There is a particular kind of stability that doesn’t make headlines. No charismatic populist promising transformation. No boom-bust cycles that attract speculators and punish everyone else. No slot in the news cycle, because nothing is burning down. Uruguay has been quietly delivering that for decades, and right now — with the US fraying at the edges and Europe doing what Europe does — more Americans are noticing.
We sat down with Mark Teuten, a British-trained lawyer who arrived in Montevideo 36 years ago, intending to stay for one year and never left. His firm, Teuten Abogados, has helped hundreds of expats — Americans, Brits, Canadians, Europeans — establish legal residency in Uruguay. What follows is a summary of what he told us, and what it actually takes to build a foothold there.
The short version: Uruguay is not glamorous. Costs aren’t dramatically lower than in the US. Amazon doesn’t ship there. Cars might cost double. And the immigration process requires you to be physically present for most of a year while your application is pending. For the right person, none of that matters — because what Uruguay offers in return is something increasingly scarce: a functioning, stable, quiet democracy that will let you get on with your life.
