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Panama Work Visa

At Kraemer & Kraemer, we have a team of attorneys specialized in immigration and labor law who provide the legal and administrative support you need to get your Panama work visa efficiently and securely. What matters most to us is giving you as much clarity as possible about the legal process, backed by personalized service tailored to foreign professionals, employers, and multinational companies.

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Overview

In Panama, labour permits for foreign nationals are governed by Executive Decree No. 6 of April 13, 2023. Under this decree, MITRADEL reorganized the categories of work permits based on the worker’s profile: regular employees, specialists, trusted personnel, or those working under special laws. Immigration status remains the responsibility of the National Immigration Service.

Two institutions are involved in the process: on one side, the Servicio Nacional de Migración grants the immigration category; on the other, the Ministerio de Trabajo y Desarrollo Laboral (MITRADEL) issues the corresponding permit.

What Is a Panama Work Visa

Foreigners who want not just to live in Panama, but also to hold a job there, have different options depending on their situation. A Panama work visa refers to the residence permit that formalizes the legal status tied to local employment. Having legal status in Panama does not always qualify you to work. Tourists and residents with retiree status, for example, cannot hold a position at a Panamanian company under that category.

Work Permit vs. Work Visa in Panama

  • Work visa: Issued by the Servicio Nacional de Migración, it establishes legal residence status in the country under an immigration category that allows the holder to work.
  • Work or labor permit: It is issued by the Ministry of Labor and Labor Development (MITRADEL) and grants the legal authorization required to hold the position, confirming that the job, the employer, and the salary comply with regulations. Its validity period varies by category. The Friendly Nations visa is initially granted for two years and may be extended up to three times for three-year periods. It must be renewed even if the visa is still valid.

Clients often come to us confused about the work permit vs. work visa distinction, holding one without the other, frequently because the permit expired while the residency stayed active. That gap creates real exposure. A foreigner with a Panama work visa but no current labor permit is present in the country but not legally employed, and working anyway risks fines for both the worker and the hiring company.

Who Qualifies for a Panama Work Visa

Before a company can sponsor anyone for a Panama work visa, the Labor Code sets hard limits on local hiring and the pay of foreign workers:

  • Ordinary positions: capped at 10% of the company’s total payroll
  • Specialist, technician, or confidential-staff positions: capped at 15% of the payroll
  • General specialist permit: minimum salary of roughly $850 a month
  • Executive position, at a company that’s operated in Panama for at least a decade: minimum salary of $2,000 a month

An employer already at the 10% or 15% ceiling cannot sponsor another work visa until it hires more Panamanian workers, or the applicant qualifies through one of the routes below instead.

Citizens of around 50 countries with commercial ties to Panama can apply for the Friendly Nations Visa. This route requires, among other things, a notarized job letter from a Panamanian company, that company’s Public Registry certificate, and a labor permit request filed with MITRADEL alongside the visa itself. Someone who qualified through the real estate or bank-deposit route, rather than employment, still needs to secure a separate labor permit before taking a job legally, even years after their residency was approved.

For an executive or specialist applying for a work visa under a company in Panama Pacifico, the process is the same as for any other Panama work visa: the employer submits the offer, and the executive or specialist follows the same permit and residency process.

Not all Panama Pacifico work permits fall outside the 10% or 15% caps: the Type 3C-1 permit, for example, is granted within the 10% limit of the company’s regular employees. The exemption is clear in two cases governed by special laws: executives of companies in the Colón Free Zone and researchers, faculty members, or technicians hired by an authorized entity in Ciudad del Saber, in Fort Clayton.

When a Panamanian company decides to hire a foreign worker, the employer takes charge of the process from the very first step. The company itself issues the formal job offer, gathers its own corporate documentation, and coordinates both the labor permit with MITRADEL and the residency visa with the Servicio Nacional de Migración.

The Foreign Professional Visa requires a university degree in a profession that isn’t reserved exclusively for Panamanians, with the diploma duly validated (nostrified) before Panamanian authorities. After two years, this route grants permanent residency along with the corresponding labor permit.

