For Chileans

How tax residency works

Under article 3 of the Income Tax Law (Ley sobre Impuesto a la Renta), people resident or domiciled in Chile pay tax on worldwide income, mainly through the Impuesto Global Complementario (the personal income tax, at progressive rates up to 40%). The tax authority is the SII (Servicio de Impuestos Internos, the internal revenue service).

Residence is a day count. Since the 2020 tax modernisation law (Law 21.210), article 8 No. 8 of the Tax Code makes you resident if you spend more than 183 days in Chile, continuously or not, within any 12 month period. The window rolls rather than following the calendar year, and the SII treats residence as lost after 184 days abroad within 12 months.

Domicile is the harder test. It follows the Civil Code: residence together with the intention, real or presumed, to remain. Article 4 of the Income Tax Law adds that absence alone does not end domicile, particularly if you keep the main seat of your business in Chile, directly or indirectly. The SII looks first at where your income producing activity and economic interests are, with family ties as supporting evidence.

The result is that a Chilean can lose residence by spending the year abroad and still be taxed on worldwide income as someone domiciled in Chile. Leaving properly means ending both.

Leaving properly

Article 103 of the Income Tax Law is a control rule for people leaving. If you will stop being liable to the personal income tax because you lose your domicile and residence, you must declare and pay the tax accrued for that calendar year before you go. The SII set the procedure in Exempt Resolution 133 of 2021.

The filing does not prove you have left. The SII states that accepting it, a payment certificate or a sworn statement do not by themselves certify loss of domicile or residence, and the tax can be recalculated the following year. While you are abroad, the period the SII has to review your past taxes is also suspended, so the evidence of your move matters for years.

1. 01

   Move your economic base

   Arrange your work and business so that your main income producing activity is abroad, and sell, close or restructure whatever would keep the main seat of your business in Chile.

2. 02

   Build evidence abroad

   A residence permit, a lease or title deed, utility bills and proof of work or investment income in your new country, and where possible a tax residence certificate from it.

3. 03

   File the article 103 request

   On the SII website, under administrative requests, file the request for loss of domicile and residence with a draft Form 22 (the annual income tax return) showing the tax accrued to date, plus proof of your new domicile, within the three months before you leave. Pay the tax due.

4. 04

   Add a sworn statement

   You can attach a sworn letter stating that you will no longer be domiciled in Chile and do not intend to return, which the SII gives special weight. If you are not signed up for SII email notifications, appoint a representative in Chile.

5. 05

   Close the loose ends

   If you have registered business activity (inicio de actividades), file a término de giro (notice of cessation) or settle how it continues, and file the previous year’s return as normal. Register with the Chilean consulate in your new country.

Exit tax, property and investments

Chile has no exit tax: leaving does not trigger tax on unrealised gains. The article 103 payment is the personal income tax already accrued for the year, not a departure charge.

As a non resident you pay the additional tax (Impuesto Adicional) on Chilean source income, at a general rate of 35%, usually withheld by the payer, with lower rates in specific cases and under tax treaties. Dividends from Chilean companies carry the additional tax with a credit for the corporate tax already paid. Law 21.850, published in October 2026, cuts the corporate rate gradually to 23% and changes how that credit works, so our team confirms the figures for your case.

While you remain resident or domiciled, Chile’s controlled foreign company rules can attribute the passive income of foreign companies you control to you, and control is presumed for entities in jurisdictions on the SII’s list of preferential tax regimes, cut to 105 jurisdictions from 1 January 2025 under the 2024 tax compliance law (Law 21.713). Setting up a structure abroad before your domicile has actually changed does not take that income out of Chilean tax.

Law 21.850 also opens a temporary regime to regularise assets and income held abroad, at a single tax of between 7% and 10% depending on whether the funds come back to Chile. Its detailed rules depend on SII guidance still to come, so regularising, where it applies, is best settled before you leave.

Pensions and social security

Your AFP account (Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones, the private fund that holds your individual pension savings) stays in your name and keeps earning returns when you move. Chileans cannot withdraw the balance because they leave the country; the withdrawals of 2020 and 2021 were one off pandemic measures. At the legal retirement age, 65 for men and 60 for women, you can claim your pension from abroad through your AFP or a Chilean consulate, and some AFPs pay into foreign accounts.

The 2025 pension reform (Law 21.735) phases in a new employer contribution reaching 8.5% of salary by 2033 and raises the PGU (Pensión Garantizada Universal, the state guaranteed pension). The PGU requires 20 years of residence in Chile, including 4 of the 5 years before you apply, and some of the new benefits are suspended if you spend more than 180 days a year abroad, so living abroad long term can cost you these state top ups.

Chile has social security agreements with countries including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States and Uruguay, which let contribution periods in each country be combined. Arrange private health insurance for your new home before you go.

Dual citizenship

Chile allows dual nationality. Since the 2005 constitutional reform (Law 20.050), acquiring another nationality no longer costs Chilean nationality. Under article 11 of the Constitution, a Chilean gives it up voluntarily only by formally renouncing it before a Chilean authority, and the renunciation takes effect only if they already hold another nationality.

A renunciation is close to irreversible, since nationality lost that way can only be restored by law. It is never needed for tax purposes: Chile taxes on residence and domicile, not on citizenship.

In 2026 the Comptroller General (Contraloría) confirmed that dual nationals who live abroad may enter and leave Chile on their foreign passport, meeting the entry rules for that nationality, while those who live in Chile must leave on a Chilean passport, or an identity card where an agreement allows it. Children born abroad to a Chilean parent are Chilean and can be registered at a consulate.