Legal citizenship and ordinary residence

Three or five habitual years

Article 75 requires three habitual years for a foreign applicant with a family constituted in Uruguay, or five without such a family. Both cohorts require good conduct and the specified capital/property or professional, scientific, artistic or industrial connection.

Habitual residence must be evidenced

The Electoral Court requests residence and movement certificates. An absence exceeding six consecutive months restarts the applicable three- or five-year period on re-entry. Its guidance also requires evidence of means of life over the applicable period and qualifying witnesses who have known the applicant for that period.

Functional Spanish, not an assigned CEFR level

Applicants whose language is not Spanish must understand and express themselves in Spanish; otherwise the application is not processed. The reviewed Court guidance does not establish a CEFR level or a separate named citizenship examination.

Grant and civic rights are different stages

For the ordinary Article 75(A)–(B) cohorts, the Constitution delays exercise of rights inherent in legal citizenship until three years after the charter. The Court tells holders to present the charter after three years to obtain the civic credential.

Later naturalisation affects legal citizenship

Article 81 distinguishes nationality, which is not lost even through foreign naturalisation, from legal citizenship, which is lost through a subsequent naturalisation. The nationality non-loss clause must not be presented as unconditional dual-citizenship protection for this route.

A separate passport procedure exists

The charter proves legal citizenship. DNIC provides a separate passport application for legal citizens, requiring an identity document regularised to that status and the charter; a civic credential is required when the charter is more than three years old. Passport availability does not erase the constitutional status distinction.

Passport-format change is not a new nationality law

The government announced a return from 1 August 2025 to the passport version preceding the April 2025 changes, with future adjustments still under consultation. This does not establish a grant of nationality through the legal-citizenship route or uniform treatment by every destination.