MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay making across-the-border shopping easier

We want more foreigners coming to buy in Paraguay, Orué explained

Paraguayan authorities enacted a mechanism whereby foreign shoppers, particularly those living in Argentine across-the-border twin cities, would benefit from tax deductions and other advantages, it was announced this week.

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña signed Decree 2063 establishing a new shopping tourism regime “for the import of certain goods and their commercialization to foreign individuals not domiciled in the country,” Presidential Spokeswoman Paula Carro said during a press conference.

The measure provides for reductions such as the one from 1.5% to 1.25% on the Value Added Tax (VAT), National Directorate of Taxes (DNIT) head Óscar Orué explained. The tourism regime includes “more than 150 goods,” he added. Goods imported under this regime would be weighed at half their official value, he also pointed out.

Another chapter of the presidential decree reduces airport taxes for the import of these goods while establishing “slightly tougher requirements” to formalize the border economy.

“What we are looking for is that more and more foreigners come to buy in Paraguay and that trade becomes more dynamic and above all, that there is also healthy competition” through the new Shopping Tourism Regime (RTC), Orué stressed. “This is an important advance from the point of view of formalization and an incentive for those who are doing shopping tourism,” he added.

“This new public policy seeks to increase competitiveness in the business sector, while establishing rigorous mechanisms of access to the regime, to continue formalizing our economy,” Peña wrote on X.