Decree 17 settled the visa threshold question on September 16. What most coverage skipped: if your residency status rests only on a presale purchase agreement, that clock — continuous or not — runs out at 3 years. Here's what that means if you're buying pre-construction for the Qualified Investor route.
Executive Decree No. 17, signed September 8, 2026 and published in Gaceta Oficial No. 30613, has been in force since September 16. The headline everyone reported was straightforward: $300,000 for new, first-sale property, no expiration; $500,000 for resale. That part is accurate, and we covered it too. What most of the coverage — including our own first pass — left out is a separate clause buried in the same decree, and it matters specifically if you're buying presale.
Sources: Gaceta Oficial No. 30613 (Executive Decree No. 17, September 8, 2026), Icaza González-Ruiz & Alemán legal alert, NDM Abogados.
Decree 17 states that the time accumulated in a migratory status sustained solely by a purchase agreement — meaning before your unit is delivered, legally segregated, and registered in your name at the Public Registry — cannot exceed 3 years, whether that time is continuous or broken up. Once the property is delivered and titled, you're holding a completed, registered asset rather than a pending contract, and this specific clock stops applying.
For a buyer purchasing a delivered, already-titled resale or new-build unit, this changes nothing. For a buyer using presale — buying into a project that's still under construction, with delivery a year or several years out — it's the difference between "the threshold never expires" (true, but incomplete) and "the threshold never expires, but your provisional status while the unit is still just a contract does have a ceiling."
Most of the newer-construction inventory we track for the Qualified Investor route — Aurum, Dieci, Selvática, Bioma, BLAU, and similar founders-list projects — is presale or under construction, with delivery dates ranging from roughly a year out to several years out depending on the project's phase. If a buyer is filing for residency based on the purchase agreement before delivery, the realistic delivery-and-titling timeline for that specific project now has a direct bearing on immigration outcomes, not just on when you get the keys.
"Ask for the developer's actual delivery track record, not the marketing timeline — the 3-year clock doesn't care which one you believed."
Decree 17 doesn't just add a time limit — it also requires that presale investments be backed by one of two structures: a trust administered by a licensed bank or fiduciary, or full payment to the developer backed by an irrevocable, unconditional banking instrument — a standby letter of credit, an irrevocable bank guarantee, or a performance guarantee — covering the full investment amount, remaining in effect until construction, segregation and registration are complete. That's a meaningful upgrade in protection against developer default compared to the prior framework, where a presale buyer's recourse if a project stalled was largely contractual rather than backed by a bank instrument.
If you're evaluating a pre-construction project specifically for the Qualified Investor Visa, these are the questions worth asking before signing:
No — under Decree 17, the $300,000 threshold for new, first-sale property has no expiration date. That's separate from the 3-year clock on purchase-agreement-only status, which is about how long you can hold provisional residency on a presale contract alone, not about the threshold itself changing or disappearing.
Under Decree 17, time accumulated in migratory status sustained solely through a purchase agreement — meaning before the unit is delivered, segregated and registered in your name — cannot exceed 3 years, whether continuous or discontinuous. If your project's delivery and titling process runs past that window, your residency status based purely on the purchase agreement is capped.
No. The 3-year cap applies specifically to status sustained by a purchase agreement alone. Once a unit is delivered, segregated and registered in the buyer's name, the qualifying investment is a titled asset, not a pending contract, and this specific clock no longer applies.
It requires the investment to be backed either by a trust administered by a licensed bank or fiduciary, or by full payment to the developer backed by an irrevocable, unconditional banking instrument (a standby letter of credit, an irrevocable bank guarantee, or a performance guarantee) covering the full investment amount until construction, segregation and registration are complete. That's a real upgrade in developer-default protection compared to the prior framework.
Three things: the project's realistic delivery and titling timeline (not the marketing timeline), which specific backing instrument protects your payment, and whether your immigration attorney has modeled your residency filing against the delivery schedule rather than against the purchase date alone.