- A minimum of $20,000 must be available to one person to apply for a residence permit, to pay for the flights, to open a bank account and to remain with a minimum reserve of money.
- A minimum of $30,000 must be available to a family of four.
- A Building Plot must be at least 600 m² in size.
- One square meter of a Building Plot is available from $30.
- A Farm Land must be at least 3,000 m² in size.
- One square meter of a Farm Land is available from $8.
- To build a self-made house costs about $600 per square meter.
- A row house, with a size of 60 m² is in planning, the price per square meter will be around $800.
In this section you may learn all about “Building Plots” and “Farm Lands”.
A flight to Panama costs about $800, and a stay of two weeks will cost about $700 to $1,000. One day in Panama City may cost you $100 dollars per day, or even more.
Citizens from 50 countries receive a tourist visa which is valid for 180 days upon entry. Residence permits can be applied for, during this period. All future residents of Finca Bayano, who had a neutral police certificate of conduct and who submitted the necessary documents in time, have managed to get a residence permit within less than six months. The second step is to apply for a work permit, if you intend to work here, as illegal work is also forbidden in Panama. The processing time of the work permit is approximately three months.
Both, a residence permit as well as a work permit are needed if you want to live and work at Finca Bayano. The cost is about $4,600. It is not possible to stay permanently at Finca Bayano with a tourist visa. There are foreigners in Panama who travel to Costa Rica every six months, to stay there for three days in order to re-enter Panama and get another 180-day visa. In our case, this option makes no sense because a tourist visa does not provide any security.
Since the first income from the sales of our own products is not expected before the end of 2020, future residents of Finca Bayano must have minimum reserves of money. It is possible to live in our house for a small fee, and as we produce about half of our food ourselves, the cost of living is within a manageable range. $500 dollars per month should be enough for a single person – a family of four should be OK with about $1,200.
The most suitable visa for future residents of Finca Bayano is called the “Friendly Nations Visa”. To apply for it, you have to establish a company and you must open a bank account. The regulations are discussed in the section Residence Permit. The cost of establishing a company is $2,000. An account with a bank in Panama must be opened and the amount of $5,000 must be kept in that account until the application for a residence permit has been finalized.
If you don’t want to buy land or build a house at Finca Bayano and you intend to live in our house, you must have at least $20,000 at your disposal:
For a family of four, this amount increases to about $30,000. The cost of residence and work permits for the whole family is approximately $8,000. As for an individual’s application, a company must be established for a family application, too, and also, an account with a balance of $5,000 must be opened.
If you want to build a house, you have to buy land.
According to the law, the smallest Building Plot must have a size of at least 600 m². It starts from 30 dollars per square meter.
A house may also be built on a Farm Land, the size of which must be at least 2,000 m². One square meter of a Farm Land is available from $8 per square meter.
As far as the cost of the building of a house is concerned, you should not undercut $600 per square meter. It is possible to build at much lower cost with natural materials, however, since we are preparing for a global collapse, the house should be considered safe.
The optimal solution is to buy a Building Plot for the construction of a house as well as a Farm Land for the large-scale cultivation of food and the breeding of animals.
It is also planned to build Row Houses, with a size of 60 m² per unit. If there is a requirement of 120 or 180 m², the Row House can be expanded to a second or a third section. With this option, future residents can invest more money in a Farm Land at Finca Bayano. Instead of buying the smallest Building Plot with a size of 600 m², they only buy a Mini-Building Plot of only 100 m² of land around the Row House, and they save the money for 500 m² of a normal Building Plot.
There is still enough “Plan B” at Finca Bayano. Who knows for how much longer?