Panama has started covering visitors with free travel insurance for the first 10 days of their stay. There's no application and no premium, and for eligible travelers arriving by air it switches on at the passport stamp.
If you're planning an exploratory trip, for a holiday, a property search, or to work out whether the country could be a future base, it's a small but real improvement. It's also narrower than the headline sounds, and the narrow part is the part worth reading.
What Panama Is Offering
According to Panama's official tourism information, coverage begins when an eligible traveler's passport is stamped on arrival at one of the airports in the program. Nothing is filled in beforehand and nothing is paid.
It runs for 10 days. It's assistance for emergencies rather than a policy you'd build a trip around, and the distinction counts for you if you're older or managing a condition.
Who Qualifies
The insurance applies to travelers younger than 86 who enter Panama legally by air through one of these airports:
It also covers Panamanians who live permanently abroad, provided they meet the entry requirements and can document their foreign residence.
Air arrivals only. If you come in by land or sea, this program isn't yours.
What It Covers
The program handles unexpected medical and travel emergencies during those first 10 days.
That includes medical and hospital care for accidents or illnesses that aren't pre-existing, medical transfers, international repatriation, and legal assistance in certain cases involving theft or accidents. Cover is valid throughout Panama, the capital and everywhere else.
The Exclusion to Read Twice: Pre-Existing Conditions
Don't treat this as a substitute for proper travel or international health insurance.
Panama's official insurance information states that pre-existing congenital or chronic conditions aren't covered. The program is built for accidental emergencies and sudden illness that begins during the stay.
Read that twice if you're in your 60s or 70s, or if you're managing anything ongoing. A free 10-day policy that excludes the thing most likely to send you to a hospital is a useful extra, not a plan. Buy your own cover as well.
If the private market has already priced you out on age, that's a separate problem with a separate answer. Panama's national system has no age cap and foreign residents can enroll in it, which is worth knowing before you write the country off.
How It Activates
There's no form to complete before you travel. For eligible visitors, cover activates automatically when your passport is stamped at a participating airport.
The program says it provides assistance around the clock in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, and lists WhatsApp on +1 305 722 5824 alongside telephone, online chat and email support.
Check the current terms before you rely on any of it, particularly on exclusions and on what counts as a covered benefit. Programs like this get amended quietly.
The Stopover Program: Up to 15 Days
There's a second thing worth knowing if you want a proper look at the country.
Panama Stopover, run with Copa Airlines, lets qualifying passengers turn a connection through Panama into a stay of between 24 hours and 15 days with no additional airfare for the stopover. It has to go on the ticket when you book it.
So a connection through Tocumen becomes several days, or a fortnight, on the ground. That's enough to do considerably more than see the airport and the Canal: compare neighborhoods, get outside Panama City, look at housing, use the transport, and find out what an ordinary Tuesday feels like.
One thing to keep straight. That window is an airline product, not an immigration allowance. How long you're permitted to stay is a separate question with a separate answer, and the stopover doesn't change it.
If Panama is already on your shortlist, that's the trip worth planning properly.
Tourism Keeps Growing
Both measures arrive while visitor numbers climb.
Preliminary figures published by the Panama Tourism Authority, using data from Panama's National Institute of Statistics and Census, put international arrivals at 1,755,998 in the first six months of 2026. That's up 17.4% on the same period in 2025.
Programs like Stopover are part of a wider effort to convert Panama's position as an aviation hub into time spent inside the country rather than time spent changing planes in it.
Where This Lands If Panama Is on Your List
Residency rules are one part of choosing where to put a Plan B. They're rarely the part people get wrong.
What people get wrong is committing to a country they've experienced for 48 hours, or not at all. Before you decide, there's real value in enough time on the ground to know what daily life is like, which is a different question from whether you qualify for a visa.
The free 10-day cover doesn't remove the need for your own insurance, and for anyone with a medical history it removes very little. Paired with the Stopover program, though, it makes the exploratory trip easier to put together.
A week in Panama will tell you more than another month of reading about it.
Next Steps
Plan B Expat helps clients compare Panama's residency options, understand what each one requires, and work out which route fits their circumstances before they commit time and money.
We coordinate with licensed counsel in Panama for the legal work. Insurance and medical cover are your own arrangements to make, and worth making properly.
Choose before you have to.
Last updated: September 2026. Written from Panama's official tourism and program information as published in September 2026. Programs of this kind change without notice, so confirm the current terms, exclusions and participating airports before you rely on them.
Plan B Expat provides consulting and coordination, not legal or tax advice. Always take counsel from the licensed attorneys, accountants and tax specialists in our vetted network.
Michael L.
Canadian founder of Plan B Expat. Permanent resident of both Panama and Paraguay. MBA in International Business, trilingual (English, French, Spanish), and two decades of real estate brokerage experience in Quebec and Ontario. Writes from direct experience navigating the immigration, banking, and relocation systems of both countries.
