How to obtain your first Paraguayan cedula
If you have just gotten your Temporary Residency (TR), congratulations. Now you need your cedula
and here's how you get it.
The government have set out the requirements here ->
https://www.policianacional.gov.py/identificaciones/expedicion-de-cedula-de-identidad-a-
extranjeros-por-primera-vez/
If you struggle with Spanish, just run that through Google translate. Here's my own step-by-step notes
to go with that:
1. Go to your local comisaria policial (police station). Ask them for an application form for the
Certificado de Vida y Residencia.
2. Round up two witnesses. They can be neighbours or whomever you've gotten to know in your first
weeks in Paraguay. They just need to be Paraguayan. In my case, I went straight to the local gas
station and had 2 attendants sign and get me copies of their cedulas in return for a propina.
3. The police will likely ask you for a copy of a services bill. If you're in my position, having stayed in an
airbnb for the past few months, I just explained that, hence no available service bills, so he was good
with that.
4. You need a copy of the passport page of your passport.
5. You need a current copy of the Interpol police check ( Certificado de antecedentes de Interpol). You
would have gotten this originally to get your TR. If it still has a valid date, you're lucky. If not, you'll
have to go back and get another one.
6. Go back to Interpol and apply for another certificado de antecedentes de interpol (interpol
background check).
7. You need to give them 2x passport grade photos, a copy of your passport, picture page and entry
stamp page - notarized; A copy of your Admission Temporaria (the card that Migration just gave you
when they granted you 2 years residency) - notarized. You can either come prepared with the 2
passport grade photos but if not, there's a place across the road from Interpol that does them (and a
couple of other places within a couple of blocks). Get your photocopies there also. Then you'll need a
notary. Whip out google maps on your phone and search for "Escribania." The nearest one is marked
"Flores." Go there - it's unmarked - just a house - 3rd garage door from the corner - press the bell. 5K
per notarized document.
8. Now back to Interpol. Cost: 108K, return to collect in 2-3 days.
9. If your Certificado de antecedentes de Extranjeros is outdated, then you'll need to go back to
Informatica and get a fresh one. Either bring a notarized copy of your passport with you or get one
notarized a block away. Cost of the cert. is 63K.
10. Once you have the Interpol police check, you can then go back to the police comisaria and submit
your vida y residencia cert. application (just give them a notarized copy - don't give them the original).
They'll ask you to come back in 24 hours.
11. Once you have the Interpol police check (Certificado de antecedentes de Interpol) and you've
gotten the Certificado de Vida y Residencia cert, go back to Interpol. Make a copy of your passport,
the Vida & Residencia cert. and the Interpol cert., then go to the notary and notarize them. Return to
Interpol, go downstairs to the Registro de Extranjeros. Ask them for the forms for the Carnet de
Registro de Extranjeros. Fill it out. It asks for 2x references and their numbers (I just put down the two
folks that facilitated my Airbnb, I guess it can be anyone). It costs around 110K but with that, it will
take a few days. If you pay 210K, they will issue it to you right there. They take a photo of you for the
card and fingerprints. I was there for around an hour.
12. You then need to run around and get the Interpol Cert. and the Certificado de Vida y Residencia
stamped. First, go to the Departemento de Personal (Address: India Juliana con Toreani Viera).
There's hardly any need to explain anything - it seemed like they were used to seeing people walk in
for these stamps every other minute.
13. Go to la Comandancia de la Policia (Address: Pyo. Independiente con Chile), the office to your left
hand side as you walk in the main entrance.
14. Get copies of 1x birth cert. - notarized; 1x carnet de registro de extranjeros - notarized; 1x TR card
notarized; 1x Passport - notarized.
5. Go to the Department of Identificaciones (it's beside Informatica). Walk to the back and you'll see a
sign for "Bloque B" over a hallway. Go there but as you enter the hallway, there's a stairwell. Go up to
the 1st floor. You'll see an office marked "Entrega de pasaportes." Go there - and at the "window"
facing you, get them to stamp the Interpol Report.
16. Go up to the second floor and enter the office that's marked "Cedulacion de Extranjeros." Take a
ticket and wait your turn.
17. Here's the documentation that you should be showing up with:
- The notarized copies mentioned above (14).
- Your apostatized birth certificate with translation.
- Your carnet de registro de extranjeros.
- Your temporary residency card
- Your passport
- Interpol report - with all the necessary stamps
- Certificado de vida y residencia with all the necessary stamps
- Your criminal background check from your home country, apostatized, and with a valid date.
- Certificado de Radicacion (the yellow cert. which you would have gotten back from Migracion when
your residency was approved).
-Certificado de antecedentes de la policia nacional (which you got from Informatica).
18. I was asked to provide a translation of my passport, something that wasn't required for the TR
application and isn't set out in the requirements of the cedula...so maybe you will or will not be asked
for this.
19.I provided a criminal background check from a country other than my country of citizenship. At
first they didn't want to take it but once I explained that I lived there for 6 years they did - But they
insisted that I showed up with a copy of my cedula from that country.
20. National documents need to be within 3 months date to be valid. Documents from abroad need
to be within 6 months date - although if any of those documents specify a shorter validity, that is
what they go by.
