Chilean VAT on Stripe Digital Services in QuickBooks

A US software company sells a $20 monthly plan to a freelance designer in Santiago. There is no Chilean threshold to wait for. The first sale is the registration trigger, the rate is 19 percent, and the tax is due on the money as it arrives, not on the invoice. The same company's sale to a Santiago agency with a Chilean tax ID carries no VAT at all, but that customer's tax ID has to go on a list you send to Chile's tax authority every period.

Chile taxes digital services from abroad through a simplified regime run by the Servicio de Impuestos Internos (SII). It is light on paperwork: no Chilean invoices, no local representative, a short return in US dollars if you want. It is strict on three details that a Stripe setup does not handle for you: the list of business customers, the cash-basis tax point, and the payment by SWIFT transfer.

This guide covers what Chile taxes and how it decides a customer is in Chile, registration in the simplified regime, the consumer and business split and the list it creates, the 19 percent rate, a worked quarter, the return, and what reaches QuickBooks. It is bookkeeping guidance, not tax advice.

Acodei brings Stripe Tax amounts into QuickBooks, so the Chilean VAT you charge is already in your liability account when the period closes. Start a free trial.

Why Chilean VAT applies to digital services sold from abroad

Chile added a new taxable event to its VAT law in 2020. Law 21.210 inserted letter n) into Article 8 of Decree Law 825, taxing certain services supplied by people "without domicile or residence in Chile" when those services are used in Chile. The original list had four items: intermediation, digital entertainment (video, music, games, and also texts, magazines, newspapers and books), advertising, and the provision of software, storage, platforms or computing infrastructure. That last item is where SaaS sits.

In October 2024, Law 21.713 widened the rule. The SII's Digital VAT FAQ says the new law "extended the application of the Value Added Tax (VAT), with a rate of 19%, to all taxed services remotely provided by taxpayers without domicile or residence in Chile." The SII's own Digital VAT Portal dates that extension to November 2024. So a consulting retainer, an online course or a paid newsletter billed through Stripe is in scope too, not only software.

The SII's June 2026 briefing on digital VAT summarizes the result in one line: foreign providers "must register in the simplified tax regime to declare and pay VAT for services used by final consumers (B2C)." The SII publishes its circulars, manuals and briefings in Spanish, so quotations from them in this guide are our translations. Quotations from the Digital VAT FAQ are the SII's own English.

How Chile decides a service is used in Chile

The test is use, not the location of your servers or your company. The SII's instructions on the regime, Circular 42 of 2020, set out a legal presumption that the service is used in Chile if at least two of these four facts are true:

1. The IP address of the user's device, or another geolocation method, places them in Chile.
2. The card, bank account or other means of payment was issued or registered in Chile.
3. The billing address the user gave is in Chile.
4. The SIM card of the phone receiving the service has Chile as its country code.

The facts are checked when the customer signs up or when they pay, and the circular says to look at the latest of those moments, period by period, because a customer can move or change cards. It is a rebuttable presumption: you or the customer can show the service was not in fact used in Chile.

Stripe Tax works differently. Its guide to customer locations says it "uses a single address as your customer's location," taken from the first available of the shipping address, billing address, payment method billing details and IP address. Stripe will therefore tax a customer on one Chilean fact, where the SII's presumption asks for two. For most consumers the billing address and the card's issuing country agree, so the difference never shows. When they don't, it is worth knowing which rule you are applying. Stripe records the issuing country on a card payment method, so you have the second fact on file.

No threshold: registration from the first sale

Chile has no sales threshold for foreign digital sellers. Stripe's Chile entry says remote sellers supplying digital products to consumers in Chile "have no registration threshold; they must register for VAT purposes from the first sale," and shows the registration threshold as "1 transaction." Stripe's obligation monitoring for Chile counts "B2C sales of digital products."

Two limits on Stripe's side are worth knowing before you rely on it:

• Stripe calculates Chilean VAT only on digital product tax codes. The entry says "Stripe doesn't calculate tax for products that don't use a digital product tax code." If you sell an online consulting package under a general services code, Stripe will not tax it in Chile, even though Law 21.713 now does.
• Stripe supports Chile only for remote sellers. "You must be a remote seller with no physical presence in Chile to collect this tax on Stripe." A company with an office in Chile is in the ordinary VAT system, not this one.

