The Multinational Executive Visa, Explained

A statistics label over a real regime

Search for the category name and you will find the numbers first. The migration service, SNM, counts one row under that exact name: Empleados o Ejecutivos de Empresas Multinacionales. It logged 3,061 decisions in that row in 2025.^[16] But no requirements sheet in the SNM index carries that name. The index of 85 sheets holds a different multinacionales sheet, and it is not this route.^[2]

The label sits over the Sedes de Empresas Multinacionales regime, SEM for short. A SEM is a licensed regional headquarters of a multinational group, operating from Panama for the group. The staff route under that license is the Visa de Personal Permanente de SEM. Its requirements sheets live on the commerce ministry site, not the SNM index, because the filing runs through the ministry.^[3][4] That is the honest chain, and this page follows it instrument by instrument.

The one sheet the index does carry under the multinacionales name, sheet 14, is a short-term tool. It runs under article 149-D of Decree 320 of 2008. It covers technical or entertainment services for up to three months, extendable once for three more.^[5] Not the transfer route, and not what the row counts.

The instruments, in order

• Law 41 of August 24, 2007, in Gaceta 25864, creates the regime and the staff visa in articles 26 to 34.^[11]
• Law 45 of August 10, 2012, reforms it.^[1]
• Law 57 of October 24, 2018, in Gaceta 28641, adds the salary exemption in article 13 and the permanent-residency right in article 14.^[12]
• Decree 238 of June 10, 2019, in Gaceta 28793-A, sets the permanent-residency requirements and repeals the 2013 decree that held them before.^[1]
• Resolution 4887 of February 18, 2025, in Gaceta 30228, governs the stay permit after employment ends.^[13]

The requirements sheets print the same chain at their foot, six instruments deep.^[9] When a firm page cites something else, check the gazette number before you trust it. Two decoy instruments circulate in search results, and neither touches this route.^[2]

The employer gate

None of this exists without the license. The company must hold a SEM license under Law 41 of 2007. Every staff application carries the license certificate from the secretariat.^[4] No license, no route. An employee cannot file alone.

Who gets the license is a firm answer, not a number in the cited instruments. Quijano and Associates states the group test: assets of at least 200 million US dollars, or services to at least seven group subsidiaries. The firm adds that the license runs for an indefinite term.^[15] Treat the thresholds as the firm reading and confirm them with counsel.

Who files, and what gets signed

The filing is a company act with the worker inside it. The power of attorney is granted by the company legal representative and by the foreign worker together. Adult dependents included in the application grant their own.^[4]

The paperwork goes to the technical secretariat at the commerce ministry. The desk sits on the third floor of the Edison Plaza building, open Monday to Friday, 9 to 4. Before the physical filing, the standard documents go by email to the regime address, in separate named files.^[4] The secretariat checks the file, then forwards it to the SNM for the visa decision.^[7]

The state catalog sets the secretariat step at no more than five business days from receipt.^[7] That is a front-desk term, not a promise about the visa itself. No verified end-to-end figure exists in these sources. Marketing claims about total processing time are excluded here.

One trap cuts the other way. If you hold another visa type, the renunciation of that visa is filed at the SNM first, before the regime filing, not after.^[4]

The letter your employer writes

The core employer document is a work and responsibility letter with a notarized signature. The sheet requires eight details, all of them.^[4][7]

1. Your name and personal data.
2. Your position, stated in Spanish.
3. The duration of the contract.
4. Your functions.
5. Your salary.
6. Whether the salary source is local or foreign.
7. The insurance covering you and your dependents.
8. The company taking responsibility for your repatriation if needed.

The file also carries the medical insurance certificate, collective or individual.^[4] Insurance is not decoration here. The statute makes coverage mandatory for you and your dependents, and makes the company responsible for it.^[11]

What the employee gets

The visa grant carries the work right inside it. In the words of the statute, once the visa is granted, no further trámite or permit from any other state entity is needed. You work at the licensed company and reside in Panama on the visa itself.^[11] The right is scoped. It covers your work at the SEM, not work outside it.^[11]

The term runs five years, renewable for equal periods, with no limit on renewals, unless your contract is shorter. That is the current commerce ministry reading.^[3] The original 2007 text worded the grant as the contract term, capped at five years. The renewable reading is current practice layered on the statute. Both layers are printed above.

On hiring, the firm layer is blunt. Quijano states there is no limit on hiring foreigners in the regime, against the 10 and 15 percent caps of the general labor market.^[15] The statute sets no percentage. It ties hiring of foreign trust staff for high and middle management to article 17 of the Labor Code. It also states the rule does not extend to dependents.^[11]

The money treatment is the quiet headline. Law 57 of 2018 exempts your salary, and other pay including payment in kind. The exemption covers income tax, social security, and educational insurance. The condition: the salary must be paid, assumed, and booked as personnel expense in the company accounts.^[12] The 2019 decree restates the design. The social security listing starts from the notice of entry or the first employer listing.^[1] The exemption rides on the accounting treatment, and it ends at permanent residency.^[3]

Dependents

The statute sets the dependent classes. They are the spouse, children under 18, children up to 25 in regular studies and dependent on you, and your parents if they remain in Panama under your care.^[11]

The company files the dependent visa too, with the same work letter. The file adds:^[14]

• proof of kinship.
• a notarized responsibility letter from you, naming every dependent and the family bond.
• proof of domicile.
• for children 18 to 25, a study certificate and a single-status proof.

