Argentina was founded in part with an expressed desire to encourage immigration, with early leaders writing in the Constitution that their country would remain open to newcomers. This attitude, a booming economy, and other factors combined to make Argentina one of the world’s top immigration destinations during its early history. Between 1830 and 1950, 8.2 million European immigrants arrived in Argentina, more than any other country globally aside from the United States during this period. Furthermore, the country was the destination for 80 percent of all intra-South American migration in the 20th century.

Immigration peaked in the early 20th century when the foreign born accounted for approximately 30 percent of Argentina’s population; it has fallen sharply since then. The country’s approach to migration policy has evolved in complex ways and has come to involve greater integration with neighbors, including allowing free movement. However, over the last decade, policies have turned much more restrictive, as leaders have sought to limit immigrants’ access to permanent residency and citizenship.

In 2022, close to 2 million immigrants lived in Argentina, comprising just over 4 percent of the total population and making the country the second largest immigrant destination in Latin America, after Colombia (home to about 3.1 million immigrants, according to mid-2024 UN Population Division estimates). The largest numbers of foreign born are from Paraguay, followed by Bolivia, Venezuela, and Peru. Meanwhile, a combination of 20th-century military governments and repeated economic crises have contributed to the emigration of Argentines to Spain, the United States, Italy, and other destinations.

This country profile examines Argentina’s migration past and present, focusing on major immigration policies and trends. It offers information on the historical belief that immigration from Europe was the pathway to development, rising immigration from elsewhere in Latin America in the latter half of the 20th century, and increasing restrictions in recent years, among other dynamics.

Historical Immigration Trends

Soon after the country’s independence in 1816, Argentine elites embraced immigration. Prominent early political leaders Juan Bautista Alberdi and President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (in office from 1868 to 1874) thought immigration would be a solution for Argentina’s small population—which stood at roughly 500,000 in the first part of the century—and Europeanize its local culture. They sought to encourage arrivals from Europe, and particularly Northern Europe.

Alberdi coined the phrase “to govern is to populate” (“gobernar es poblar”) to indicate that immigration should be the main instrument for Argentina’s modernization. He thought education should play a major role but was not sufficient on its own; even if one makes the “gaucho, the cholo, [and a] fundamental share of our popular masses go through the transformation of the best education system, not even in a hundred years [will you] get an English worker,” he claimed in his writing, using a derogatory term to refer to rural and Indigenous people. Alberdi believed that immigrants from Europe would educate the local population through their work habits.

The 1853 Constitution, drafted by Alberdi, reflected this eagerness. It established a representative and federal republic and contained several immigration provisions. The preamble invited immigration of all “good-willed citizens of the world,” and the Bill of Rights granted equal rights for all inhabitants—not just citizens. Moreover, Article 25, which is still in effect today, stated that the “federal government will encourage European immigration and may not restrict, limit, or burden with any tax whatsoever, the entry into the Argentine territory of foreigners who arrive for the purpose of tilling the soil, improving industries, and introducing and teaching arts and sciences.”

To attract these immigrants, Congress passed the Avellaneda Law in 1876, creating immigration offices in Europe, subsidizing transportation to Argentina and land in the country, and offering immigrants temporary lodging and free transport inland upon arrival. According to this law, any individual who could prove their aptitude to develop an industry, art, or otherwise useful occupation could immigrate to Argentina. After 1881, immigration increased rapidly (see Figure 1). Immigrants’ share of the population rose from 12 percent in 1869 to 30 percent nationwide in 1914 and 50 percent in Buenos Aires. From 1870 to 1914, 5.9 million immigrants arrived in Argentina, and more than half of them settled permanently.

Tensions and Changes for New Arrivals amid Industrialization

However, the composition of the immigrant population differed from the dream of Sarmiento and Alberdi to chiefly entice Northern Europeans. Most immigrants came from Italy and Spain, with other notable origins including Uruguay, Chile, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire (see Figure 2). Several factors explain why Argentina attracted so many of these immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including its open policies, economic success, and world events. Among them was Argentina’s status as a top agricultural exporter at the turn of the 20th century, which made it an attractive option in the Americas.

Despite the plan for immigrants to work the land, many new arrivals settled in Buenos Aires. While 57 percent of immigrants in 1914 worked in agricultural sectors such as cattle ranching and grain production, the government’s system of allocating land was ineffective, and large numbers of immigrants ended up settling in big urban centers. In 1895, migrants owned 80 percent of Buenos Aires’s industrial and commercial establishments.