What the simplified regime asks of you

Registration happens online at the SII's Digital VAT Portal, which runs in English and Spanish. You fill in the registration form, verify your email with a code, and receive a User Number, which is your identity for every return and payment. At the same time you choose two settings: the currency you will pay in, and whether you file monthly or quarterly.

The regime is deliberately thin. The SII's FAQ quotes Article 35 C of the VAT law: taxpayers in the regime "will not be entitled to a tax credit and will be released from the obligation to issue tax documents for their operations." In practice that means:

• No Chilean invoices or receipts. Your Stripe invoice is enough for your customer.
• No input VAT. Chilean VAT on your own costs can't be deducted. For a SaaS company with no Chilean suppliers, this rarely matters.
• No representative. The SII's portal FAQ asks whether a company needs a contact person in Chile and answers: "No. It is enough for the company to register an official contact at the time of Registration."

Compare that with Switzerland, where registration means a full VAT registration through a Swiss tax representative. Chile built a pay-only scheme for foreign sellers, closer to Norway's or Iceland's.

Consumers pay you the VAT; Chilean businesses pay it themselves

The regime is for sales to consumers. When the customer is a Chilean VAT taxpayer, Article 11 letter e) of the VAT law moves the liability to them. The June 2026 briefing puts the split in two lines: for B2C the person liable is the "taxpayer without domicile or residence in Chile," and for B2B it is the "VAT taxpayer in Chile," under Article 11 e). Circular 42 adds that the Chilean business then issues a purchase invoice (factura de compra) for the service and pays the VAT itself, "without any intervention by the service provider." This is Chile's version of the reverse charge.

The detail that matters for a Stripe seller is who has to say so. Circular 42 puts the duty on the customer: "it will be the exclusive responsibility of the Chilean taxpayer to properly inform the platform of this status." In the absence of that information, "the foreign provider must withhold the tax and pay it into the treasury." And you are not expected to police it. If the customer gives false information, the circular says that is not attributable to the foreign provider, "who will not be obliged to verify" the customer's VAT status.

So the rule is simple to state. Charge 19 percent unless the customer tells you they are a Chilean VAT taxpayer and gives you their tax number, the RUT (Rol Único Tributario).

Where Stripe's cl_tin fits

Stripe's customer tax ID table lists cl_tin, "Chilean TIN," with an example in the RUT format (12.345.678-K), and marks its impact on tax calculation as Yes. The footnote to that column reads: "Stripe Tax won't apply tax if this tax ID is provided, in line with the relevant laws." Stripe's page on zero tax amounts confirms the mechanism: "Stripe Tax automatically applies the reverse charge based on the presence of a tax ID."

That lines up with Article 11 e) as long as one thing holds: the RUT you store as cl_tin belongs to a Chilean VAT taxpayer. A RUT is not only a business number. Every Chilean individual has one too. Stripe's validation, per the same tax ID page, checks formatting, and the page adds that Stripe Tax applies the reverse charge "when the tax ID has the required number format, regardless of the government verification result." A consumer who types a personal RUT into a tax ID field at checkout gets a reverse-charged sale.

The circular protects you from the consequences of a customer's false statement, so this is not a reason to verify every RUT. It is a reason to word your checkout field as a request for a Chilean VAT taxpayer's RUT, not just "tax ID," so the statement you rely on is the one the law describes.

The list of business customers you send every period

Here is the obligation most sellers miss. The SII's manual for sending the list (the nómina) says the foreign provider must send the SII, periodically, "a list of the taxpayers on whom it has not added the tax because of the information received."

The manual's rules:

• Who goes on it. Every Chilean customer that told you it is a VAT taxpayer, plus any that told you the service is subject to Chile's withholding tax on payments abroad (Impuesto Adicional), which also lifts the VAT.
• When. On the same rhythm as your returns, "within the month following the respective tax period and until the last day of that month." March's list is due by 30 April; the January to March list is also due by 30 April.
• Format. A CSV of at most 10 MB with four columns and no header row: the month (as YYYYMM), the RUT, its check digit, and a type code (1 for a VAT taxpayer, 2 for a withholding agent). Quarterly filers list each month separately, so a business customer billed in all three months appears three times.
• Corrections. Upload a new file for the same period and it replaces the old one.

Note the deadline differs from the return. The F129 return is due by the 20th of the month after the period. The list is due by the last day of that month.

Stripe's itemized tax export has what you need to build it. Filter to country_code CL and taxability_reason of reverse_charge, then read the RUT from the customer_tax_id column and the month from transaction_date. Each distinct customer and month is one row of the list. The Stripe customer tax ID glossary entry explains where the IDs live in Stripe.

