The SAT has raised Q25 million taxes from leases of real estate on electronic platforms such as Airbnb, the interim superintendent, Armando Pokus reported.
With the country’s legislation, taxes can be charged for the income for these leases, but not to the platforms, it was explained.
In 2024 the Superintendence of Tax Administration (SAT) launched a strong campaign to collect taxes on property owners who put them in rent on electronic platforms such as Airbnb that included recreational resting places, tourist destinations and others.
The official explained this March 31, 2025 who have had a very good response from the people who have properties and put them for rent on this platform.
He considers that these are positive numbers because the person have approached and paid, however “those who, despite the evidence we have, do not approach, then there is the legal issue because it will have to be elucidated in that area.”
If you have a house and are leased, economic resources are being generated and that is a generating fact so they must pay taxes.
Pokus said that to expand the collection, national legislation in Guatemala is needed.
When the mayor of collection, Érick Echeverría, explained that, in the particular case of Airbnb, which is currently being managed with each of the economic agents is the tax for the fact of having received the rent of the rental of its properties.
However, he explained that there is also the other part, which in this case would be the chain. That is, the mobile application or platform that also generated a service, and this part is the one that is not regulated and required by legislation in the country. This so that in this particular case that Airbnb, derived from the service it provides, has to make an effective payment to the Tax Administration, since there are two different things, Echeverría added.
Asked if working in a proposal to modify or create the necessary legislation, the Mayor explained that the Tax Administration has no power to present a law initiative, but it has been participating with the Ministry of Finance in some in some proposals to be able to specify a particular initiative.
They look for voluntary payments or SAT will act
He said that most people approached with the SAT, although there is always someone reluctant because they thought it is not correct, or is not fair or they think that if it does not report anything it will disappear from the radar of the tax administration, an aspect that is not so.
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He added that “we prefer a good arrangement with the taxpayers who approach voluntarily, we are not interested in the issue of fines, we are not interested in the issue of omisses, but that we are interested that people make tax compliance” and that is why they have been implemented facilitation and simplification actions aimed at allowing more ease to pay taxes.
“We think that these people who are generating this issue of leases on this platform every day are paying their taxes, and those who are not doing so we hope that in the short term they do it, because we are not interested in generating judgments,” Pokus added, explaining that with the judgments he does not win the country, neither the taxpayer nor the SAT.
What is seen in the background is that there are more and more people who do want to fulfill their tax obligations and that is positive, said the interim superintendent.
The official said that suddenly a little push is needed to behave well, “but when we are already carrying well, the Tax Administration is the first one that is congratulated for it.”
LEASE CONSPERIZATIONS began last year
On April 16, 2024, the first phase of inspection was disclosed to these services.
The SAT announced that the Tax Administration of Ireland-where it is registered and has its fiscal domicile of Airbnb-shared the information to Guatemala about the movement of the platform during fiscal years 2021-2022 and it was detected that the services represented income for the owners for US $ 109 million, which is equivalent to some Q866 million. The SAT has collected Q25.2 million taxes corresponding to these exercises.
The second phase includes 2023. In this the AirbnB platform reported a turnover in Guatemala of Q372.6 million equivalent to about US $ 48.4 million, during fiscal year 2023 for accommodation services and that the SAT would verify the payment of taxes.
With these available data, the Intendance of Supervisory would carry out the analysis in the different systems to verify compliance with tax obligations or the payment of taxes to added value (VAT) and on income (ISR) depending on the regime in which they are registered.
This is the second phase in which the tax administrator is aimed at supervising the legal or individual taxpayers who are registered in the aforementioned platform, which somehow were not affiliated with the tax regimes, and that did not issue an invoice or that declared the corresponding taxes.