Panama is one of the most talked-about residency destinations in the world, and most of that talk runs on anecdote. A relocation agent says demand is booming. A video says approvals are collapsing. A forum thread says the Pensionado route is getting harder. Very little of it cites the one source that actually counts the decisions: Panama's own migration service.
The Servicio Nacional de Migración (SNM) publishes residence permit statistics on its statistics page. The latest cut, a three-page report with figures to 31 July 2026, was uploaded on 17 August 2026. The full-year report for 2025 has been online since January. Put the two side by side and a clearer, calmer picture emerges than anything in the headlines.
The Top Line: 22,083 Approved, 599 Refused
In the first seven months of 2026, the SNM decided 22,682 residence permit files. It approved 22,083 and refused 599. That is an approval rate of about 97 percent, and the 2026 report rounds it to exactly that.
For comparison, the 2025 report counts 35,017 decisions over the full year: 33,262 approvals and 1,755 refusals, an approval rate of 95 percent.
So the first finding is simple. Refusals have become rarer, not more common. Five in every hundred decisions were refusals in 2025. In 2026 so far it is fewer than three.
Both reports carry the same caveat, and it matters: these are preliminary figures, which the SNM describes as subject to revision and updating. Any number below can still move.
Why You Cannot Annualise the First Half
The most common mistake with these numbers is to take the first six months and double them. Here is why that fails in 2026.
From January to June 2026, approvals ran between 2,512 and 2,912 a month, a total of 16,010. Over the same six months of 2025, approvals totalled 16,992. On that basis you could say approvals fell by about 6 percent.
Then came July. The SNM approved 6,073 permits in July 2026 alone, more than double any other month of the year. Add July, and January to July 2026 comes to 22,083 approvals against 19,898 for January to July 2025. Now approvals are up by about 11 percent.
Same data, opposite headline, depending on which month you stop counting. The SNM explains the jump in a note on the report: the July figures reflect the administrative processing of files, with a larger number of favourable resolutions in four categories, namely humanitarian protection (PPSH), the six-year extension cards under PPSH, retirees and pensioners, and dependants.
The lesson reaches beyond Panama. These statistics count decisions, not applications. A month with many approvals may mean a backlog was cleared, not that demand rose. A month with few approvals may mean files sat on desks, not that people stopped applying. Anyone who draws a trend from one or two months of administrative output is measuring the migration office's workflow, not the market.
Retirees: Running Ahead of 2025
The category most international readers care about is Jubilados o Pensionados, Panama's retiree residence, widely known as the Pensionado visa.
- 2025, full year: 1,929 approvals, or about 161 a month.
- 2026, January to July: 1,239 approvals, or about 177 a month.
On a seven-month basis, retiree approvals are running roughly 10 percent above the 2025 pace. Even on the weaker January-to-June basis, before the July catch-up, they were about 145 a month, within 10 percent of the previous year.
The age data points the same way. Of the 22,083 permits approved in 2026, 3,810 went to people aged 55 to 79 and 131 to people aged 80 or over. About 17 percent of all approvals went to people aged 55 to 79, the age bracket in which retirement residence becomes a realistic option.
Nothing in the official figures suggests the retiree route is drying up. If anything, it is one of the steadier lines in the report. The country page on Panama covers the tax side of living there as a retiree.
Friendly Nations: Slightly Below Pace
The Países Amigos category is the Friendly Nations permit, open to citizens of the countries on Panama's list.
- 2025, full year: 2,725 approvals, about 227 a month.
- 2026, January to July: 1,458 approvals, about 208 a month.
That is about 8 percent below the 2025 monthly pace on the seven-month figures. On January to June alone, the gap was larger, at around a quarter. Either way, this is a softening, not a collapse. Friendly Nations still ranks fifth among all categories in 2026, ahead of the retiree route.
Investors: Small Numbers, Stable Trend
The Inversionista Calificado category, Panama's qualified investor route, remains small:
- 2025: 327 approvals, about 27 a month.
- 2026, January to July: 219 approvals, about 31 a month.
The fixed-deposit solvency route (Solvencia propia, depósito a plazo fijo) shows a similar pattern: 141 approvals in 2025, 101 in the first seven months of 2026.
