model it.
4. 4Leaving Argentina ends that stay. A new admission starts a fresh count from zero — there is nothing to carry over.
5. 5Separate visits are never added together: there is no rolling total to stay under.

The counter deliberately carries no rolling cap, because encoding one would invent a rule Argentina does not have. What it cannot model for you is the discretionary half of the system — that is what the caveat and this article are for.

Examples

Example 1 — the straightforward stay

Claire is admitted on 5 February for 90 days. Her last authorised day is 5 May. She leaves on 28 April. No rolling window applies, so a trip back in July simply starts a new 90-day grant.

Example 2 — the extension

Nils wants six months in Buenos Aires. He applies for a prórroga in week ten, before his 90 days expire, and it is granted for a similar period. His leave-by date moves; he updates the date he is planning around rather than assuming the counter knows.

Example 3 — the visa run that did not work

Ryan has done four consecutive 90-day stays, each refreshed with a day trip to Colonia. On the fifth return the officer asks what he does in Argentina, where he lives and how he is funded, and grants him 30 days instead of 90. Nothing in the law was breached — the discretion was always there.

Exceptions & edge cases

• Shorter grants happen. Visa-required nationalities, and anyone an officer is unsure about, may receive less than 90 days. The stamp governs, not the headline figure.
• Health-insurance declaration. Visitors have had to declare health insurance on entry since mid-2025. Carry the documentation; the underlying decree's legal status is contested but the border practice is real.
• Decree 366/2025 is unsettled. The Cámara Nacional Electoral declared the decree null on 30 June 2026 in a citizenship case. The wider consequences are still unresolved, so do not build a travel plan on either the decree or its annulment.
• Overstay resolution. An overstay is settled on departure with a fine and, in some cases, an exit clearance (habilitación de salida). Budget the time as well as the money.
• Tourism is not work. The tourist category does not authorise local employment. Argentina has separate temporary-residence categories, including routes for remote workers and for those with Argentine family.

Common misconceptions

• "Argentina now has a 90-in-180 rule." It does not. No government source states a rolling window. Migraciones and the Cancillería both describe a per-entry stay.
• "A border run guarantees another 90 days." No. Customarily it works; legally it is a fresh discretionary admission and can be refused or shortened.
• "The extension is automatic." It is an application to Migraciones, with a fee, that must be filed before your current stay expires.
• "90 days is what I always get." Up to 90. Check what you were actually granted and set the counter to that.
• "The 2025 decree created the rolling cap people mention." It did not — the decree concerned other migration provisions, and there is no visa-run clause in it. The rolling cap simply does not exist.

Häufige Fragen

Quellen

• Dirección Nacional de Migraciones — Turistas
• Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores — Tourist visa information
• Dirección Nacional de Migraciones — Prórroga de permanencia