Elderly rights in Peru: what Law 30490 actually guarantees (and what it doesn't)

Who counts as an “elderly person” under the law

Article 2 of Law 30490, the Law of the Elderly Person, is direct: an elderly person is anyone 60 years old or older. That threshold — 60 — is what triggers the rights this law recognizes: priority service, state protection against abandonment or abuse, and the duties the law places on family. Don’t confuse it with other age thresholds that show up in related laws or bills, which can set a different limit, as explained below.

The rights the law actually recognizes

Article 5.1 of Law 30490 lists, across fourteen items, the rights of the elderly person. The most practically relevant ones:

“a) Una vida digna, plena, independiente, autónoma y saludable. b) La no discriminación por razones de edad y a no ser sujeto de imagen peyorativa. […] f) Una vida sin ningún tipo de violencia. […] i) Atención preferente en todos los servicios brindados en establecimientos públicos y privados. j) Información adecuada y oportuna en todos los trámites que realice. […] ñ) Acceso a la justicia.”

These fourteen rights aren’t just a declaration: several of them come with concrete enforcement mechanisms, covered in the sections below.

Autonomy doesn’t disappear with age

One of the most common points of confusion is whether a person, once they reach a certain age, stops being able to decide for themselves. The legal answer is clear. Article 6 of the law’s regulation (D.S. 024-2021-MIMP) states it without qualification:

“La capacidad de las personas adultas mayores es plena, conforme a las leyes y disposiciones vigentes […]. La autonomía de la persona adulta mayor en la toma de decisiones para definir o redefinir su proyecto o plan de vida, y la independencia en la realización de sus actos, no se pierde por la edad.”

This has a real practical consequence: no one — not a child, not a spouse, not an institution — can make decisions in place of an elderly person simply because of their age. Restricting that capacity requires a judicial curatorship process, with a real justifying cause, not age by itself.

Family duties, and what happens if they’re broken

The law doesn’t stop at general principles. Its Article 7.1 requires family members to look after the elderly person’s physical, mental, and emotional integrity and to meet their basic needs for health, housing, food, recreation, and security. And the law’s regulation (Supreme Decree N.° 024-2021-MIMP), in its Article 7.4, closes the loop with the part most people don’t know about:

“Los/as integrantes del grupo familiar que incumplan sus deberes fundamentales para con la persona adulta mayor, son pasibles de ser denunciados/as conforme a las normas civiles y penales, según corresponda, ante la autoridad competente.”

In other words, failing these duties isn’t just a moral failing: it can lead to a civil or criminal report. There’s no need to wait for the state to act on its own — the elderly person themselves, another family member, a neighbor, or anyone aware of the situation can file it.

When there’s risk: what MIMP can do, and what it doesn’t replace

Article 25 of the law identifies three risk situations that trigger state protection: poverty or extreme poverty, a dependency or frailty situation that puts the person (or others) at risk, and being a victim of any type of violence. In any of these situations, article 26 authorizes the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations (MIMP) to issue temporary protective measures:

“El Ministerio de la Mujer y Poblaciones Vulnerables, en el marco de sus competencias, dicta medidas de protección temporal a favor de la persona adulta mayor […], hasta que el órgano judicial dicte las medidas que permitan la restitución de sus derechos.”

The key phrase is “until the judicial body issues [definitive] measures”: MIMP’s intervention is administrative first aid, not a substitute for the judicial process. The regulation itself (art. 2.2) confirms MIMP has national authority to investigate infractions, apply sanctions, and issue temporary protective measures, including urgent ones.

If the violence happens within the family setting, the specific channel for that type of violence in Peru applies in parallel: Law N.º 30364, with Línea 100 and the police station as immediate channels, which applies regardless of the victim’s age. One channel doesn’t exclude the other.

CEAPAM centers have to be accredited — no exceptions

If your elderly relative receives care at a residential facility, a day center, or any establishment that charges to look after them, that institution has a legal name: CEAPAM (Centro de Atención para Personas Adultas Mayores). And the regulation is blunt about how it has to operate. Article 40.4 says:

“Ningún CEAPAM presta servicios sin la acreditación respectiva […].”

That accreditation is issued by MIMP, through the Dirección de Personas Adultas Mayores (DIPAM), and the ban also reaches state entities themselves: none of them may refer an elderly person to a center that isn’t accredited. If the facility where your relative is doesn’t show up in MIMP’s registry of accredited CEAPAM centers, that alone is grounds to report it — no proven mistreatment required on top of it.

What happens when a CEAPAM breaks the rules: the sanctions system

Law 30490’s sanctions system has two levels of authority: DIPAM decides at first instance, and its decisions can be appealed to MIMP’s Dirección General de la Familia y la Comunidad (art. 34). Article 35 sorts infractions into minor, serious, and very serious, and leaves the detailed table of which conduct fits which tier to the regulation. What the law fixes directly, in article 36, is the range of possible penalties: from a written warning, through a fine of 1 to 10 UIT, up to a 3-to-180-calendar-day service suspension or full cancellation of accreditation.

The transit discount: the part most people get wrong

Here’s the point that drives the most searches and that fewest people have straight: in Peru, no national law currently in force creates a fare discount — half fare or a free pass — for elderly people.

The law that does govern this, Law 26271, is clear and closed about who the only beneficiaries of free and discounted passes are on urban and intercity transit:

“El derecho a pases libres y a pases diferenciados […] sólo se aplicarán tratándose de: a) Miembros de la Policía Nacional y miembros del Cuerpo de Bomberos Voluntarios del Perú; b) Alumnos Universitarios y de Institutos Superiores Universitarios […]; y, c) Escolares.”

Elderly people don’t appear on that list, and Law 30490 — the law specifically about their rights — doesn’t create a benefit like this either: nowhere in its text does it establish a fare discount.

There was a bill to change this: Bill 3180/2022-CR (merged with other bills). The Women and Family Committee unanimously approved a report on 18 April 2024. That text proposed that people 70 and older pay at most 50% of the fare. But the bill never reached a plenary vote. The 2021-2026 Congress term ended, and the bill’s official record shows, dated 16 July 2026: «CARGO DE EXPEDIENTES ENVIADO AL ARCHIVO GENERAL PARA SU CUSTODIA» (the file was sent to the General Archive for safekeeping). As of 30 September 2026 the bill is not among the bills of the new Congress (2026-2031 term), and we found no new fare bill for elderly people in the Chamber of Deputies. Today it is not an enforceable right.

That doesn’t mean no discount exists in practice at all: some municipalities, transit companies, or municipal programs for elderly people may offer their own voluntary benefits. But that isn’t the same as a nationally enforceable legal right, and it’s worth not planning expenses or routines around a benefit that, at the national-law level, still doesn’t exist.