With the rise of industrialization, not everyone was benefiting at the same pace. Sixty percent of immigrants and a large portion of the native population lived in poverty and were often subjected to exploitative working conditions. The urban working classes, vulnerable to the cycles of an economy that heavily depended on foreign investment and imports, gradually began to organize into labor unions. Like in other countries, as labor unrest spread, elites often scapegoated immigrants and restricted the entry of people with leftist ideologies.

Other selective immigration policies were also linked to changing social and economic conditions. As poverty and crime increased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the government restricted immigration of the indigent, people likely to become a public charge, and criminals.

Global trends also affected who came to Argentina. The Spanish Civil War, the World Wars, and the Holocaust would play a role in driving European emigration, for which Argentina was well positioned to benefit. Immigration in the 20th century increased from places other than Romance-language European countries, including refugees fleeing Nazism and people from Argentina’s neighboring countries, although the foreign-born population never surpassed the 1914 peak of 2.4 million. In the 1920s, Poles and other Central Europeans were the third largest group of new arrivals, after Spaniards and Italians. Before the outbreak of the World War II, many Jewish and other persecuted people arrived in Argentina, although the country later imposed bureaucratic obstacles for future Jewish refugees.

Indeed, World War II dampened multiple types of immigration, especially in combination with 1938 legislation that required immigrants to have a permit to land (permiso de desembarco) from Argentine consulates in their country of origin, which were available only after completing extensive paperwork. The permit had to be approved in Argentina by a committee composed of members of the Ministries of Interior, Foreign Relations, and Agriculture. The Ministry of Foreign Relations, in principle, was reluctant to accept refugees. In practice, however, it signed agreements with several private companies and organizations to form agricultural colonies (some of which were suspected of corrupt practices), including with the Jewish Colonization Association. Despite the numerous obstacles to settlement of Jewish refugees, some 22,500 entered the country.

Latin American Immigration and Law 25,871

Immigration from Argentina’s neighbors—Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay—rose rapidly beginning in the mid-20th century. Whereas 43,000 immigrants from these countries lived in Argentina in 1869, the number increased to 330,000 in 1947. They would continue to grow in number: While migrants from the surrounding region represented less than 9 percent of Argentina’s foreign-born population in 1914, by 2022, they accounted for two-thirds (see Figure 3). For years, migrants from neighboring countries were recruited at the border by contractors and entered without much scrutiny.

This growth happened even though, during the decades of military-led governments in Argentina (which ran intermittently from 1930 to 1983), policies restricted immigration from other Latin American countries while continuing to encourage arrivals from Europe. Strict rules for admission resulted in large numbers of Latin American immigrants without legal status. Democratic governments sporadically regularized the status of many of these immigrants, often in the direct aftermath of periods of military rule; amnesty decrees were issued in 1958, 1964, 1974, and 1983. Additional regularizations were offered after full democratization in 1983, with decrees issued in 1992, 2004 (more on this below), and 2005.

In 2002, Member States of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR)—a free-trade agreement originally signed by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay in 1991, which Venezuela and Bolivia later joined (although Venezuelan membership has since been suspended)—announced they would allow for free movement within the bloc. The following year, Argentina’s Congress passed Law 25,871, which has been characterized as one of the world’s most progressive immigration policies and marked a historic change for the country. Importantly, this law recognized the human right to migrate (in Article 4) and, departing from a long tradition of prioritizing European immigration, authorized citizens of MERCOSUR Member States plus Chileans to live and work freely in Argentina. In addition, the law codified rights in both Argentina’s Bill of Rights and international agreements; regardless of immigration status, individuals have the right to education (Article 7), health and social services (Article 8), family reunification (Article 10), and to vote in local elections (Article 11). The law also established that the government facilitates immigrants’ integration (Article 14) and regularizes their immigration status (Article 15). Finally, this law regulates deportation and grants the right to judicial review (Article 61).

Law 25,871 also established the various routes for immigrants to obtain permanent, temporary, or transitory residence. Generally speaking, the only foreign nationals eligible for permanent residence are relatives of Argentine citizens. Several other categories of immigrants can apply for temporary residency, including those who come to work for an employer, retirees, investors, scientists and skilled workers, athletes, and official representatives of religions. Finally, tourists, people in transit, and seasonal workers can apply for what the law describes as transitory residency.

