Hiring a Foreign Chef in Peru: Decree 689 Limits and Visa

Peru's Decree 689 caps foreign staff at 20% of headcount and 30% of payroll, so one well paid head chef from Japan can break the payroll cap in a small kitchen even while it passes on headcount. A written fixed term contract must be registered with the Ministry of Labour before Migraciones grants worker resident status, for S/58.80 and up to 30 days. Most restaurants should search Peru's Nikkei community of roughly 200,000 people first.

1. Peru's Nikkei community: search here first

Peru has the oldest history of Japanese migration in South America, dating to 1899. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) puts the resulting Nikkei population at roughly 200,000, the third largest Japanese-descent community in the world after Brazil and the United States. MOFA also counted 2,982 Japanese nationals in Peru on 1 October 2025, and 2,540 of them (85.2%) hold permanent residence rather than a work assignment. None of these people need a work visa from you: a Peruvian citizen of Japanese descent, a permanent resident, or a foreigner with a Peruvian spouse, parent, child or sibling can join your kitchen with no immigration step at all, and none of them count against the 20% and 30% limits in section 2.

The community's hub in Lima is the Asociación Peruana Japonesa (APJ), which runs cultural and language programmes and connects to the kenjinkai (prefectural) associations many Peruvian Nikkei families still belong to. Advertise there, in Spanish and Japanese, before anywhere else, and name the cuisine precisely: a sushi counter, a ramen kitchen and a Nikkei fusion menu need different training. Our guide to Japanese kitchen roles helps you write the brief.

Nikkei cuisine trained locally is often the better hire, not the fallback. Peru invented Nikkei cuisine, and several of the country's best known Japanese-Peruvian chefs trained entirely in Lima, under other Nikkei chefs, with no time in Japan. For a menu built on that technique, a Lima-trained candidate can outperform someone freshly arrived from Japan, at a fraction of the cost and none of the paperwork below. Bring a chef from Japan when your concept needs classical technique the local market has not developed, such as an Edomae sushi counter or a kaiseki menu. That is a call about your concept, not a rule of law, so make it deliberately.

2. The 20% and 30% limits, worked

Legislative Decree 689, the Law on Hiring Foreign Workers, opens with a preference for Peruvian workers (Article 1) and sets two caps in Article 4: foreign workers may be no more than 20% of the total workforce by headcount, and their pay no more than 30% of total payroll.

Headcount rarely bites: one foreign chef in a ten-person kitchen is 10%. Payroll is what catches restaurants, because a head chef from Japan is usually the highest paid person in the building. Peru's monthly minimum wage (Remuneración Mínima Vital, RMV) is S/1,130, the only official pay floor that applies to everyone. Take a ten-person kitchen where the nine Peruvian staff earn at or near that floor:

Pay the head chef more than about S/4,357 in that kitchen and the payroll cap breaks even though headcount is fine. Raise the Peruvian team's pay, or add Peruvian staff, and the ceiling rises with it. Run this arithmetic, foreign pay divided by total team pay, with your own numbers before you make an offer.

3. Does your chef qualify for the Article 6 exemption?

Article 6 lets an employer request exemption from both percentages for, among others, professional or specialised technical staff and managers of a new business activity. A head chef who designs the menu, trains the kitchen and answers to no one else has a real argument for "specialised technical staff"; a line cook filling a rota gap does not. Article 3 separately exempts foreigners with a Peruvian spouse, ascendant, descendant or sibling, holders of an immigrant visa, and nationals of countries with a labour reciprocity agreement, regardless of role.

Do not assume the exemption before you sign anything. Ask MTPE or a Peruvian labour lawyer to confirm it in writing before you commit to a salary that would otherwise break the 30% cap.

4. The foreign worker contract and SIVICE

Under Decree 689, a foreign worker's contract, and any change to it, needs authorisation from the labour authority (Article 2):

• The contract must be written and fixed term, up to three years and renewable, with a commitment to train Peruvian staff in the same occupation (Article 5, amended by Law 26196).
• You file a sworn statement that the hire is within the 20%/30% limits or exempt. The contract is treated as approved on submission, subject to later inspection (Article 7).
• Supporting documents: the sworn statement, the contract, the chef's certificates legalised by the competent authorities, and proof of a return ticket (Article 8). Filing false statements or skipping the training commitment draws fines (Article 9).

MTPE keeps the national register through its online system, SIVICE. The decree's rules have been amended repeatedly since 1991 (JETRO lists changes to Supreme Decree 008-2018-TR), so confirm the current checklist with MTPE before filing. For the clauses your contract needs beyond the visa requirements, see our employment contract checklist.

5. Migraciones: worker resident status

With the labour-approved contract, the chef applies to Migraciones for worker resident status:

• Applicant must apply from outside Peru, with no police, criminal or judicial record.
• The contract must be labour-approved (unless exempt), issued no more than 30 days before, and run at least one year; a shorter or probationary contract is a different application.
• Your legal representative signs a sworn statement, and the company must be active with the tax authority, SUNAT.
• Fee: S/58.80, online, stated maximum response 30 calendar days.

After arrival, the chef applies for the carné de extranjería, valid four years and renewable before expiry. Track both that date and the contract's renewal date.

6. What to pay

We found no official figure for what a Japanese or Nikkei head chef earns in Lima, so the RMV of S/1,130 is the only hard number, and it is a floor for the lowest paid worker, not a market rate for a chef. Set the offer instead by: pricing the actual role rather than the floor; if the chef is coming from Japan, anchoring to their current Japanese pay plus relocation cost, not the Peruvian floor (see sushi chef salary by country for figures elsewhere); then re-running the 30% check from section 2 at the number you land on.

The template below is a bilingual summary letter for a candidate still in Japan, to send once terms are agreed in principle, before the formal Spanish contract.

7. Cost and a 12 week schedule

General information gathered from official sources in September 2026, not legal or immigration advice. Decree 689 and its regulations have been amended repeatedly since 1991; confirm current requirements and fees with MTPE and Migraciones, and get local legal advice, before acting.