Penalty for overstaying 90 day visa
During my entire 1.5yr stay in Argentina, I usually took a trip out to Colonia for a same day in / out renewal of my 90day tourist visa a few days before it was due to expire.
However, my last time I was late and was on day 95 or 96, forgot which. I wondered what would happen when I took my flight out of EZE, and long story short - it was a 50 peso fine. And everyone there treated it as totally routine.
The details - when I showed up at EZE, the United initial check-in girl noted my visa had expired but otherwise did nothing and waved me to the counter line. Same thing when actually checking in and getting my boarding pass. However, after paying airport exit fee and going through the first security check to the immigration room, the guy there said my passport was out of order and I had to go downstairs to talk to the actual immigration office.
So I had to exit back out, only hassle there is the security check wants to see your boarding pass to leave as well as enter, then went downstairs, and with some direction from the Info kiosk, found the immigration office in one corner of the airport. Office is actually misleading - its a little open wall window with a little counter ledge in front of it.
No line when I got there and when I stepped up starting to try and explain why I was there, that I'd counted wrong on my days left, blah blah - the woman there didn't care and didn't even want to see my passport - so for all she knew, I was 5 days expired, or 5 months expired. She never looked. All she did once she heard I had been sent down because my 90day visa was expired was hand me a form that had 4 identical copies to be filled out.
All the info required was my name, that's it. I put down my passport number but no one seemed to care about that either. The immigration office lady told me to now go to the Banco Nacion just around the corner and present that to the bank for my penalty payment, then come back with the stamped copies they gave me. So I went to the bank, and again, the guy there didnt even want to see my passport - so again, far as he knew I was overstaying my tourist visa by years and that didnt seem to change the penalty cost - he just automatically stamped 50 - 50 - 50 -50 on all my copies and asked for 50 pesos. So I paid, and he stamped all four copies again as paid, kept 2 copies and gave me back the other 2.
I went back to the immigration office, the lady added an approval for exit stamp, kept one copy and gave me the last and final one, and told me to now go back to the regular immigration check upstairs.
So I went back up top, gave the immigration check guy my passport and my penalty paid form, and he stamped me out with the usual lack of attention and boredom as any other time I've exited Argentina.
Oh, before all that happened, none of the banks or cambio stations in the airport would exchange any of my pesos to dollars or any other currency because they said my passport was out of order and supposedly they are not allowed to process anything without a valid passport.
So my take away from all this is that the argentines are rabidly strict about the 90day limit (whereas in many other countries I've travelled to, I'd never paid a penalty and just got waved out with a don't do it again frown) - but as long as you go through their little bureaucracy they don't give a damn whether you overstayed days, months, or years.
Maybe there's some counter in their system that tracks how many times you've overstayed, but as far as this first one, no one in that entire chain of getting a stamp to exit bothered or even wanted to take my passport - it was just the form in quadruplicate, payment stamp, then exit stamp.
Another important consideration
Being Argentina not all immigration officers use the same stamp upon arrival. Some use a "90" day stamp and others use a "tres meses" stamp, look in your passport you will see what I mean. Once at Tigre while making the visa run to Carmello I tried asking about this.
The conversation went something like this:
Me: I've noticed that some of my stamps are different, could you please tell me if a tourist visa is good for 90 days or 3 months.
Idiotic Argentine Imigration Official (IAIO): Yes.
Me: But 3 months and 90 days are not the same thing, 3 months could be 91 or 92 days.
IAIO: Yes.
Me: So is a tourist visa is good for 3 months?
IAIO: Yes 90 days.
(This particular stamp was good for 3 months from 20 Nov. So it should have been good until 20 Jan. I went a couple days early at 89 days)
Me: So I could have stayed until 20 Feb.
IAIO: No that would be more than 90 days.
Me: But my visa says three months.
IAIO: Si noventa dias.
Me: Gracias che, buen dia, chau chau. (I got on the fucking boat)