Uruguay scores 70 / 100 — Latin America’s most stable market, but priced to reflect it.

Scarcity Passes at 7.4, anchored by two high-conviction sub-factors: supply constraint (7.5) and demand trajectory (7.5). The physical constraint on supply in prime locations is genuine — Pocitos, Punta Carretas and Carrasco are mature urban coastal barrios in a dense city with limited greenfield land; new supply in José Ignacio and Manantiales is constrained by planning regulations and the high land cost in a market where buyers are deliberately choosing scarcity. The residential market projected to reach USD 186.65 billion by year-end 2025, growing at 4.51% annually through 2028, with transaction volumes up 3.9% in the first seven months of 2024. Demand is multi-source and high-quality: Argentine high-net-worth buyers using Uruguay as a political hedge and wealth-preservation vehicle (a structural driver that has operated for decades), Brazilian investors attracted by legal certainty, European and North American relocators drawn by the residency package and lifestyle, and growing tourism receipts (USD 2.7 billion in 2024, up 12.3%, with travel and tourism approaching 10% of GDP). Uniqueness (8.0) is a strong differentiator: Uruguay’s combination of democratic stability, rule of law, neutral geopolitics, Mercosur passport, good healthcare and efficient property registry is genuinely rare in Latin America — no regional substitute offers the same profile. Programme window scarcity (6.5) is above average: the Tax Holiday 2.0 (Law 20.446) is a branded legislative product with a first-mover dynamic, and while no hard sunset is announced, the “2.0” branding implies that earlier and less generous iterations have evolved, with future reforms possible.

Exit Passes at 7.1, narrowly but cleanly. Capital mobility (8.0) is the standout sub-factor and the single best capital-mobility score in the Latin American set: Uruguay has no capital controls, no repatriation restrictions, a fully open foreign-investment regime in which non-resident buyers have identical property rights to citizens, and robust USD-denominated banking infrastructure that facilitates both entry and exit. This is a genuine structural advantage in a region where Argentina and Brazil have both historically imposed capital controls. Transaction friction (7.0) reflects a standard civil-law notarial system with transparent procedures, buying costs of 4–6% (notary, registry, taxes), no foreign-buyer surcharge, and 12% CGT on net taxable gain on property sales — a moderate but real exit cost. Holding-period flexibility (7.0) is solid: no statutory minimum hold for property investors; for those pursuing naturalisation, genuine residence of 3–5 years is required, but the asset itself can change as long as local ties are maintained. Resale liquidity (6.5) is the weakest Exit sub-factor: transaction volumes are deepening and Christie’s/GTSA note market resilience, but no public days-on-market or detailed transaction-volume series by sub-market is available, and the prime coastal segment (José Ignacio, Manantiales) has a narrower buyer pool than Montevideo prime — limiting the liquidity score despite strong market direction.