When I arrived in Chile on Aug 31, 2026, I was given a 90 day visa that expires on Nov 29, 2026. The plan is to stay in Chile for 180 days. A few days ago, I started the process to request a 90 day extension to my current visa. It costs $100. Part of that process is to submit proof that you have enough assets to support yourself for the extra time in Chile and that you have enough to fly away when that time ends. It was recommended that you submit 3 months of bank statements showing a healthy balance each month. I downloaded my last 3 statements and added them to my visa extension application and filed for the extension.
Today, they got back to me saying that my bank statements had to be officially verified. Furthermore, that we had only 5 business days to do so. After a bit of research, I learned that I needed to bring the statements to a local notary and have them reviewed and "legalized". Not having a printer, I asked our neighbor if he would print them and he graciously agreed. Then, Laura and I traipsed down to the notary with the statements and my passport.
At the notary, I presented the bank statements to the clerk. She had me pull out my phone, visit my bank website, and pull down each of the three bank statements in turn. She compared the bank statements, as viewed on my phone, to those that I'd printed. Satisfied that they were the same, she applied the notary stamp/serial number to all the pages. We paid about $8 for the service and we went home. I scanned the now "legalized" documents and resubmitted them to the immigration site. Now, we just wait to see if the application gets approved or if there are some other issues we don't know about yet.
You might ask why Laura doesn't have to do this. The thing with Laura is, every time you leave the country and come back, you get a new tourist visa with a new 90 day window. Laura's been back to the US twice so far. Most recently, she returned to Chile on Oct 29. The sets her new visa expiration date to Jan 27, 2027. She has another trip to the US scheduled for Jan 11-Jan 16. That should reset her visa to Apr 16, 2027.
If my visa extension gets approved, it will be good until Feb 27, 2027. That's the day that we will leave Chile for good and return home.
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I did another timelapse, pointing the camera in a different direction, north along the beach:
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And, the sunset:
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