In 2004, shortly after the passage of Law 25,871, Decree 836/2004 and Decree 1169/2004 allowed for the regularization of immigrants already residing in Argentina from non-MERCOSUR Member States and from nations in the bloc, respectively. Decree 836/2004 proved legal status to about 12,000 people, most of whom were Chinese, Korean, Colombian, or Dominican. Decree 1169/2004, known as Patria Grande (Big Fatherland), regularized close to 424,000 individuals, most of whom were Paraguayan, Bolivian, or Peruvian. Unlike the regularizations that had been common during intermittent democratic governments, these decrees allowed immigrants to become permanent residents.

The drivers of this Latin American immigration have varied. Certain Argentine economic sectors have been a lure for South Americans for almost a century, including sugar mills and tobacco plantations in the northwest, which attracted many Bolivians; cotton, yerba mate, and tea production in the northeast, which drew significant numbers of Paraguayans; and Patagonia’s horticulture, wine, coal and oil, construction, and cattle industries, which have brought in sizable numbers of Chileans. Industrialization in the 20th century increasingly pulled Latin American immigrants to big cities. In more recent years, Argentina has also been host to many Venezuelans who fled their country during the economic and political crises that accompanied the administrations of Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Approximately 171,000 Venezuelans lived in Argentina as of mid-2025, a sizable number but still a fraction of all 7.7 million Venezuelans displaced since 2014.

Recent Policy Shifts and Current Discussions

Center-right coalition leader Mauricio Macri became Argentina’s president in 2015, as the country faced high inflation, economic stagnation, fiscal deficits, and depressed foreign trade, along with the elevated crime that was common in parts of Latin America. Amid these changes, the government shifted its approach to become more restrictive. Macri declared a state of emergency to address organized crime and drug trafficking. The government also cut resources facilitating the regularization of unauthorized immigrants and opened an immigration detention center in Buenos Aires.

In 2017, Macri issued Decree 70/2017 to create several new categories of inadmissibility, allow for expedited removals, and modify Argentina’s nationality law. The following year, a federal court ruled some provisions were in violation of Argentina’s Constitution. For instance, Law 25,871 established that an immigrant convicted of certain crimes is not eligible for residency in Argentina, but Macri’s decree sought to expand that bar to foreign nationals who were indicted or had only “participated” (the word was left undefined) in certain crimes—effectively meaning the mere accusation or suspicion of having participated in a crime could permanently prevent a person from immigrating. The decree also sought to expand the scope of who could be deported, making eligible for removal noncitizens convicted of a long list of lower-level crimes as well as those who were indicted or deemed to have merely “participated” in certain crimes. Decree 70/2017 also sought to establish an expedited removal process (proceso sumarísmo) that modified provisions of Law 25,871 to make fewer deportation decisions subject to judicial review and shortened deadlines for appealing removal decisions to just three days, a demand which many immigrants were unable to meet. The decree was ultimately repealed in 2021 by the government of President Alberto Fernández.

Milei’s Order: Who Is Welcome in Argentina?

Right-wing libertarian President Javier Milei was elected in 2023. In May 2025, his government issued Decree 366/2025, making sweeping changes to citizenship and residency requirements, deportation rules, and access to public services. These changes mirrored those introduced by Macri’s Decree 70/2017 several years earlier. Decree 366/2025 restricts permanent residency to the children of Argentine citizens. It made several changes to the naturalization process that have since been ruled unconstitutional, including demanding that immigrants have two uninterrupted years of continued legal residency in Argentina before they could become citizens, a change that would have forbidden interested applicants from ever leaving the country, which could have posed problems for many residents needing to visit their origin countries. The decree also sought to change jurisdiction over the Nationality Act from the courts to the National Directorate for Migration and extend the right to naturalization to any foreign-born person who made an “investment relevant to the country,” regardless of the duration of their residence in Argentina; both changes were later ruled unconstitutional.

The decree also expanded the list of violations rendering immigrants deportable, restricted the right to judicial review, and, as with Macri’s decree in 2017, established a process for expedited removals. Decree 366/2025 expanded the list of categories meriting deportation to include, among others, crimes punished with a prison sentence of under three years and violations of immigration law. It also expedited the removal process. The government has widely advertised a regulation preventing known criminals from being admitted to Argentina, yet previous laws (including Law 25,871) forbade persons convicted of certain crimes from being granted residency.

