If you want to apply for residency in Panama, it will require a special trip to Panama to do all the paperwork. You cannot do this remotely, it takes about 7 business days for the process. But, before this step, there is paperwork you must have done ahead of time. As U.S. citizens, we had to be fingerprinted and have criminal background checks done with the FBI. After that step, the FBI checks need to be “apostilled” with the Secretary of State, another level of authentication.
After touching down at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, we quickly found a taxi who took us to The Executive Hotel smack dab in the middle of the business district, within walking distance to our attorney’s office. The following morning we met with Attorney Marcos Kraemer, of Kraemer & Kraemer Law, who went through all our paperwork. We cannot say enough good things about our experience with Attorney Kraemer and his staff. We were treated like family. There are many options for residency visas, but we opted for the Friendly Nations visas for a few reasons…we want to keep our options open in case any opportunities for work present themselves, and also because we are not drawing from a pension yet. The Friendly Nations Visa offer many perks and benefits for men over 60 and women over 55.
After meeting with our Attorney, we took a taxi to Banistmo Bank to open our Panamanian bank account. We sat down with a teller who did not speak much English, but thankfully the bank manager did, and after 3+ hours, we got our account open. If you want to open up a Panamanian bank account, it is not a cut and dry process. We had to have references letters from our U.S. banks stating we were in good standing with them. And these letters needed to be dated within 30 days of our Panamanian bank account opening. Then it was back to our attorney’s office with the checks from our new account that were needed at immigration to pay for repatriation fees and application fees.
The next day was our L-O-N-G day at immigration. If you’ve read our previous post about my broken foot incident, I had to hobble around with crutches because the previous afternoon I fell attempting to step off a high curb and broke my foot. The morning of immigration day, Attorney Kraemer’s staff brought me crutches to help me get through the day which I cannot express our thanks to him and his staff for going above and beyond. Everyone needs to spend a day at immigration, lol. There was a melting pot of faces encompassing two floors of various windows and stations, with flashing signs showing your number and to which window you were to go. There was a lot of waiting in between. Craig and I were accompanied by another client of our attorney (now friend), going through the same process, which made our day a little more enjoyable. Thanks Saku! Right before 5:00 we were starting to get concerned that we hadn’t gotten our photo ID taken yet and dreading the fact that we may have to go back the next day, but we managed to get it done in the knick of time. Leaving that same day with our Temporary Residency Visas. It was a phenomenal feeling holding that little card in my hand
There are a lot of steps involved and not for the faint of heart. There were obstacles along the way, but it made us even more focused on getting to the finish line. We were notified recently that our Permanent Visas are ready. So totally psyched!