Opposition lawmakers in Argentina have filed bills in both chambers of Congress to ban citizenship by investment (CBI) and strip out the legal provisions the government’s new program depends on. One landed in the Chamber of Deputies on October 2, the same day the government announced the program’s pricing.
Deputies Agustín Rossi and Kelly Olmos are behind that one. Senator Jorge Capitanich filed his own back on August 24, and Página/12 reported on October 6 that Deputies Florencia Carignano and Paula Penacca have put in a third.
Economy Minister Luis Caputo unveiled the program at Argentina Week in Paris. The main applicant either pays a non-refundable US$350,000 to the National Treasury or buys a US$800,000 government bond created for the purpose, and the Economy Ministry says applications will open in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The Rossi-Olmos Bill
File 5254-D-2026 carries the title “Law Prohibiting the Sale of Argentine Citizenship” and runs to 13 articles. Both signatories sit in the Unión por la Patria bloc. It went to two committees: Constitutional Affairs and Population and Human Development.
The bill starts by deleting three things that Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) 366/2025 added to Citizenship Law 346. Out would go the investment route to naturalization, the Economy Ministry’s power to decide which investments qualify, and the Agency for Citizenship by Investment Programs itself.
A flat rule takes their place. No investment, contribution, donation, payment, purchase of goods, or subscription of securities could serve as grounds for naturalization or stand in for residence. None would count, either, as the “services to the Republic” for which Article 20 of the Constitution lets the two-year residence term be shortened.
Under Article 6, the state could no longer issue debt that gives the buyer a right to apply for citizenship or any migration benefit. Nor could it hire or partner with anyone, Argentine or foreign, to design, promote, market, or run such a program, and contracts already signed for that purpose would end automatically (Article 7).
Any investment-based application still awaiting a final decision (resolución firme) would count as withdrawn the day the law takes effect, according to Article 8. Article 9 reaches people already approved: Their citizenships “lack validity,” the text says, because the executive acted in an area the Constitution closes to decrees. Both the National Directorate of Migration (DNM) and the National Registry of Persons would then cancel the documents they issued.
Congress would also get an accounting. Within 30 days, the executive would have to report to congressional committees on every application received, approved, and rejected, with applicants’ nationalities of origin, along with the amounts collected and where the money went. The terms of any bond and any contracts with consultancies, agents, or investment migration firms would be disclosed too.
“Argentine citizenship is not for sale,” the authors write in their statement of grounds, adding that it falls to Congress to say so “with the force of law.” They go on to list nine points where, in their reading, the October 2 announcement departs from the decrees it relies on.
A non-refundable contribution is not an “investment” in the sense Law 346 uses the word, they argue. No existing rule provides for a citizenship bond, and the law makes no mention of spouses or children. The authors also warn that the program puts Argentines at risk of losing visa-free access to Europe.
The Capitanich Bill
Senate file S-1441/26 predates the price list. Capitanich filed it on August 24, more than five weeks before the Paris announcement, and his statement of grounds cites press reports of a US$500,000 non-refundable contribution or a US$1 million sovereign bond.
Its 15 articles carry the title “Regime for the Protection of Argentine Citizenship and Prohibition of its Granting by Investment.” On September 4 the Senate sent it to three committees: Constitutional Affairs, General Legislation, and National Economy and Investment. No committee report appears on its record.
Much of the text covers the same ground as the Rossi-Olmos bill. Public bodies could not create, promote, or run CBI programs, set minimum amounts that buy a right, a preference, or a fast track to citizenship, or hire private intermediaries to design, market, or manage access to it (Article 3).
Under Article 8, citizenship procedures could never be the object of “commercialization, commercial representation, commission, brokerage, or private intermediation” tied to the size or nature of an investment.
Capitanich also rewrites Article 2 of Law 346. Applicants would have to prove they lived in Argentina for the two years before applying, a period that could be shortened only for “relevant services to the Republic.” Money does not qualify: Article 5 rules out transfers of funds, financial or real estate investment, bond purchases, capital contributions, and donations.