Chilean VAT rate on digital services: 19 percent on what you receive

There is one rate. The SII's FAQ quotes Article 35 D: taxpayers in the regime "will be subject to a tax rate of 19% over the payments received for the services provided." There is no reduced rate for e-books or online courses in this regime.

Circular 42 adds a detail on the base. The 19 percent applies to the consideration paid to the foreign provider for the service, and not, for example, to "bank commissions charged to the user" before the provider receives the money. Your Stripe processing fee is your cost, not part of the customer's bill, so the base is your price.

Whether that price includes VAT is your choice in Stripe. If you price in USD with tax added on top (exclusive), a $20 plan becomes $23.80. If you keep $20 as the all-in price (inclusive), the VAT inside it is $20 × 19/119, or $3.19, and your revenue is $16.81. Our guide to inclusive and exclusive tax in QuickBooks covers how each one posts.

The tax point is the payment, not the invoice

This is the Chilean detail that creates real reconciliation work. Circular 42 says that for providers in the regime, the general accrual rule applies: the tax arises "on the date on which the remuneration is received or made available, in any form, to the service provider." It adds that, as a rule, this happens when the charge lands on the customer's card or other payment method.

Stripe Tax records tax at a different moment. Its tax reporting guide says that finalizing an invoice increases the tax reported, and that this transition "happens before the invoice is paid." It also says failed or canceled payments for finalized invoices are not reflected: "A failed or canceled payment doesn't decrease the total tax reported."

For a subscription that charges the card the moment the invoice finalizes, the gap is minutes and never crosses a month. It crosses a month when:

• an invoice finalizes on the 30th and the first payment attempt fails, and a retry collects on the 3rd;
• you send invoices for manual payment and customers pay in the following period;
• a payment never succeeds and the invoice stays open.

In each case Stripe's export puts the tax in the finalization month, and Chile puts it in the month the money arrives, or nowhere if it never does. For an invoice that will never be paid, marking it uncollectible or voiding it reduces the tax Stripe reports.

A worked quarter for a software company

Take a Texas company selling a design-collaboration app. It prices in USD with VAT added on top, registered in Chile's simplified regime choosing quarterly filing and payment in US dollars, and has a Chile registration in Stripe Tax. The fourth quarter of 2026:

1. A monthly plan to a consumer in Santiago, $20 for October, November and December. VAT is $3.80 a month, $11.40 for the quarter, each charge collected the day its invoice finalized.
2. An annual plan to a consumer in Valparaíso, $240, paid in November. VAT is $45.60, all of it in this quarter because the payment is.
3. A team plan to a Santiago agency, $600, paid in October. The agency gave its RUT as a VAT taxpayer, stored as cl_tin, so Stripe applied the reverse charge. VAT charged: $0. The agency's RUT goes on the October row of the list.
4. A monthly plan to a consumer in Concepción, $50, invoice finalized 30 December. The first card attempt fails, and Stripe's retry collects on 3 January 2027. VAT is $9.50.
5. The Santiago consumer asks for December back. You refund $23.80 through a credit note on 15 December. That returns $3.80 of VAT to the consumer.

What Stripe's itemized export shows for the quarter: $11.40 plus $45.60 plus $9.50, less the $3.80 credit note, is $62.70.

What the F129 for the quarter carries: order 4's money arrived in January, so its $9.50 belongs to the first quarter of 2027. The tax for the quarter is $11.40 plus $45.60, or $57.00, and the $3.80 refund goes in the return's Rebates field (more on that below). The return pays $53.20, due by 20 January 2027.

What the list carries: one row, for October, with the agency's RUT, check digit and type 1. It is due by 31 January 2027.

The $9.50 does not disappear. It reappears in the first quarter's return, where Stripe's first-quarter export won't show it. Keep a short schedule of invoices that finalized in one period and were paid in the next, and the two sets of numbers will tie across the year.

Filing Chile's F129 return and paying by SWIFT

The form. The return is the Digital VAT Form, F129, filed on the portal. The SII's declaration and payment FAQ says a tax period is "a period of one or three months in a row," chosen when you get your User Number.

The deadline. Filing and payment are due "during the first twenty days of the month following the tax period." Quarters are fixed calendar quarters, so the October to December return is due 1 to 20 January.