One line has effectively disappeared from view. In 2025 the SNM listed 88 approvals under solvency through real estate investment (Solvencia propia, inversionista de bienes inmuebles). In the 2026 report that category no longer appears as its own line; the smallest named category has 18 approvals, and everything smaller sits in "other categories," which totals 121. Whatever the reason, the real estate solvency route is now too small to be listed separately in the first seven months of 2026.
The takeaway is proportion. Investor routes account for a few hundred approvals a year in a system that approves more than thirty thousand. They matter to the people who use them, but they do not drive Panama's residency numbers.
What Actually Drives the Numbers
If retirees, Friendly Nations and investors together make up fewer than 3,000 of the 22,083 approvals so far in 2026, who accounts for the rest?
The 2026 report answers it plainly. The largest category by far is humanitarian security protection (PPSH), with 8,564 approvals, followed by dependants with 2,618, permanent regularisation under Decree 235 with 2,322, and employees or executives of multinational companies with 2,010.
By nationality, Colombia leads with 6,619 approvals, then Venezuela with 3,801 and Nicaragua with 2,291. The United States is fourth with 1,738, followed by China with 734.
For readers from Europe and North America, the numbers look like this in 2026 so far: United States 1,738, Spain 404, Canada 381, Italy 359, France 213, Germany 210, United Kingdom 113, Switzerland 66. Measured against 2025 approvals on a monthly basis, the United States is running slightly below last year's pace, Canada roughly level, and Germany and the United Kingdom somewhat above it. All of these are small absolute numbers, so a single month of processing can move them.
In other words, Panama's residency system is, above all, a regional migration system. The retiree and investor routes that dominate international marketing are a thin slice of the whole.
The Shift Towards Temporary Permits
One more pattern is worth noting. The 2026 report breaks approvals down by permit type:
- Temporary residence permits: 8,141
- Permanent residence permits: 6,572
- Extensions: 4,279
- Provisional permits: 3,091
In 2025, the SNM approved 13,149 permanent permits and 6,313 temporary ones over the full year. In seven months of 2026, temporary approvals have already overtaken the entire 2025 total, while permanent approvals are running well below last year's pace. The report does not say why, and it would be guesswork to assign a cause. But for anyone planning a move, it is a reason to check which stage of permit a given route actually delivers first, and how long the path to permanence takes.
What This Means If You Are Considering Panama
Four conclusions follow from the official data, none of which require speculation.
First, refusal risk is low and falling. A 97 percent approval rate across all categories does not guarantee any individual file, but it does not support claims that Panama has turned hostile to foreign residents.
Second, the retiree route is steady. Approvals are running at or above the 2025 pace. The route that brought many North Americans and Europeans to Panama is still functioning as normal in the official figures.
Third, headline trends need at least seven months of data and a look at the monthly pattern. Two different six- and seven-month cuts of the same report give opposite answers. When someone tells you approvals are up or down by a large percentage, ask which months they counted, and whether they read the SNM's own note on July.
Fourth, a permit is the start, not the end. Residence is only one layer of a move. Panama's tax rules matter as much as the permit itself. The Brief covered the tax side in Panama Bill 641 Explained, and the risk of holding residence on paper without real presence in The Panama Paper Residency That Falls Apart Under Audit.
The Value of Boring Data
There is a broader point here. Countries that publish monthly figures on their own immigration decisions, with notes explaining the anomalies, are giving you something valuable: the ability to check claims yourself. Panama's reports are three pages long, in Spanish, and freely downloadable. They do not answer every question, since they count decisions, not applications or waiting times. But they are far better than rumour.
That kind of predictability is part of what makes a jurisdiction worth considering at all, a theme the Brief explored in Why Boring Jurisdictions Win. Before deciding on Panama, or anywhere else, read the source. In Panama's case, the source says the door is open, the retiree route is working, and the loudest headlines were reading the wrong months.
Work with Sebastian
If Panama is on your shortlist, the permit is only one of the decisions. Tax residency, the rules of the country you are leaving and the route that fits your income all need to line up. Book a consultation.
