How to move to Uruguay: Residency, healthcare, and real expat life

Hi! My name is Jana. I was born and raised in the Czech Republic but always craved foreign countries. After living in England, in 2016, at the age of 27, I moved to Uruguay. What it’s like living there?

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How I arrived in Uruguay

When I arrived in Uruguay, I didn’t speak Spanish and had very misleading information about the country—growing up watching Argentinian telenovelas, and mainly the one where the main actress is from Uruguay, and the desire to live outside Europe, made the decision easy.
Moreover, Uruguay and Chile are considered the most stable and safest countries in South America, but since Chile has earthquakes, the decision was made.

I moved with my then-boyfriend, who is from Argentina, so he knew the culture and knew what to expect. I also had a dog whom I, of course, took along.

Why I had a cultural shock

At first, it was a huge cultural shock for me. We arrived a few days before Christmas in 2016. It was super hot, I was expecting white sand beaches with blue sea. Instead, the coast of the capital city of Montevideo was brown!

Later, I was told that it’s not the sea but a river, therefore the color of the water, and that for the ocean (since that’s what it is – The Atlantic) I’d have to go to Punta Del Este.

Other surprises involved many people living in the streets, street dogs, and garbage lying around.
But not to make it sound like all was negative, I very much enjoyed the summer and the first Christmas without snow. We were staying at a hostel at that time, all the people living there would get together, each of us put some food on the table, and we had a great time.
Then, at midnight, we would go out where all the neighbors were, watching the fireworks. People were greeting each other, laughing, dancing, tables got put out on the streets, and people shared even though they didn’t know each other. It was a great “fiesta”.

And as a matter of fact, a one-hour bus ride takes you to the closest nice-looking beach in Ciudad de la Costa. Which, for me, as someone who grew up in a country without sea access (Czech Republic), was a blast.

Laid-back Uruguayan culture

Uruguay is laid back, “siesta” is important (unless working for international corporations), banks open after lunch, dinner is served at 9 pm at the earliest, and there is enough time for everything. (Unfortunately, even if it comes to doctor’s appointments).

Don’t get too strict with the time schedule, everyone will be late anyway (I think I acquired this part of the culture fairly quickly, haha). People say hi to each other on the street, even though they don’t know each other.

Last, but not least, a weekend without Asado is not a fulfilled weekend. Meat and football are an inseparable part of Uruguayan culture. Oh, and don’t get intimidated by a kiss on the cheek when meeting someone. Even if you meet someone for the first time, regardless of the gender, you’ll receive a cheek kiss! And the Uruguayan carnival is great fun!

English Certification

Soon, we found an apartment and moved in. As I didn’t speak any Spanish, all was done by my boyfriend, which bothered me a bit as I wanted to sort things out myself.

As I didn’t speak the language, but had lived in England, before moving, I got my certification to teach English as a second language and fairly quickly got a job as an English teacher at a language institute in Montevideo.

Getting a Uruguayan residency

To arrive in the country, I didn’t need a visa as a European passport holder. I was given a 3-month tourist permit, but I immediately applied for residency as I knew I’d be living in Uruguay for a while.
For that, I needed a police check from the Czech Republic and from England to prove that I haven’t done anything illegal. Birth certificate translated into Spanish and apostilled. With that, I was given a temporary permit to live and work in Uruguay and was given 2 years to prove I have a job and pay taxes to receive a permanent permit.

I got a job within a few weeks, living in Uruguay, but I had thought that I had to submit the proof just before the 2-year period expires.
So, meanwhile, if I wanted to go abroad, I’d have to ask for a permit to leave the country and to be let back in. Such a permit is easy to obtain and is cheap.
After two years, I declared that I had a stable income and paid taxes and was issued permanent residency.

Don't forget to book an activity in Uruguay

After receiving my permanent residency, I could travel without a permit, just showing my ID. But decided to apply for citizenship too. Don’t ask me why, as a Czech passport holder, it wouldn’t really bring me much of benefits, but as there is lots of passport inequality in the world, I thought to myself, why not?
Uruguay is actually pleased to receive new nationals as the population is small (3.4 million) for the size of the country (176,215 km²) and is decreasing as lots of people move abroad and have fewer and fewer children due to the high cost of living.

In order to obtain Uruguayan nationality, to submit the papers I had submitted when first moving to the country, I had to submit the history of my tax payments in Uruguay and I had to have 2 witnesses who would confirm my identity. They had to be Uruguayans, living in Uruguay.
You can get the nationality after 5 years of living there and paying taxes, or after 3 years if you’re married (yes, they really encourage marriage and having children).

The process went smoothly and fast, and soon I was able to call myself a “Uruguayan citizen”. I was happy about it.

Bringing a dog into Uruguay

My dog was born in the Czech Republic and travelled on a plane with me to England, so I had a bit of experience with dog transportation. Transporting a dog (Labrador, 7 years old in my case) to Uruguay is fairly easy.