A partner in a union of at least five years adds the company certificate of the union and a joint notarized declaration.^[14]

Work is the line to watch. Dependents do not inherit your automatic work right. The statute sends them to the ordinary work-permit rules.^[11] The regime’s hiring freedom covers the company’s own staff, not the family. A working spouse needs a permit category of her own.

Five years in: the permanent-residency turn

After five years counted from approval of the staff visa, you may apply for permanent status. It covers staff who work, or have worked, for any licensed company in the regime.^[12] The years count continuously or in broken periods, so long as they sum to five. Time across multiple licensed employers is proven with prior cards, resolutions, or company letters.^[1]

Decree 238 then splits the road in two.^[1]

If you still work at a licensed company, article 3 is your route. It is document work:^[1][8]

• the double signed power of attorney.
• a 250 balboa payment to the National Treasury.
• the notarized company letter.
• the certificate of the SEM license.
• proof of social security affiliation.
• a bank certificate from the prior month, showing a balance the decree calls four middle figures, raised by 1,000 balboas per dependent.

The decree keeps its own floor phrase. No source translates it into a fixed number, and neither does this page.

If the employment has ended, article 4 asks for all of that plus an investment of at least 150,000 balboas. Three forms qualify:^[1][9]

• a fixed term deposit of at least three years, free of liens, at a general license bank.
• real estate in your own name, free of liens. A mortgage is allowed only for the amount above a liquid paid 150,000.
• a mix of deposit and property.

The end-of-employment letter joins the file.

Dependents convert on their own clock. A dependent needs two years on the dependent permit before a permanent filing. One short of the term moves to the general permit for dependents of permanent residents, after your own status is approved.^[1]

One trade sits at the end of the road. A permanent resident may keep working for a licensed company. But from permanent status, salary in Panama becomes subject to income tax and social security. And once the status is granted, no further trámite is needed to reside.^[12][3]

When the job ends first

Losing the job used to be soft. The 2025 resolution replaced the 2011 rule it names as subrogated, Resolution 21,479, and put a hard deadline on the company. Resolution 4887 was published on February 27, 2025.^[13]

The mechanics, from the resolution text.^[13]

• The company requests the stay permit in the same filing as the visa cancellation or desistance, through its legal representative.
• The request goes through the online platform of the ministry single window, within five business days of the employment ending. The SNM does not accept late filings.
• The stay runs up to six calendar months, and only that long if the card has at least six months of validity left. A shorter card caps the stay at its own expiry.
• A new card is required at 100 balboas each, for you and each dependent.
• At the end, five calendar days to leave the country or regularize, to avoid the overstayer fine.

The resolution sets no renewal path for the permit. If a move out is possible, plan it inside the window, not after.^[13]

Categories that are not this one

The executive label gets stamped on several different permits. Keep them apart.^[6]

The sibling sheet 13 covers executives of international companies whose work takes effect abroad. It is a separate permit with its own row. That category logged 152 decisions in 2025 and 44 approvals in the first seven months of 2026, against 3,061 and 2,010 here.^[6][16][17] No headquarters license involved. Panama Pacifico has its own executive row, with 321 decisions in 2025.^[16] The EMMA regime is a separate statute, Law 159 of August 31, 2020, for manufacturing services, with its own sheet series.^[10]

Inside the SEM family itself, the article 149-D short-term technical visa described above is a different permit from the five-year staff route.^[5]

The route in numbers

In 2025 the multinational row logged 3,061 decisions: 3,053 approved, 8 denied.^[16] That denial share, under three tenths of one percent, was the lowest of any large category that year. The row ranked fourth of 28 categories. It sat behind dependents, humanitarian protection, and the mass regularization, and ahead of the Friendly Nations route.

From January to July 2026 the category added 2,010 approved permits, with a monthly run of 361, 178, 352, 211, 364, 271, and 273.^[17] The 2026 sheet counts approvals only. The 2025 sheet counts decisions. Compare the approved columns, not the totals. Both sheets carry a preliminary-data caveat, and so does every figure above.

Still in force

A currency sweep run on September 10, 2026 found no instrument that modifies or repeals Decree 238 of 2019. The 2025 SNM index carries one regime item only, Resolution 4887. The 2026 index carries one decree, and it concerns students. The commerce ministry portal is live with the current visa reading, and the sheets remain its linked documents.^{[1][13][3][4]} One 2026 law on economic substance for regime tax benefits surfaced in the sweep. It touches the tax side, not the migration chain. No verified migration effect is in evidence, so this page prints no content from it.

What to verify with counsel

• The license status of your employer, and the secretariat certification that will ride on your file.
• The current visa-term reading at your filing date, since the renewable practice sits on the 2007 statute text.
• The bank balance wording for the article 3 filing. The decree says four middle figures plus 1,000 balboas per dependent. The number is practice, not text.
• Whether your time history sums to five clean years across employers before you file article 3 or article 4.
• Dependent work-permit categories and the desk they file at, which is firm-reported practice.
• The state of Resolution 4887 if an employment end is anywhere in sight. Five business days is the company deadline, and it is not yours to fix after it lapses.

This page states the position as of September 2026 and quotes the registered instrument text. It is not legal advice. Use a qualified Panama immigration attorney before you file anything.

Last reviewed: 2026-09-10