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Today, March 18th, marks 4 years since we first landed in Montevideo, Uruguay. A day later, the country closed its borders,as you may recall, in March 2020 we were at the beginning of a complex global context due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. The purpose of this blog is to share the advantages and disadvantages experienced during these four years in Uruguay, acknowledging that no country is perfect.

We’ll start by highlighting the advantages from a personal and business perspective. Personally, the process of obtaining legal residency was efficient and quick compared to other countries: we obtained temporary residency in six months and permanent residency in nine, with simple requirements and low costs. Getting the Uruguayan ID took us around four months. The security that Uruguay offers is one of the most significant advantages for us, directly related to the quality of life. For more details on why we chose Uruguay, you can refer to this Blog.

Another advantage that Uruguay offers is granting citizenship to all children born in the country, regardless of their parents’ status, a notable advantage compared to countries like Australia where the baby is born under the legal status of the mother at the time of birth.

Nowadays, we are already progressing with our citizenship process, as having a Uruguayan child requires us to meet 3 years of various requirements, which we have already fulfilled. Being able to access the Uruguayan passport is undoubtedly another great advantage, especially when comparing the benefits it offers compared to the Colombian passport in terms of international mobility, such as with countries like Australia, Canada, and it is expected that soon Uruguay may once again be on the list of countries with visa benefits or exemptions to the United States, which it had had years ago.

From a business perspective, once we overcame the various bureaucratic obstacles that the country has regarding business creation (in another Blog post, we briefly shared our experience creating a company in Uruguay), we affiliated ourselves with two entities that have made a significant impact for us in Uruguay: we are referring to the Uruguayan Chamber of Information Technologies (CUTI) and the Business Chamber of Maldonado (CEM). We take this opportunity to highlight the work of both entities, as although they have different focuses, for us as entrepreneurs, the benefits we have accessed as members have far outweighed the cost of the membership fee in each entity. On the other hand, the tax benefits that software companies like ours have received have also been valuable in economic terms.

Because Uruguay is such a small country, we have seen personalized treatment as an advantage in the various services we access, not only on a personal level but also in our business dealings. Therefore, processing our Canadian tourist visa was relatively simple and quick, as was renewing our Colombian passports or obtaining a Colombian passport for our child born in Uruguay, who has dual citizenship. Without going too far, experiencing the pandemic in Uruguay was a luxury, as it was never lived as unfortunately as in other countries.

Among the disadvantages, we can mention the difficulty in opening a bank account, which took us 11 months personally, and at the business level, the process was also quite bureaucratic. Additionally, the excessive costs of food and many procedures, such as those related to notaries and accounting certificates, are very high. The cost of a certificate issued by an accountant is more expensive than the cost we are charged for monthly accounting services, just to mention one example.

Being a small country with limited internal production variety, the majority of goods in Uruguay are imported, resulting in very high costs, compounded by the 22% VAT rate.

Regarding the quality of goods purchased in Uruguay, we must say that it has been generally poor. We furnished our apartment with mostly “good brand” items, yet we had to replace many of them within less than 3 years of use, a situation we never experienced in other countries even after using them for 5 or 10 years. It has been necessary to replace them because the cost of repairing something is very high.

Another disadvantage, aligned with the previous one, is the limited availability of goods. As a result, you end up buying and paying a very high cost for something you need. Otherwise, you acquire it during international trips if you have the opportunity since not everything can be purchased from Amazon like in most countries. In the case of Uruguay, there is a restriction per person with Uruguayan ID, which allows you to make 3 orders each of maximum $200 USD to be exempt from customs duties, as these range from 35% to 110% depending on the item. This is facilitated by Tiendamia, the operator that delivers Amazon and other e-commerce platform purchases to Uruguay. Obviously, the cost per kilo of the items purchased is very high, around 20 USD, and Uruguayan Customs restricts the entry of many products.

Another disadvantage, at least for us, is the intense cold of winter, without centralized heating, along with the wind and humidity, which pose a considerable challenge. Despite these difficulties, the advantages of living in Uruguay outweigh the disadvantages, as we have narrated in another Blog.

At Press Start, we’re always eager to share our experiences across various domains. If you’re interested in learning more about life in Punta del Este, you can reach out to us at this link Contact us and if you’d like to know more about our work and how it has enabled us to live in different parts of the world, we invite you to explore our projects at this link Portfolio and to read our blogs where we delve into various aspects of entrepreneurship, remote work/digital nomads, and starting a business in different parts of the world Blog. Remember, at Press Start Evolution, we’re your technological ally, we are designers and developers of custom software, augmented reality experiences, and video games for educational and marketing purposes.