I flew with Iberia, since my dog had to travel in Cargo, she was charged as extra luggage. She needed a health certificate from a vet in London, stating that she is vaccinated, has a chip and is in good health condition for travelling. At that time, it was also needed to do blood tests for Leishmaniasis. It was easy and smooth transportation, and my dog managed it perfectly.

Healthcare in Uruguay

Uruguay is a bit tricky when it comes to health insurance. It’s a very complex system, nor the Uruguayans understand. But in a nutshell, you have the option to have access to private, high-profile hospitals where membership is quite costly, or to “mutualista”, which the majority of Uruguayan people use. It’s more accessible financially and still offers a good quality of medical attention.

And then there is Asse. A public health sector, where you can register just by proving you have a job and the coverage is paid from your taxes (with mutualista and private health sector, it’s deducted from your taxes and on top of it you have to pay some extra). I opted for Asse.

Living in Uruguay

I have fallen in love with this place; however, I could still see the challenging aspects of living there – having to have bars on the windows against robberies, not leaving your car parked in the streets overnight because it will most likely get robbed or damaged. The incredibly high cost of living (I used to live in London and thought that there was no city more expensive than that, oh, was I wrong).

But the people, the culture, the beach. You could cross the coast from Montevideo to the borders with Brasil, in under 5 hours by car. The department of Rocha has wonderful beaches and a great, chill vibe. The coast of Rocha and Maldonado departments is a favorite of many, including me.

And also, how diverse and multicultural the country is. Again, London is very cosmopolitan, but I felt like I engaged with more cultures in Uruguay, mainly in Montevideo, than anywhere else. It’s more authentic, and people are free to express themselves. Maybe because it’s relatively small country and a small capital city, I could perceive it more.

Do people speak English in Uruguay?

I would go to language exchange dinners, where people from all over the world would get together to learn Spanish and English. The municipality of Montevideo also gives free Spanish classes, where we were encouraged to share our cultures while learning about the Uruguayan one.

So, even though most of the people in Uruguay speak English and I was an English teacher speaking English every day, I learnt Spanish fairly quickly, gaining the freedom of arranging things for myself without depending on someone.

What I love most about Uruguay

I think the most beautiful thing about Uruguay for me is how people gather on the beach to play beach volleyball, to hang out and watch the sunset. Mainly with maté, no beer or alcohol, but maté. The hot beverage is meant to be shared. It’s said that you identify a Uruguayan by his flask and mate in the hand 😊
And when the sun sets, everybody claps. It’s just such a great atmosphere.

Uruguay is also well known for being one of the first South American countries to legalize same sex marriage, the first country to legalize abortion and the cultivation of marijuana. People are free. The church is separated from the state. So, religion doesn’t get involved in law-making. They don’t even celebrate Easter, they celebrate “The week of Tourism” where families get together and go for holidays within the country for a week.

They also have a great school system, especially for schools outside of Montevideo. As I had mentioned, it’s a relatively big country for only 3milion people, half of them live in the capital. So many schools in the cities further away from the coast lack teachers of some subjects.
So, the country came up with a solution called “Plan Ceibal”. I had the privilege to work with this program, teaching children from faraway cities English virtually from an office in Montevideo. That way, children had access to education.

Uruguayans are skeptical

I could go on and on in detail about life in Uruguay. Unfortunately, many Uruguayans are skeptical about their future or quality of life nowadays, blaming it on “being a small country”. It would make me sad that they don’t see how great a country if fact it is.

Luckily, not all are so skeptical and realize the potential, developing tech companies and industries that invite growth into the country.
Yes, nothing is black and white, and there are pros and cons to everything. For example, I’m sure you heard about the famous “poorest president”, Mr. Jose Mujica, who used to be the president of Uruguay. Globally, he grew to fame by being modest. But in Uruguay, he is not particularly popular.

Overall, I’m a proud Uruguayan passport holder and consider Uruguay my second home. I don’t live there anymore. I was inspired by the “hippie” culture you can see mainly in the department of Rocha, and bought myself a motorhome to travel South America. You can read about my adventures on Kangatravel.

I explored mainly the coast of Uruguay, and saw very little of the interior (hope to change that soon!). In the interior, you should see lots of tranquility, cows, gauchos, beautiful landscapes, and lovely towns.

Living and working in Argentina: A guide from an Expat

Expats in Uruguay

Expats and foreigners (especially from Europe and the US) are well received there. Some locals are even proud of having European ancestors and would proudly highlight, “Oh, my great-grandpa was Czech!”.
Actually, my process of receiving permanent residency was much faster than for my boyfriend. Just because he is Argentinian, and those are not so well seen in Uruguay…nationality discrimination is everywhere.

A last note

If you have any questions about living in Uruguay, immigrating there or about what to visit, feel free to reach out. There are also strong FB groups which help out with questions I might not have answers for, such as Uruguay Expat Community or the blog Guru’Guay is a great source of information and support.

Greetings, Jana

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