Ecuador’s New State of Emergency: Where Decree 498 Applies and What Expats Need to Know

ECUADOR · SAFETY & DAILY LIFE

Ecuador’s newest state of exception is roughly the twentieth since January 2024 — and narrower than the headlines suggest. But if you live in Guayaquil, Manta or the El Oro corridor, the next two weeks run on a midnight curfew, and warrantless searches are lawful across eight provinces. Here is the exact geography, the exact hours, and what actually changes for a foreign resident.

Exactly Where the Decree Applies

The decree covers eight provinces: El Oro, Esmeraldas, Guayas, Los Ríos, Manabí, Pichincha, Santa Elena and Santo Domingo. Three cantons outside those provinces are also on the list: Camilo Ponce Enríquez (in Azuay), Las Naves (Bolívar) and La Maná (Cotopaxi). Coverage that mentions “eight provinces” alone leaves out a third of the geography.

For the two cities most expats ask about: Quito is covered because Pichincha is on the list, but the curfew does not apply there. Cuenca is not covered — Azuay province is not among the eight, though its canton of Camilo Ponce Enríquez, a mining town hours from the city, is. If your daily life is in Cuenca, nothing changes legally this month.

The Curfew, Exactly

The curfew runs from midnight to 05:00, in force from 17 to 30 September, and only in four provinces: Guayas, Manabí, Los Ríos and El Oro. There are no transit permits — unlike earlier decrees, this one makes no exceptions to request online. Breaking the curfew carries a prison term of one to three years.

Practically: in Guayaquil, Manta, Babahoyo or Machala, plan airport runs, late dinners and intercity arrivals to be off the street before midnight. Restaurants and bars in the four provinces are adjusting closing times. Outside those four provinces there is no curfew at all.

Your Rights Under the Decree

Inside the covered areas the decree suspends three constitutional protections for 60 days from 15 September — that runs to mid-November if it stands. The inviolability of the home is suspended, which allows police to search residences without a court warrant. The inviolability of correspondence is suspended, allowing parcels to be intercepted on a technical report. And freedom of transit is suspended, which is the legal basis for the curfew. The decree also authorizes joint military and police operations and requisitions against trafficking and extortion groups.

The sixty days are the government’s request, not a settled fact. Ecuador’s Constitutional Court reviews every state of exception; its ruling on Decree 498 had not been issued at publication time.

The Numbers Behind It

The decree’s own justification cites 442 intentional homicides between 16 August and 10 September — twenty-six days. Guayas accounts for 187 of them, El Oro for 80 and Manabí for 73; Los Ríos recorded 52, Santa Elena 20, Esmeraldas 15, Pichincha 12 and Santo Domingo 3. Annualized, that pace works out at roughly 6,200 killings a year.

Context cuts both ways, and it is worth holding both ends. Homicides for January to July 2026 came to 4,882, down 7.8 percent on the same period of 2025 — but 2025 was the worst year in Ecuador’s history, with 9,216 killings. The monthly path has turned up again: June recorded 693 violent deaths and July 704, both above their 2025 equivalents. Radio Pichincha put the rolling rate near 49 per 100,000 people at the end of March, against about 14 per 100,000 in 2021. The direction inside the map matters too: violence has risen sharply in El Oro while Guayaquil improved — displacement, not reduction.

What It Means Day to Day

Ecuador is fully dollarized, so there is no currency angle to this decree — a dollar of rent in Cuenca or Manta is a dollar either way. The changes are physical and legal. Carry identification at all times in the covered provinces. Expect checkpoints on coastal highways and joint military-police patrols. If officers search a home inside the covered area during the decree, that search is lawful; outside the covered areas, normal constitutional protections apply unchanged.

For expats outside the eight provinces and three cantons — the Cuenca highlands, most of the Sierra, the Oriente — nothing changes legally. For those in Guayaquil and the coast, the operative facts are the midnight curfew through 30 September and the warrantless-search window through mid-November, unless the Constitutional Court shortens either. The regional picture is in our daily guide for Thursday 17 September.

More: Ecuador news in English, every day from The Rio Times. See also our daily guide for Thursday 17 September.

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