It can also be granted to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalization or for a foreigner who has provided exceptional service to the nation.
Applicants, unless they are from Spain or Central American republic, are required to revoke their former nationality and document four years of continuous residency in the territory.
After an unsuccessful attempt to become part of the Mexican Empire, in 1823, the country joined the Federal Republic of Central America, which drafted its first constitution in 1824.
[13] The federal constitution established that those born in Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua were nationals and extended citizen rights to those who had been naturalized.
[17] In 1842, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua attempted to revive the federation, and drew up a pact, specifying that naturalization required four years residence in the territory, marriage to a native, or investment in the country.
[18] Nicaragua passed a law on 18 May 1844, which curtailed the right of foreigners to acquire property, marry, or operate businesses without approval of the state or declaring their intent to naturalize.
[34] It allowed married women to repatriate upon the termination of the marriage by establishing a domicile in the country, or in the case of a foreign woman acquiring another nationality.
Married women were unable to access independent nationality and a change a husband's status, either through naturalization or relinquishment, automatically impacted the wife.
[31] A new immigration law in 1930 prohibited entry to the country for people of African, Arab, Armenian, Chinese, Turkish, or Roma descent.
[35] That year, Leonardo Argüello Barreto, Manuel Cordero Reyes, and Carlos Cuadra Pasos, the Nicaraguan delegates to the Pan-American Union's Montevideo conference, signed the Inter-American Convention on the Nationality of Women, which became effective in 1934, without legal reservations.