No nil returns. The FAQ says "F129 must be filled only if income from services or sales has been received in the respective tax period." A quarter with no Chilean consumer payments needs no filing, unlike the nil returns many other countries require.

Changing your settings. Your currency and your filing period are fixed for the year. The FAQ says a change "can only be requested between January 21 and January 31 of a given year."

The currency rule: pick the currency you price in

You choose USD, EUR or Chilean pesos at registration. The SII's FAQ: "Payments can be made in US dollars, euros or Chilean pesos."

If you price in USD and registered to pay in USD, no conversion is needed: the dollar tax amounts in Stripe's export are the amounts on your return. This is the simplest setup, and the reason the worked quarter above never mentions an exchange rate.

If you pay in pesos on sales made in a foreign currency, Article 35 F of the law sets the rate: the exchange rate "on the date of payment of the tax" published by the Banco Central de Chile, with currencies the central bank doesn't publish converted to US dollars first. That is not the rate Stripe uses. Stripe's reporting guide says it converts to the filing currency "using available exchange rates at the time of the transaction." If you file in pesos, ignore Stripe's filing currency columns and convert the period's dollar total at the central bank rate on the day you pay.

Paying from abroad

A foreign-currency return is paid by SWIFT transfer. The FAQ gives the two fields to fill in:

• Code 70 carries your User Number, the form name, the tax period and the folio, in the form 556545253-F129-202006-853201533. The portal shows this string once the return is sent.
• Code 71-A must say "OUR," which the SII explains "indicates that the Bank will pay in full to the General Treasury of the Republic of Chile."

"OUR" means you pay every bank charge on the transfer, including intermediary banks', so the full $53.20 reaches Chile. Those charges are a bank fee, not tax.

Corrections and refunds go forward, not back

You can't amend a return downward. The FAQ: "you cannot amend a tax return for an amount less than previously declared." An amendment that adds tax is allowed through the portal, with penalties and interest if it comes after the deadline. For other corrections, the FAQ says to write to ivasd.chile@sii.cl.

Refunds use the Rebates field instead. Article 35 G lets you deduct VAT you have returned to the consumer from the tax for the period in which you returned it, or later periods if that period's tax is too small. The SII's own example: a streaming provider refunds a consumer "US $ 20 (net of tax)," and records "US $ 3.8 (US $ 20 * 19%)" as the rebate. The condition is that the VAT went back to the consumer. A refund of the price that keeps the tax doesn't qualify.

What reaches QuickBooks, and how the payment clears it

Acodei syncs the tax Stripe Tax calculated, so the Chile registration in Stripe has to be in place first, and Stripe Tax has to be active in your Stripe account.

For a US QuickBooks company, Acodei's method is the Tax Product: a non-inventory "Sales Tax" product mapped to a liability account, with all Stripe Tax amounts on a sale rolled into one line on the QuickBooks invoice or sales receipt. QuickBooks' Sales Tax Center doesn't let third parties create official tax rates for US companies, which is why the product approach is the one that works there. Acodei's documentation notes this needs Stripe Tax used with Stripe Invoicing or Stripe Checkout. You file from Stripe's reports and pay from the liability account.

For a QuickBooks company outside the US, Acodei's documentation describes a second option: mapping individual Stripe tax rates to QuickBooks tax codes you set up, such as a 19 percent Chile code.

In the worked quarter, orders 1, 2 and 4 carry Chilean VAT that Stripe calculated, and Stripe-calculated tax is what the sync carries. Order 4 is the one to check by date: Chile counts it in January, because that is when the money arrived. Order 3 is reverse-charged, so Stripe calculated no Chilean VAT and there is none for the sync to carry. That is correct: the agency pays the VAT itself on its purchase invoice.

The refund, order 5. Acodei's documentation says a refund issued through a credit note carries the line-level tax breakdown. A refund made on the payment alone may not show how much was tax, and that case can need a manual adjustment in QuickBooks. Refund Chilean invoices through credit notes, which also gives you the clean $3.80 figure for the Rebates field. Our guide to refunding Stripe Tax in QuickBooks walks through both cases.

The payment to the SII. Build the F129 figure from Stripe's data by payment date, as in the worked quarter, and keep the schedule of invoices that crossed a period boundary next to it. When the $53.20 SWIFT transfer clears, reduce the liability by $53.20 and post the bank's charges to bank fees. The same liability account holds US sales tax and any other foreign tax from Stripe Tax, so keep a note of the Chilean slice each period. Our guide to reconciling the Stripe Tax report in QuickBooks covers the liability-account side in detail.