The investment provisions of Law 346 would go, as they would under Rossi-Olmos, and so would Decree 524/2025 in its entirety (Article 6). Article 7 dissolves the agency and hands its assets, files, budget, and staff to other parts of the national administration.
Residence by investment gets separate treatment. Nothing in the law, Article 9 says, stops Congress from creating or keeping residence programs, temporary or permanent, for productive investment. Conditions apply: No automatic citizenship, no lowering of naturalization requirements, checks on the lawful origin of funds, and no exceptions to the foreign-ownership limits in Rural Land Law 26.737.
Pending applicants would be sent back to the ordinary route. Under Article 12, an investment-based application without a final decision would have to meet the requirements of Law 346 as amended. Citizenships “granted by final acts” before the law takes effect are left untouched.
Capitanich writes that he does not dispute the case for attracting foreign investment. “Investing in Argentina is not equivalent to becoming Argentine,” the text reads, and he points to Paraguay’s Investor Pass as a program that grants residence, not automatic citizenship.
How the Two Texts Treat Applicants
| Issue | Rossi-Olmos (Deputies) | Capitanich (Senate) |
|---|---|---|
| Pending applications | Deemed withdrawn (Art. 8) | Must conform to the residence route (Art. 12) |
| Citizenships already granted | Declared invalid; documents canceled (Art. 9) | Unaffected if granted by final act (Art. 12) |
| Refund of contributions | No provision | No provision |
| Residence by investment | Not addressed | Permitted under conditions (Art. 9) |
| Entry into force | Day of publication (Art. 12) | Day after publication (Art. 14) |
Both bills use the same cutoff for pending cases: Whether a final decision exists on the day the law takes effect. Neither offers a refund. The Rossi-Olmos text would make the executive tell Congress how much it collected and where the money went.
Under Article 7 of the Civil and Commercial Code, laws have no retroactive effect unless they provide otherwise. Where a law does reach back, it cannot affect rights protected by constitutional guarantees.
A law declaring granted citizenships invalid “would almost certainly face constitutional challenges,” Javier Segura, an Argentine immigration attorney and the founder of Cassiopeia Immigration Services, said, citing acquired rights, good faith, and legal certainty. The legal consequences of nullity, in his view, “are not necessarily identical for an applicant whose case is pending and for someone who has already become an Argentine citizen.”
“It is too soon to say” whether a non-refundable contribution could be recovered, Segura said. He would not want an applicant “transferring the principal investment at the beginning of the process” and would prefer that it move only once the application is effectively approved, if the final rules allow it.
A Third Bill and a Separate Resolution
Página/12 reported on October 6 that Carignano and Penacca had filed a bill to repeal two Milei decrees that allow citizenship in exchange for investment. IMI has not seen the text.
Carignano ran the DNM under the previous government. On X, she wrote that the program “lowers the value of the Argentine passport” and makes it easier for foreigners to buy land, according to the newspaper.
A different kind of text has been before the lower house since July 2. Deputies Maximiliano Ferraro and Mónica Frade of Coalición Cívica filed draft resolution 3233-D-2026, which asks the chamber to declare DNU 366/2025 absolutely null for violating Article 99(3) of the Constitution and the separation of powers.
Nowhere does it mention the investment program. What it cites is a June 30 ruling by the National Electoral Chamber, which the two deputies want “shielded” by a declaration from Congress. Their draft went to the same two committees as the Rossi-Olmos bill.
The Court Rulings
The Rossi-Olmos bill cites the same judgment. On June 30, the National Electoral Chamber declared DNU 366/2025 null under Article 99(3) of the Constitution, which bars emergency decrees on electoral matters.
Two of its three judges signed, Alberto Dalla Via and Daniel Bejas, with the third on leave. Liping Yang, the applicant, is a Chinese national who had sought citizenship through residence before the decree took effect.
A lower court had turned Yang down over his irregular migration status, and the chamber reversed that decision. Citizenship brings political rights, the judges reasoned, so rules on who grants it are electoral rules. They added that the government’s stated reasons for the decree were questions of “opportunity, merit, or convenience,” which belong to Congress.
