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Tax10 min read16 October 2026

Chile Tax Reform 2026: What Changes for Expats, Business Owners and Property Owners

Chile's reform is law: corporate tax falls to 23% by 2029, property tax exemption from age 65 and a tax amnesty for undeclared foreign assets.

Harley Bieder
By Harley Bieder, Latin America specialist, VidaLibrePlan

Chile is cutting its corporate tax, freeing older homeowners from property tax on their own home and opening a window in which undeclared foreign assets can be regularised against a flat tax. All of this sits in a single law known in Chile as the Megarreforma, officially titled "para la reconstrucción nacional y el desarrollo económico y social". Congress passed it in early August, and the Constitutional Court completed its review on 2 October.

What many reports leave out: since 17 October 2026 it has been law, as Ley 21.850, published in a special edition of the Diario Oficial. Almost every deadline runs from that publication date. If you live in Chile, own a Chilean company or own an apartment there, you should know exactly what is settled and what only starts running from promulgation. For an overview of the country as a whole, see our Chile country page.

Where the law stands

The bill carries Boletín number 18.216-05. The government introduced it as a Mensaje in the Chamber of Deputies on 22 April 2026. The Senate's legislative record shows the whole journey: second reading in the Senate in July, a joint conciliation committee, and on 4 August 2026 approval by both chambers and the Oficio de ley al Ejecutivo. On 5 August the President submitted observations, which both chambers accepted by 12 August.

After that the bill went to the Tribunal Constitucional. Three proceedings ran in parallel. Groups of deputies and senators challenged individual provisions, and the court struck out, among other things, parts on aquaculture, environmental law and investor contracts. The government had also challenged one article itself; the court dismissed that challenge in case Rol 17.892-26. Finally, the mandatory review: in case Rol 17.917-26-CPR the court ruled in its judgment of 2 October 2026 that three groups of provisions are unconstitutional and must be removed:

  • Article 12, a right to compensation for project developers whose environmental approval (*Resolución de Calificación Ambiental*) is overturned in court,
  • parts of Article 32, namely the conditions under which municipalities were to receive compensation for the property tax lost through the senior exemption,
  • the sixth paragraph of the seventeenth transitional article, which would have allowed municipalities to keep revenue outside the municipal equalisation fund.
  • The tax rules that matter for private individuals were not affected. With Oficio Nº 21.625 of 5 October, the Chamber of Deputies sent the cleaned-up text to the President, stating that it was now for him to promulgate the law. The Senate record logs this step on 8 and 9 October.

    Status on 20 October: the law has been published as Ley 21.850 in special edition 44.576-B of the Diario Oficial of 17 October 2026 (CVE 2888352), and the Senate record lists it as Tramitación terminada. Anything without its own start date applies, under the ninth transitional article, from 1 November 2026.

    Corporate tax: from 27% to 23%

    Chile's corporate income tax is called the Impuesto de Primera Categoría. For companies under the general regime (Article 14 letter A of the Income Tax Law) it currently stands at 27%. The reform amends Article 20 so that it permanently sets a single rate of 23%. The path there is phased in the sixth transitional article:

  • financial year 2026: 27%, so no relief yet,
  • financial year 2027: 25.5%,
  • financial year 2028: 24%,
  • from financial year 2029: 23%.
  • For companies in the Pro-Pyme regime for small and medium-sized businesses, the transitional rates of Article 25 of Law 21.755 apply alongside, and the reform text refers to them explicitly. Monthly provisional payments are reduced by fixed percentages in January to March of 2027, 2028 and 2029, so that companies do not keep prepaying at the old rate.

    Fully integrated again: what shareholders gain

    For owners of a Chilean company, the second part matters more than the rate itself. Chile taxes profits in two stages: the company pays Primera Categoría, and the shareholder pays personal tax on distributions and credits the corporate tax against it. Under the general regime there is currently a restitution obligation (restitución): if you use the corporate tax credit, under Article 56 number 3 and Article 63 of the Income Tax Law you have to give back 35% of it.

    The reform deletes this restitution obligation in Articles 14, 56, 63 and 74. Under the fifth transitional article this takes effect on 1 January 2027, but with a ramp: for credits from tax year 2028 the restitution is still 30%, for credits from tax year 2029 still 20%. Only after that is the system fully integrated again, with the corporate tax fully creditable against the shareholder's tax.

    There is one point here that depends on where you live. Under the current Article 63, the restitution obligation does not apply, even today, to shareholders resident in a country with which Chile has a double tax treaty in force, provided the treaty allows the corporate tax to be credited against the withholding tax. This exception is expressly preserved during the transition. For shareholders in such treaty countries, little changes at this point. Shareholders resident in a country without such a treaty pay the full withholding tax (Impuesto Adicional, generally 35% under Article 58) and currently bear the restitution obligation. For this group, reintegration has the biggest effect.

    The double taxation question at home

    Whether you actually benefit from a cut in Chile depends on what your home country still asks for afterwards. Chile's own list of treaties is on the tax authority SII's overview. Whether your country has a treaty with Chile, and how Chilean tax is credited at home if it does not, depends on where you come from:

    How the move works for residence purposes, from arrival to becoming resident in Chile, is covered in detail in our guide to the Chile residence permit.

