Nepal

Nepal issues temporary permissions, not settlement. Every category in the Immigration Rules carries an expiry date, and Nepali law contains no permanent residence status for a foreigner to apply for. The one route that functions like a retirement visa is real, costs about USD 1,200 a year, and is documented almost nowhere.

Can you stay in Nepal long term?

No, not permanently. There is no permanent residence category, no investor settlement route and no points system. A foreigner can hold a Nepali visa for twenty years and still be one refusal away from having nothing.

Ten years is achievable, but only as a chain of renewals. The Residential Visa gives one year at a time, requires USD 20,000 in a Nepali bank plus documented income of USD 20,000 a year, and is renewed annually with a fresh expenditure statement, a new medical certificate and a No Objection letter from your embassy. The Home Ministry can refuse or reprice it at each renewal. Nothing accumulates.

The alternative is marriage to a Nepali citizen. That route is gender asymmetric: foreign wives can apply for naturalised citizenship, foreign husbands cannot. Nepal also does not permit dual nationality, so naturalisation means renouncing your existing citizenship. Naturalisation on the 15 year residence ground is discretionary and effectively closed.

Remote work has no legal basis. The digital nomad visa has been announced repeatedly since 2023 and was still not operating in October 2026, with no category on the Department of Immigration schedule. In practice remote workers live on tourist visas, which are capped at 150 days in a visa year and do not authorise work.

Ways to move to Nepal

Read the third column first. It tells you whether the route carries family and whether it leads anywhere, which matters more than the headline price.

The programmes

Tourist Visa. The default entry document, and the only thing most visitors ever hold. USD 30, 50 or 125 for 15, 30 or 90 days in 2026, multiple entry, extendable in Kathmandu or Pokhara at USD 3 a day. The ceiling is 150 days per visa year, and the visa year is the calendar year, so an October arrival has about 90 days left rather than 150.

Residential Visa (retiree). The closest thing Nepal has to a retirement visa, and the reason this page exists. One year per issuance for foreigners aged 60 or over, or retired, with USD 20,000 of savings and USD 20,000 of documented annual income. It grants no settlement and never counts toward anything, but it is a legal way to live here without leaving every 150 days.

Business Visa. Up to five years per issuance for foreign investors, keyed to a Department of Industry recommendation. The visa fee is trivial, USD 1,000 for five years at the lower band. The obstacle is the investment itself, because the Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act floor is NPR 20,000,000, roughly USD 154,000 at the 2022 rate, not the USD 100,000 that investor marketing quotes. A business visa is also not a work permit.

Working Visa. Employer sponsored, with a labour market test and a skill transfer plan. The permit runs one year as standard, up to five for highly skilled roles. Two separate approvals are needed before the visa, and renewal is refused where the plan to replace you with a Nepali citizen shows no progress.

Marriage Visa. USD 15 a month, issued in months, renewed while the marriage subsists. Both spouses must attend the counter in person. It leads to citizenship for a foreign wife and to nothing at all for a foreign husband, which is the most consequential asymmetry in Nepali immigration law.

What Nepal is bad at

Permanence, entirely. There is no permanent residence status, so every route on this page is a subscription rather than a destination. Remote work is unlegislated, and the nomad visa has been announced for three years without an application channel. Family rules are thin: a spouse can be endorsed on a Residential Visa but must meet the same USD 20,000 financial test, so a couple needs double the money. The business route is priced for investors of a size that barely exists, with a FITTA floor that sits above the widely advertised USD 100,000 investor threshold, so the two numbers contradict each other and the higher one wins. And the Residential Visa itself is published inconsistently, with a new application fee quoted as USD 700 on one department page and USD 1,200 on another.

Guides

• Tourist Visa: the fee bands, the 150 day cap, and how the extension counter actually works
• Residential Visa (retiree): the USD 20,000 plus USD 20,000 test, the documents, and the annual cycle
• Business Visa: the FITTA floor, the fee bands, and why it is not a work permit
• Working Visa: labour approval, work permit, visa, and the skill transfer condition
• Marriage Visa: registration, the citizenship asymmetry, and renewing indefinitely

Sources

• Department of Immigration, visa information and visa fees and documents, checked 2026-10-22
• Nepal Tourism Board, tourist visa guidance, checked 2026-10-22
• Department of Industry, Foreign Investment and Technology Transfer Act 2075 (2019) threshold, checked 2026-10-22
• District Administration Office Lamjung, citizenship by marriage guidance, checked 2026-10-22

Last updated 2026-10-22.