Minimum sizes, gear and fines: the fishing regulations of Paraguay

Fishing in Paraguay is governed by a single law, Law 3556/08 on Fishing and Aquaculture, enforced by MADES, the Ministry of the Environment. It sets the minimum sizes, the allowed gear and the fines, and each year it is completed by the closed-season resolution. Here it is, read in full, article by article, with what matters to the rod-and-reel angler. The licence has its own page: the licence step by step; the short version of all this is in licence, closed season and sizes.

What sport fishing is under the law

For MADES, sport fishing is fishing "for recreation, competition and tourism, without profit". Fish "may be returned to the water or kept for personal consumption", and selling them is "expressly prohibited". The gear is "hooks and handlines or rod with or without reel": nets, longlines and gillnets are commercial gear, not the sport angler's. The licence is individual and is issued with your ID card or passport and two passport photos, the same papers for a foreigner; if you bring your own boat you register it separately with the Naval Prefecture title.

The minimum-size table (art. 34)

Article 34 bans "the fishing, transport, sale and possession" of fish below these sizes, in total length:

• Spotted surubí (Pseudoplatystoma corruscans): 85 cm
• Tiger surubí (P. fasciatum): 80 cm
• Dorado (Salminus brasiliensis): 70 cm
• Manguruyú: 100 cm
• Patí (Luciopimelodus pati): 70 cm
• Pacú (Piaractus mesopotamicus): 45 cm
• Pirá pytá or Paraná salmon (Brycon orbignyanus): 45 cm
• Boga (Megaleporinus obtusidens): 45 cm
• Sábalo or carimbatá: 40 cm
• Armado chancho: 45 cm; armado: 40 cm
• Tres puntos, solalinde and pico de pato: 35 cm
• Corvina: 30 cm
• Trompudo (juru pito) and bagre amarillo: 25 cm
• Bagre (Pimelodus spp.): 20 cm

Two species in the guide are not in the table: tararira (wolf fish) and piranha. The law sets no minimum size for them.

How fish are measured (art. 35). "Total length" is the straight-line distance from the tip of the snout, mouth closed, to the tip of the extended tail fin. Not to the fork of the tail and not with the mouth open: a stretched tail adds a few centimetres, and on a 68 cm dorado that can be the difference between releasing it and a fine. The only exception to the sizes is farmed fish, with a MADES certificate.

The stretch shared with Argentina: dorado 75

Article 42 says that on international rivers the treaties with the neighbours apply. With Argentina that is the Unified Fishing Regulation of the Ituzaingó Convention (2000), whose article 10 repeats the law's table with one difference: dorado, 75 cm instead of 70 cm. It applies on the Paraná from the mouth of the Iguazú, downstream of Ciudad del Este: Encarnación y San Cosme, Ayolas y Corredor Paraná, Cerrito and Paso de Patria; and on the Paraguay river from the mouth of the Pilcomayo, south of Asunción y Chaco'i, down to Pilar, with Villeta e Ypeka'e in between: the opposite bank there is Formosa. The practical rule: on the border, the larger size. In Concepción, Villa Florida or an inland lagoon only the Paraguayan law applies, dorado 70 cm.

Banned gear and methods (art. 36)

Article 36 lists thirteen bans. Most target the nets and longlines of commercial fishing; these four concern the rod angler:

• Lures with more than one treble hook (item k). A lure with two or three trebles, as many come from the factory, is outside the law in Paraguay: remove trebles or swap them for singles.
• Artificial light as a fishing aid (item j).
• Snagging, "pesca al robo o al tirón" (item i): hooking the fish through the body with a bare hook.
• Toxic substances, electric discharges, explosives or gas (items g and h), which are also crimes.

The Unified Regulation for the stretch shared with Argentina adds, in its article 13, harpoons, tridents and gaffs "or any other sharp instrument" to snag or kill fish. Article 37 of the law allows the handline, the rod, floats and, for commercial fishing in permitted times and places, gillnets, beach seines and longlines.

The bag limit: what the law says and what it does not

Article 47 lists as an offence "catching a greater number of fish than authorised". But neither the law nor the MADES licence procedure publishes what that number is for sport fishing: what is written is that the fish is "for personal consumption" and that selling it is banned. We will not make up a bag limit for you. What does have a number is the closed-season exception: Resolution 523/2025 allows subsistence fishing from the bank, with a hook, up to 5 kg of mixed fish, excluding surubí, manguruyú, dorado and pacú. Tournaments have their own rules (art. 8 of the Unified Regulation): the contest at Ayolas y Corredor Paraná, for instance, is catch and release.

The closed season

The closed season is not in the law with dates: MADES sets it each year by resolution, during spawning, and it starts in the first days of November. The pattern of recent years: until December 20 in waters shared with Argentina and in inland rivers and lagoons, and until January 31 of the following year in waters shared with Brazil. During the closed season there is no fishing with a rod or with a licence, and selling live bait is banned too. Each year's exact dates are published at mades.gov.py, and the month by month is in the month-by-month calendar.

Offences and fines (arts. 47 to 50)

Offences include: fishing without a licence, fishing in the closed season, taking or transporting undersized fish, fishing in banned or reserve areas and using gear that is not allowed. Penalties (art. 48) range from a fine to confiscation of the fish and the tackle, seizure of the boat, and suspension or revocation of the licence. Article 50 sets the law's fines between 30 and 500 minimum daily wages, today Gs. 3.5–58.5 million, and makes them joint: the angler pays, but so do the boat's pilot or guide and, at a tournament, the organisers.

For the closed season MADES applies the scale of Decree 1837/2019, which grades offences from very minor (1 to 300 daily wages) to very serious (10,001 to 20,000). Fine of 3,001 to 20,000 minimum daily wages, today Gs. 351–2,342 million. The minimum daily wage is adjusted every year by decree, so the amounts in guaraníes rise with it; those in this note are at the wage in force when it was written.

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