The court told the Security Ministry to instruct the DNM on the ruling and sent it to every federal judge with electoral jurisdiction. That order declares the decree null as a whole, without limiting the declaration to specific articles. Under Article 6 of Law 19.108, the chamber’s case law is binding on first-instance electoral judges.
In its reasoning, the court deals with the transfer of naturalization from the courts to the DNM. Neither the investment route, the agency, nor Decree 524/2025 comes up anywhere in the text.
Segura told IMI there is “a strong legal argument” that the nullity reaches the investment route and the agency, because both were created by the same decree. “I don’t see CBI as an independent program that can simply be separated from DNU 366,” he said. Whether those provisions can be severed and preserved, he added, “would ultimately be for the courts to determine.”
The DNM has granted no citizenships by investment to date, according to Segura, though it has granted a small number by ordinary naturalization under the decree. He would be “extremely cautious” about advising anyone to obtain a CBI citizenship from the DNM “while the underlying legal framework remains under judicial challenge.” Under Article 17 of Administrative Procedure Law 19.549, he noted, a judicial declaration of absolute nullity generally has retroactive effect, subject to limits set by the law and by the court.
Earlier, on June 18, Sala III of the federal civil and commercial appeals chamber had found the decree’s citizenship provisions unconstitutional in one applicant’s case. As for the electoral ruling, Página/12 reported on July 22 that the government had filed an extraordinary appeal asking the Supreme Court to revoke and suspend it. IMI could not establish where that appeal stands.
The Supreme Court has held since Cerámica San Lorenzo (1985) that its rulings decide only the case before it and are not binding in similar cases. Lower courts nonetheless have a duty to follow them and may not depart without offering new arguments.
What the Government Has Said
The Economy Ministry has presented the program as part of Argentina’s “process of openness and international integration.” Due diligence, it says, will follow the recommendations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Financial Action Task Force.
As announced, the agency vets each application with help from intelligence and financial oversight bodies, then sends a recommendation to the DNM, which approves or rejects it. That vetting, in Caputo’s words, is meant to protect “the international standing of Argentine citizenship.”
A Critique of the Program’s Design
Segura thinks Argentina “had the opportunity to build something much better.” He would have preferred “a model with some similarities to EB-5, where the investment has a measurable economic impact, rather than primarily a non-refundable contribution or the purchase of a government bond.”
The government “had a considerable amount of time to develop the framework, and now the implementation is moving very quickly,” he said. His hope is that this is “only the first stage” and that a later version lets investors choose productive sectors such as tourism, energy, technology, manufacturing, and infrastructure.
The phrase “citizenship for investment,” he noted, “can easily be reduced to the emotional idea of ‘selling passports.'” Argentina could have been “a serious competitor to programs such as Portugal,” in his view. “Instead, if implemented poorly, we risk looking like a premium Caribbean-style citizenship program.”
“For me, the answer is not to abandon CBI,” he said. “The answer is to build it properly.”
Where the Bills Stand
Both bills with published text were still in committee as of October 6. To become law, a bill has to clear both chambers, either of which can amend it, and a presidential veto can be overridden only if each chamber insists on the bill by a two-thirds vote.
“Under the current administration, I don’t see these proposals becoming law easily,” Segura said. A change of government after the 2027 presidential election could make the political equation “completely different,” he added.
“Argentina needs a law, not a decree,” he said, arguing that the government could take its own bill to Congress. “For an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, investors deserve something more durable than a program whose fundamental legal basis can change with an executive decree.”
Opposition blocs have asked for a special session of the Chamber of Deputies on October 15 to reject a separate Milei decree, DNU 70/2023. La Nación reported on October 5 that they had about 120 deputies lined up, nine short of the 129 needed for quorum.
Under Law 26.122, a decree is repealed when both chambers reject it, each by an absolute majority of members present. Congress cannot amend a decree in that process, and rights acquired while it was in force are preserved.
The June 30 judgment also cites Article 77 of the Constitution, under which legislation modifying the electoral regime needs an absolute majority of each chamber’s full membership. Whether that applies to a bill amending Citizenship Law 346 is a question the judges did not address.