If you file in pesos, the SII receives a peso amount converted at the central bank rate on the day you pay, while your liability account holds dollars. Clear the dollar balance for the period and post the difference to the account your accountant uses for exchange gains and losses.

Why registering is cheaper than not registering

Chile has built an enforcement tool that lands on your customers. Under SII Resolution 46 of 2022, described in the June 2026 briefing, Chilean card issuers act as withholding agents for foreign providers on a published list. When a cardholder buys from a listed provider, "the VAT is added by the withholding agent to the cardholder," and shown separately on their statement. The list is published on 15 December each year with updates during the year, and the briefing describes the measure as a "last resort in case of non-compliance," applying to consumer sales only.

For a provider on that list, Chilean consumers pay 19 percent to their bank on top of your price, and if you also charge VAT through Stripe, they pay it twice. Either way the price your Chilean customers see goes up.

The SII has other data sources too. Telecom companies report payments their customers make to foreign providers through phone and internet bills (Resolution 20 of 2024), and digital intermediation platforms must report what they pay foreign sellers and service providers, with the first submission in August 2026 (Resolution 93 of 2025). Late filing carries the penalty in Article 97 No. 2 of the Tax Code, which Circular 42 says rises to 20 percent, capped at 60 percent, when the SII finds the omission in an audit.

Common mistakes with Chilean VAT on Stripe digital services

• Waiting for a threshold. Chile has none for foreign digital sellers. The first consumer sale starts the obligation.
• Skipping the list. Reverse-charged sales to Chilean businesses still create a filing: the nómina of their RUTs, due by the end of the month after each period.
• Treating every RUT as a business. Individuals have RUTs too. Ask for a VAT taxpayer's RUT, not any tax ID.
• Filing from Stripe's finalization dates. Chile's tax point is the payment. Move invoices paid in a later period to that period.
• Amending a return down after a refund. You can't. Return the VAT to the consumer and claim it in the Rebates field of the next return.
• Using a general services tax code. Stripe only calculates Chilean VAT on digital product tax codes.
• Sending a SWIFT payment without "OUR." The SII needs the full amount and the code 70 reference to match the payment to your return.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do foreign companies have to charge Chilean VAT on digital services?

Yes, when they sell remote services to consumers in Chile. Since Law 21.713, this covers all taxed services supplied remotely by providers without domicile or residence in Chile, not just software and streaming. There is no sales threshold, so registration in the SII's simplified regime is due from the first consumer sale, at a rate of 19 percent.

Do I charge Chilean VAT to business customers in Chile?

Not if the customer tells you it is a Chilean VAT taxpayer and gives you its RUT. The business then pays the VAT itself through a purchase invoice. Without that information you must charge 19 percent. You must also send the SII a list of the customers you did not charge, by the last day of the month after each tax period.

How often do I file the Chilean digital VAT return?

Monthly or quarterly, as you chose when you registered. The F129 is filed and paid within the first 20 days of the month after the period, so a fourth-quarter return is due by 20 January. You only file for periods in which you received payments from Chilean consumers, and the filing period can only be changed between 21 and 31 January.

What currency do I pay Chilean VAT in?

You choose US dollars, euros or Chilean pesos when you register. Foreign-currency payments are made by SWIFT transfer with your User Number reference in code 70 and "OUR" in code 71-A. If you pay in pesos on sales made in another currency, convert at the Banco Central de Chile rate on the date you pay, not at Stripe's rate.

How do refunds affect Chilean VAT?

Once you have returned the VAT to the consumer, you deduct it in the Rebates field of the F129 for the period of the refund, or later periods if that period's tax is too small. You can't file an amended return for a lower amount. Refunding through a Stripe credit note keeps the tax portion clear in both Stripe and QuickBooks.

Three Chilean details that decide your numbers

Chile asks little of a foreign seller on paper: no invoices, no representative, a short return in dollars. The work sits in three places. The list of business customers is a filing of its own, built from Stripe's reverse-charged rows. The tax point is the payment, so the return follows payment dates while Stripe's export follows finalization. And the money moves by SWIFT with "OUR," so the bank's fees are yours and stay out of the tax account. Get those three right and the Chilean slice of your liability account will tie to each F129.

Acodei syncs Stripe Tax into QuickBooks, so each Chilean period starts from the liability account instead of a spreadsheet. Start a free trial.