All About El Salvador

Visa Requirements for El Salvador
All non-residents of El Salvador must pay a $10 fee and will receive a 90-day visa upon arriving in El Salvdor by plane.  If you wish to stay longer than 90 days you can apply for a visa extension for up to another 90 days.  A visa extension cost $25.00.  From what I've heard, you may apply for a visa extension no more than 3 times, so use them wisely. I have gotten one visa extension and it was very easy to do.  I will explain more on that process in a blog post.  If you wish to stay longer than 180 days, you can apply for temporary residency, but I have heard it is not an easy thing to get.  It also costs around $400.00.  To receive a new visa for 90 days all you have to do is leave the country for more than 72 hours.  However, this does not include going to Guatemala, Nicaragua or Honduras as they are part of the CA-4 Agreement.  You must go beyond these countries to either Mexico or Costa Rica.  Remember that El Salvador residents need to apply for a visa to get into Mexico.

Now, children under the age of 18, with one or more parents born in El Salvador do not need visas to get into El Salvador.  It's not necessary to pay the $10 visa fee and they can stay as long as they want.  I found this out when bringing Liliana back and forth.  We plan on getting her dual citizenship at some point so when she is an adult, she can easily move between the U.S. and El Salvador easily.  Children are still required to have a passport however and I suggest carrying a birth certificate as well.  I have been asked for my daughter's before coming into the country to prove her papa is from El Salvador.  Keep it in you carry-on just in case.

For more information on getting a passport for a baby or child click here.