A related category, the Regular and Specialized Foreign Personnel Visa, works as a two-year provisional permit and requires a minimum salary of USD 850 a month.

The Digital Nomad Visa functions in the opposite way from the other work visas covered here. Instead of being tied to a local company, it lets a foreigner live in the country while working remotely for an employer or client based outside Panama, without entering the Panamanian labor market. Under this category, a person can live in Panama for up to 9 months, renewable once for a total of 18 months, provided they show a minimum foreign income of $36,000 a year.

Taking a job with a Panamanian company falls completely outside that scope, and anyone who shifts their plans toward local employment has to apply for a Panama work visa through a different route that allows for a labor permit.

How to Get a Panama Work Visa

Work Visa Application Steps

With the exception of the digital nomad visa, which is a short-term visa and does not go through MITRADEL, the process of obtaining a work visa in Panama begins with the employer:

  1. The employer issues a signed job offer stating the position, salary, and who covers repatriation costs if the job ends.
  2. The applicant registers with Panama’s national migrant-labor registry and obtains a Documento de Filiación before anything else can be filed.
  3. A licensed attorney submits the visa application to the Servicio Nacional de Migración, along with a notarized passport copy, a criminal background certificate, and a health certificate.
  4. The same attorney files the labor permit application with MITRADEL, typically in parallel.
  5. Once approved, the applicant appears in person for fingerprinting and to collect the physical permit card.

Companies with 20 workers or fewer can submit a simple payroll copy at this stage. Larger companies need Social Security payroll records verified by an accountant.

Work Visa Fees

Panama work visa costs vary by route, but a few figures hold across most employment-based applications:

  • MITRADEL permit card: USD 80 to USD 100 depending on category, plus a $30 renewal. (Digital nomads don’t pay this fee, since their process doesn’t involve this agency or this permit.)
  • Servicio Nacional de Migración immigration-status certificate: USD 8 in fiscal stamps
  • Government filing fees: commonly around USD 250 to the National Treasury and USD 800 to the Immigration Office

None of these numbers include the attorney’s own fee, which scales with how many agencies and filings the case actually touches.

Hire an Immigration Attorney for Your Panama Work Visa

Every route above requires a licensed Panamanian attorney to file the paperwork, and that step isn’t a mere formality. Contact Kraemer & Kraemer to learn more, or to start your Panama work visa and permit process with an experienced Panama immigration attorney. We handle both sides of the filing, for the employee and the sponsoring employer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Only with a valid labor permit from MITRADEL, issued under Decreto Ejecutivo No. 6 of 2023, not automatically just by having residency. Foreigners gain the right to work in Panama once that permit is approved; residency alone, however it was obtained, doesn’t include it. Tourists and most remote-work visa holders don’t have it at all; employment-based and Friendly Nations applicants gain it only after the separate permit clears, true for any Panama work visa route.

Yes, within limits. Companies can hire foreign staff for ordinary positions up to 10% of their total workforce, or 15% for specialists and confidential roles, and a handful of professions, including law, medicine, and engineering, stay reserved for Panamanian nationals regardless of visa status. Outside those two restrictions, a foreign employee with an approved labor permit works the same as a Panamanian hire.

The MITRADEL card costs between $80 and $100, depending on the category, and renewal costs $30. During the immigration process, you pay $250 to the National Treasury and an $800 repatriation deposit to the National Immigration Service. In payments to the government alone, the total exceeds $1,100. Added to that are attorney’s fees, which depend on how many procedures the case involves.

Plan on 3 to 9 months for a Panama work visa once the paperwork is complete for most employment-based routes. The Friendly Nations route commonly runs three to six months from first filing to permanent residency, and processing time depends far more on how quickly documents get apostilled and translated than on the government’s own queue.

If you’re a US citizen, you qualify for the Friendly Nations Visa, one of about 50 countries on that list, with a direct path to residency through employment, real estate, or a fixed-term bank deposit. Like everyone else on that list, you still need a separate labor permit from MITRADEL before taking a job with a Panamanian company. Being on that list doesn’t skip the permit step.