Uruguay is considering a procedural reform that would remove mandatory witness hearings from legal citizenship applications and make documentary evidence the main standard of proof. The change would not alter the substantive citizenship requirements, but it could reduce delays in a system now handling about 1,500 applications per year.
Uruguay’s Senate Committee on Constitution and Legislation has taken up a bill that would end mandatory witness testimony in legal citizenship applications. The Chamber of Representatives passed the text unanimously on May 6, and three ministers of the Electoral Court appeared before the Senate committee on June 2 in support of the proposal.
The bill rewrites 12 articles of Law 8,196 of February 2, 1928 and repeals eight others. That law governs how foreigners prove the conditions required under Article 75 of the Constitution for legal citizenship.
The core requirements remain unchanged. Applicants must still demonstrate:
- Good conduct
- A profession, capital, or property in Uruguay
- Three years of habitual residence if they have family constituted in Uruguay
- Five years of habitual residence if they do not have family constituted in Uruguay
Why Uruguay Wants to Remove Witness Hearings
Under the current procedure, every applicant must present witnesses who testify at a separately scheduled hearing.
Witnesses must:
- Be over 25
- Hold a civic credential
- Have known the applicant for the full qualifying residence period
The rules exclude relatives, employers, employees, military personnel, and active police officers.
This witness requirement has become a major source of delay. If a witness forgets the applicant’s surname, address, or how long they have known each other, the Electoral Court can require a substitute witness and schedule a new hearing.
Minister Arturo Silvera identified these witness substitutions as among the leading causes of rejection and delay. In many cases, application files are already complete on paper but remain stalled while waiting for testimony that has become redundant.
Demand has grown sharply. According to figures Silvera gave the committee:
- Applications averaged about 300 per year between 2010 and 2015
- They rose to about 600 per year over the following five years
- They have reached roughly 1,500 per year over the past five years
Argentines and Brazilians have historically made up a large share of applicants. Applications from Cubans, Venezuelans, and Dominicans have grown the fastest.
The lower house committee report described cases where applicants received a date to begin the procedure a full year after requesting one. Once the procedure begins, Minister José Garchitorena estimated that it takes three to six months.
Intake has already been decentralized across all 19 departmental offices, but Silvera described that administrative change as useful yet insufficient.
Documents Would Become the Main Evidence
Under the proposed reform, applicants would prove residence through documents showing entry and permanence in Uruguay.
Examples include:
- Migratory certificates
- Passports
- Rental contracts
Proof of arraigo, meaning rootedness through a profession, business, capital, or property, would come from institutional certificates. National bodies would be required to issue these certificates free of charge.
For good conduct, the Electoral Court would obtain the certificate directly from the Interior Ministry’s scientific police, removing that step from the applicant’s side.
Witness testimony would not disappear completely. It would remain available only as supplementary evidence. If an applicant cannot obtain a required document, they may offer substitute evidence, exceptionally including testimony, which the Court may assess at its discretion.
The bill also removes outdated procedures from the statute, including justice of the peace proceedings, political party delegates at hearings, and fines for contraventions.
As a transparency measure, the Electoral Court would have to publish on its website each month the list of resolved applications and the decision in each case.
Wider Definition of Family
Family status matters because it determines whether an applicant qualifies after three years or five years of habitual residence.
The bill expands the definition of familia constituida. The new text recognizes family in four situations:
- Marriage
- Judicially declared cohabitation
- Having descendants
- Living with and supporting a parent or sibling
The 1928 framework was essentially anchored to marriage.
Couples who cohabit without a judicial declaration would remain outside the definition. Senator Pedro Bordaberry questioned this in committee. Court ministers responded that accepting undeclared unions would reintroduce the testimonial proof the bill is designed to remove, because a bare declaration could otherwise reduce the residence requirement by two years.
What Does Not Change
The bill does not change the substantive conditions for legal citizenship. Applicants must still prove age, residence, means of living, family status where claimed, identity, and good conduct.
The bill also does not address the Electoral Court’s administrative requirement that applicants understand and express themselves in Spanish.
It does not change the electoral calendar. Under the Constitution, new legal citizens cannot exercise citizenship rights until three years after the card is issued. Silvera also noted that only about one in four legal citizens ever registers in the Registro Cívico Nacional.
The reform does not resolve Uruguay’s broader nationality issue. Legal citizenship grants civil and political rights but not nationality. That distinction was behind the passport anomaly Uruguay corrected in 2025. The committee report and Court ministers stressed that this bill only regulates Article 75 procedure.
Legislative Status
The original draft was written by the Electoral Court and presented to Senate President Carolina Cosse last year. Representatives from across the political spectrum introduced it in March.
Silvera argued in committee that the bill requires only a simple majority because it changes procedure rather than the constitutional conditions for citizenship.
As of the June 2 session, the committee had not scheduled a vote.
Uruguay’s legal citizenship timeline already remains relatively fast in the Americas, with a three-year route for applicants with family constituted in Uruguay and a five-year route for those without. Permanent residency has no investment threshold, and Uruguay’s participation in the Mercosur residency area adds regional mobility.
The main procedural bottleneck has been the witness hearing: a step applicants could not fully prepare for or control. The proposed reform would shift the process toward documents, reduce reliance on testimony, and remove a common source of delay without changing the underlying eligibility rules.
Source article: www.imidaily.com
