How Lima and Buenos Aires compare on cost, visas, working hours, weather, internet and safety. Every figure comes from our city guides and tools, checked and dated there.
The short answer
Lima Pick it for faster internet.
Buenos Aires Pick it for easier UK working hours and a lower US travel advisory level.
Everyday costsEven
Close: it depends more on where you live than which city. Rent, a coworking desk, weekday lunches and getting around come to $1,060 to $1,580 (£797 to £1,190) a month in Lima, against $878 to $2,130 (£659 to £1,600) in Buenos Aires.
The visaEven
Peru has no remote work visa, so the choice is about more than income. Lima: no remote work visa. Buenos Aires: Digital nomad temporary residence, no income floor.
A London 9 to 5Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires: 05:00 to 13:00, an early start. In Lima it's 03:00 to 11:00, a start in the small hours.
A New York 9 to 5Even
Normal hours in both: 08:00 to 16:00 in Lima, 10:00 to 18:00 in Buenos Aires.
WeatherEven
Comfortable months on our best-time rule: 7 in Lima, 8 in Buenos Aires. Both are comfortable in January, February, March, April, November and December.
InternetLima
Lima is faster. Typical download speed: 207 Mbps in Lima, 148 Mbps in Buenos Aires, from each guide.
SafetyBuenos Aires
Buenos Aires. The US State Department puts Peru at level 2 and Argentina at level 1.
Side by side
Measure
Lima
Buenos Aires
Country
Peru
Argentina
Language
Spanish
Spanish
Currency
Sol (PEN)
Argentine peso (ARS)
Plugs
—
Type I, 220V
Time zone
UTC−5 today
UTC−3 today
A month's basics
$1,060 to $1,580 (£797 to £1,190)
$878 to $2,130 (£659 to £1,600)
Remote work visa
None
Digital nomad temporary residence
Income needed
Nomad status in law since 2023, but no sign it has opened
No income floor
Without a visa
British passports: not checked: the UK government's entry page could not be opened. American: under 90 days for tourism, no visa; the border officer sets the stay
British and American passports: 90 days, extendable once
Tax residency
More than 183 days in any 12 months, counting arrival and departure days; resident from the next 1 January
—
Download speed
207 Mbps
148 Mbps
Comfortable months
January, February, March, April, May, November and December
January, February, March, April, September, October, November and December
US travel advice
Level 2: increased caution
Level 1: normal precautions
Meetups
1 regular group still running
3 regular groups still running
Dollars and pounds at today's exchange rate. Download speeds are the typical figure from each guide, which says where it comes from: some are for the city, some for the whole country, so treat a small gap as no gap.
What a month costs
Rent, a coworking desk, a cheap lunch on each of 22 working days, and getting around: the same four costs our budget calculator uses. The rent figures aren't always the same kind of figure (some are furnished one-beds, some are averages across every size of flat), so read the note under each.
Lima
$1,060 to $1,580£797 to £1,190 a month
Rent
$781 to $1,250Average rent for an unfurnished 100 square metre three-bed, Lince up to Barranco (Urbania, April 2026). There is no one-bed figure, so a one-bed costs less. PEN 2,690 to 4,317
A desk
$184 to $216WeWork coworking membership. PEN 634 to 745
Weekday lunches
$77 to $89Menu, the set weekday lunch at a market stall, PEN 12 to 14 each, 22 working days
Getting around
$19Metro Line 1 at PEN 1.50 a ride, two rides each working day (our arithmetic). A 2023 fare, not rechecked. PEN 66
British passports: not checked: the UK government's entry page could not be opened. American: under 90 days for tourism, no visa; the border officer sets the stay
The catch. Peru created a "Nomada Digital" immigration status in law in 2023 (Decreto Legislativo 1582): up to 365 days, extendable, for remote employees of a company based abroad. No source confirms its rules are in force. The latest, a PUCP law journal article of 25 November 2025, says the regulations had not been published and the procedures not set, so there was nothing to apply for. Meanwhile, visitors can come visa-free as tourists, for a stay the border officer sets: under 90 days for American passports. Check with Migraciones before relying on the nomad status. Make sure your entry is recorded, for example with a passport stamp. Without a record you may not be allowed to leave until immigration confirms your entry, which can take weeks, and overstays are fined on exit.
Buenos Aires
Digital nomad temporary residence
Income needed
No income floor; in pounds, No income floor
How long
180 days, extendable once for another 180
What it leads to
Nowhere directly: it is a transitory stay. Citizenship needs two years' continuous temporary or permanent residence with no trips abroad, since 2025
Without a visa
British and American passports: 90 days, extendable once
The catch. You apply in person at the immigration office in Argentina, and only passports that can visit visa-free qualify.
The average high in °C each month, coloured by the rule on our best-time page: green is a high of 20 to 32°C with under 150mm of rain; red is a high of 38°C or more or under 12°C, 250mm of rain or more, or 33°C or more with 150mm of rain or more. Hover over a month for its rain.
The UK government says street crime, including muggings and thefts, is a significant problem in Lima, and reports gunpoint robberies of British tourists in Miraflores and Barranco.
The US level is for the whole country, as the State Department sets it, and some countries have stricter advice for particular regions.
Who each one suits
From each city guide, word for word.
Lima
It suits
Someone who wants a big Spanish-speaking capital and is happy to come on a visitor stay. From December to April highs run at 23 to 27 degrees, with about 165 to 190 hours of sunshine a month. There is real coworking in Miraflores and San Isidro, from PEN 634 a month, and Peru's median fixed broadband was 206.5 Mbps in April 2025. If you like eating out cheaply, the weekday menu is a set lunch for PEN 12 to 14 at a market stall.
It doesn't suit
Anyone who wants a nomad visa. Peru created one in law in 2023, but the latest checkable source, from November 2025, said its rules were still unpublished. Anyone who needs sun all year: from June to September Lima is grey, and August averages 17.5 degrees and about 28 hours of sunshine in the whole month. The two districts you would most want to live in, Miraflores and Barranco, are the two the UK government names for gunpoint robberies of British tourists. And without Spanish, every official process is hard.
You have hard-currency income and you want a genuinely major city rather than a stopover. Three years of temporary residency gets you permanent status, and the rental market has more supply than it has had in years — freely negotiable, landlords who will take dollars, no guarantor if you pay ahead. It suits anyone whose Spanish is decent or who intends to make it so, and anyone who would rather live somewhere with a life of its own than somewhere assembled for visitors. And it suits people who can hold two ideas at once: that this is a country in the middle of a violent macroeconomic adjustment, and that right now, for somebody earning abroad, that adjustment has produced a stable and unusually good-value place to work from.
It doesn't suit
If you want the number on the page to still be the number in three months, go somewhere else. Inflation is 33.5 per cent a year and every peso figure here will be wrong by Christmas. The exchange-rate arbitrage that made this city famous among nomads is dead — the blue rate beats the official rate by about one per cent, so anyone still telling you to bring five thousand dollars in cash is describing 2023. English will get you fed and will not get you through an immigration appointment. Under the 2025 decree you now need health insurance and proof you can support yourself, and if you leave for six months your residency evaporates. Citizenship still says two years and now says continuous, which means two years without going home.