    The three-year window stays unchanged

    For newcomers, the most important rule is not part of the reform and stays as it is. Article 3 of the Income Tax Law provides that a foreigner who establishes domicile or residence in Chile is taxable only on Chilean-source income for the first three years from arrival. The Regional Director can extend this period en casos calificados (in qualifying cases). After that, worldwide taxation applies.

    Under Article 8 number 8 of the Tax Code, you count as residente if you spend more than 183 days in total in Chile within any twelve-month period. The reform changes nothing in this framework. How the window compares with Uruguay and Ecuador is shown in our comparison of tax holidays.

    Tax amnesty for foreign assets

    The third transitional article opens a voluntary, extraordinary declaration procedure for assets and income held abroad. It covers taxpayers domiciled or resident in Chile who should have paid tax in Chile on foreign assets or their income and did not. The key points of the text:

  • The window opens on the first day of the third month after publication and stays open for twelve months.
  • It covers assets acquired before 1 January 2026, including their income, and expressly also crypto assets, trusts and holdings in foreign companies.
  • The SII assesses a one-off tax of 10% on the declared value, which replaces all other taxes on these assets.
  • 7% applies to anyone who actually brings the assets to Chile (no later than three years after publication) and keeps them invested there for at least five years, at least 80% in Chilean real estate, securities or instruments with a Chilean underlying. Anyone who breaks the holding period pays the difference plus a penalty of 20% of the declared value.
  • Excluded are assets that, at the time of declaration, are held in countries the FATF classifies as high-risk or non-cooperative.
  • For people in their first three years in Chile the procedure is usually irrelevant, because foreign income is not taxable in Chile during that period anyway. It becomes interesting for anyone who has lived in Chile for more than three years and never declared, or only partly declared, accounts, portfolios or companies in Europe or elsewhere. Bear in mind: the procedure only settles the Chilean side. Whether your home country still wants something on the same assets is decided by its own law.

    What property owners and buyers need to know

    Property tax: exemption from 65 for your own home

    The reform adds a new letter F to the exemptions in Property Tax Law 17.235: individuals aged 65 and over no longer pay contribuciones on their vivienda principal, the main home they live in. The text does not require Chilean nationality. The conditions:

  • only one home in the whole country, plus parking space and storage room at the same address,
  • it must be your habitual residence and centre of life, proven by an annual sworn declaration to the SII,
  • refuse collection charges and the previous year's property tax must be paid,
  • in co-ownership the occupant needs at least 50%, and where the share was inherited from a spouse, 25% is enough.
  • Anyone who gives false information pays 300% of the evaded tax and loses the exemption for ten years. Under the eighth transitional article it applies from 1 January of the year after publication. As the law was promulgated in 2026, that means from 1 January 2027. The Constitutional Court only struck out the compensation rules for municipalities, not the exemption itself.

    VAT exemption on buying new homes

    The fourth transitional article exempts the first sale of new homes from VAT for one year, regardless of value and size. The condition: final building approval (recepción definitiva) must have been granted before the law was published. The year starts on the first working day of the second month after publication. For purchase contracts signed since the bill was introduced in April there is a refund rule, provided the deed expressly mentions the exemption.

    Flat 5% tax on rental income

    If you let your third or subsequent so-called vivienda económica with up to 90 square metres of living space, you can opt from 1 January 2027 for a one-off tax of 5% on gross rent. If you buy a new vivienda económica of up to 140 square metres within twelve months of publication, you can also switch that home into the regime. What else to watch for as a foreign buyer is in our guide to buying property in Chile.

    Gifts, stock market gains and old retained earnings

    Gift tax: the first transitional article gives every donor a one-off 50% discount on gift tax under Law 16.271. The gift must be made by public deed within one year from the first day of the second month after publication, to forced heirs, and in total cover no more than half of the donor's net assets.

    Share gains: gains from selling listed securities covered by Article 107 will, from 1 January 2027, no longer be subject to today's one-off tax of 10%, but count as non-taxable income.

    Old reserves: companies with legacy balances in the Fondo de Utilidades Reinvertidas or the Saldo Total de Utilidades Tributables can settle them within eight months of publication with a substitute tax of 10%.

    For large investors from USD 50 million, Article 26 also introduces tax stability for 10 to 20 years. For most people relocating, it plays no role.

    What only applies from promulgation

    Almost every deadline depends on publication in the Diario Oficial. The general rule of the ninth transitional article: entry into force on the first day of the month after publication, unless otherwise provided. The other start dates at a glance:

    MeasureStart under the text
    Corporate tax rate 25.5 / 24 / 23%Financial years 2027, 2028, 2029
    End of the restitution obligation1 January 2027, ramp 30 / 20% up to tax year 2029
    Property tax exemption from 651 January after publication
    Declaration procedure for foreign assets1st day of the 3rd month after publication, 12 months
    VAT exemption on new builds1st working day of the 2nd month after publication, 1 year
    Gift tax minus 50%1st day of the 2nd month after publication, 1 year
    Substitute tax on old reserves8 months from publication
    5% rental tax, share gains1 January 2027

    So before you sign a gift deed, buy a new-build apartment or declare foreign assets, check in the Diario Oficial whether and when the law was published, and which Resoluciones the SII has issued on it. The text expressly requires the tax authority to issue implementing rules on several points, for the declaration procedure, for example, a Resolución within three months.

    What life in Chile feels like beyond tax, from costs to visas, is described in our basic guide to moving to Chile.

    Carpe Diem. Life is short and fleeting. One shot. Make it count.