Finally, in line with political discourses in places such as Europe and the United States, Milei has stated that Argentina’s welfare state is a magnet for “undesirable” and “unnecessary” immigrants, and so has sought to eliminate access to benefits in order to reduce migration incentives. As such, while Argentina’s public health-care system has for many decades been open to all persons regardless of immigration status, Decree 366/2025 limited access to citizens and permanent residents; other lawfully present immigrants can access public health care only in emergencies. This limitation represents a departure from legislation passed by Argentina’s Congress, which grants access to health care to all persons regardless of status, and would seem to contradict the constitution’s equal rights clause for all inhabitants.

Decree 366/2025 also limited access to free public higher education to citizens and permanent residents, modifying legislation approved by Congress granting education—including at the college level—to all immigrants, regardless of status. Professionals from all over Latin American have attended Argentina’s higher education institutions for many decades, making the country an education hub in Latin America.

Bypassing Congress to Set Policy

The immigration changes made by Milei and Macri were approved by necessity and urgency decrees (decreto de necesidad y urgencia, or DNU), a type of order outlined in Argentina’s Constitution allowing the executive to pass laws in exceptional circumstances when consultations with Congress may not be feasible. These decrees have traditionally been used for economic policy. They must be signed by the entire presidential cabinet and are subject to congressional oversight.

No clear exceptional circumstance was at stake when Macri and Milei used this tool to change immigration policy. Critics have opposed these practices, on the grounds that the issues were not urgent and merit both congressional and social debate.

Current Immigrant Population: Numbers and Origins

In 2022, the year of the most recent national census, close to 2 million foreign-born individuals lived in Argentina, representing 4.2 percent of the total population. Both the foreign born’s share of the population and the overall number of immigrants has declined over the last century; in 1914, immigrants accounted for nearly 30 percent of Argentina’s residents (see Figure 4).

Reflecting the increased integration with MERCOSUR nations, Paraguayans and Bolivians accounted for the largest immigrant groups and combined represented 44.4 percent of the total foreign-born population in 2022. The number of Venezuelans, Peruvians, Chileans, and Uruguayans was also significant (see Figure 5).

Argentina has received a growing number of humanitarian migrants, and from 1985 to 2024 slightly more than 36,100 individuals applied for admission as refugees. Nearly 8,400 refugees arrived from 2000 to 2024, largely Venezuelans (42 percent), followed by Russians (32 percent), Cubans (5 percent), Brazilians and Colombians (just under 3 percent each), and Syrians (2 percent). The definition of refugee in the General Law for the Recognition and Protection of Refugees (Law 26,165) from 2006 is consistent with that of the 1951 Refugee Convention: individuals with reason to fear persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Argentina has not adopted the more expansive approach to protection outlined in the 1984 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, which several other Latin American countries have signed.

Argentines Abroad

While Argentina has traditionally been a country of immigration, by the mid-20th century increasing numbers of scientists and professionals had left the country, creating a brain drain. Repressive military governments contributed to this emigration, though better work conditions and living standards abroad played a role as well. Common destinations for emigrants during the 1950s and 1960s included the United States, Western Europe, Israel, Mexico, and Venezuela.

Large numbers also moved abroad after Argentina’s 2001 economic collapse. Spanish and Italian rules offering citizenship to descendants of their nationals likely contributed to making these two of the top destinations for Argentines abroad, home to 391,000 and 89,000 Argentina-born migrants, respectively, as of mid-2024, according to UN Population Division estimates. Approximately 216,000 Argentine emigrants had also settled in the United States as of 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Issues on the Horizon: The Future of Restrictions

Milei’s immigration rules represent a major departure for Argentina’s health and education systems. A November 2024 poll from Zuban Córdoba and Associates showed that Argentines already generally trust these public systems: While public trust in other institutions was low, 71 percent of respondents said they trusted the public health system and 72 percent trusted public universities.

Milei’s changes to immigration legislation through necessity and urgency decrees will be reviewed by Congress, which could walk back some measures. His party has relied on political alliances to advance his agenda; there are signs that its support is slipping. In August 2025, Congress invalidated several necessity and urgency decrees related to government cuts. While it has not weighed it on Decree 366/2025 as of this writing, it seems unlikely that Congress will support the decree. A federal court in August 2025 decided that Decree 366/2025’s rules on naturalization are unconstitutional; while this decision represents just one blow against the changes, it could point to broader legal challenges for the measure.

Yet even if Congress walks back some of these more recent changes, it is clear that Argentina has entered a new migration era. Amid a range of economic and other challenges, the country has embraced more restrictions while also integrating with fellow MERCOSUR Member States. Although immigration from Europe is no longer a central policy goal, the government remains focused on selective types of immigrants and has built up obstacles for others.

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