President Javier Milei signed Decree 285/2026 on April 27, appointing Aixa Granara as Executive Director of the Agencia de Programas de Ciudadanía por Inversión (APCI). Argentina’s Official Gazette published the decree on April 28.
Granara’s appointment, effective from April 22, is ad honorem: she will serve without salary. The unpaid designation could suggest an interim arrangement, with a salaried directorship to follow once the program becomes operational and generates revenue.
Both her title, licenciada, and her background place her squarely within Economy Minister Luis Caputo’s orbit; she previously held the sub-titular role in the Ministry of Economy’s Unit for Strategic Articulation of Economic and Productive Areas, a temporary body she left in December 2024.
An Agency Without a Program
APCI now has a head. What it does not have is an operational citizenship by investment (CBI) program.
Decree 366/2025, signed in May 2025, created the legal basis for CBI by amending Argentina’s Citizenship Law (No. 346) to allow foreigners to naturalize through “relevant investment” regardless of residency duration.
The same decree created APCI as a decentralized body under the Ministry of Economy. Decree 524/2025, gazetted two months later, set out the multi-agency vetting procedure for applications.
Neither decree defined what constitutes a “relevant investment.” No qualifying thresholds, eligible sectors, or application procedures have ever been published. The government’s plan was to outsource all of this to a master agent selected through an international tender.
That tender died on April 14. Resolution 522/2026, signed by Minister Caputo, voided the procurement in its entirety after two bidders filed formal challenges following the evaluation commission’s recommendation to award the contract to a four-firm consortium. Argentina did not award a contract and did not pay any compensation to the bidders.
The underlying decrees remain in force, and the tax residency fix passed by Congress in February 2026 stands. Granara’s appointment signals that the government intends to build program substance in-house rather than wait for a new tender.
Whether the Ministry of Economy will issue fresh program regulations, launch a restructured procurement, or pursue some hybrid approach remains unclear.
What is clear, however, is that Argentina’s program is still in the pipeline.
