Peru Asks Congress for 120-Day Legislative Powers Over Tax and Security
Peru · POLITICS
Key Facts
- —Request Peru’s legislative powers bill covers 66 measures and reached Congress on 28 August.
- —Duration The government asks for 120 calendar days to issue decrees.
- —Growth The finance ministry now projects 3.4% expansion in 2026 and 2027.
- —Watchdog The Fiscal Council calls the growth path demanding and the fiscal numbers referential.
- —Seats Fuerza Popular holds 41 of 130 deputies and 22 of 60 senators.
A 66-item request lands in a bicameral Congress where the governing party lacks a majority.
Peru’s legislative powers request reached Congress on Friday, 28 August 2026. The bill asks for 120 days to legislate on 66 separate matters.
What Peru’s legislative powers request contains
Prime Minister Luis Galarreta presented the bill to Congress on Friday, 28 August 2026. The Council of Ministers had approved it the previous day under President Keiko Fujimori.
The text groups 66 separate requests across eight policy areas. They range from citizen security and prisons to taxation, customs, mining, housing and labor rules.
Ministers will defend their own chapters before deputies, and the Senate reviews the text afterwards. Nothing has been granted yet, and no vote has been scheduled.
Delegated powers are a standard Peruvian instrument, not an emergency decree. Congress hands the executive a defined list of subjects for a fixed period.
How long the powers would run
The bill asks for 120 calendar days from the moment any delegation law takes effect. That would carry decree-making authority into late December or early January.
Peru switched to a two-chamber Congress in 2026, after a constitutional reform. A request for Peru’s legislative powers now travels from the Chamber of Deputies to the Senate.
The Senate’s constitution committee has up to 90 working days to report on the bill. Peruvian press reporting points to a decision in the second half of September.
A simple majority carries the bill in the Chamber of Deputies. In the 60-seat Senate, 31 votes are needed to change or reject the text.
The arithmetic in a divided Congress
Fuerza Popular, the president’s party, holds 41 of the 130 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. It holds 22 of the 60 Senate seats, the largest bloc in both chambers.
Neither figure is a majority, so the government needs partners on every chapter. Juntos por el Perú, Renovación Popular and smaller blocs hold the balance.
Delegation bills are often narrowed before approval, with chapters struck out. That makes the tax and interest-rate items the most exposed parts of Peru’s legislative powers package.
Tax, customs and the interest-rate cap
The tax chapter asks for power to simplify Peru’s small-business tax regimes. Finance Minister Elmer Cuba says those schemes are more than thirty years old.
One is the Régimen Único Simplificado, a flat monthly levy for micro traders. Another is the Régimen Especial de Renta, a simplified income tax track.
The government also wants to widen the works-for-taxes mechanism to disaster risk and rural housing. That scheme lets companies build public works and offset the cost against income tax.
A separate item would repeal the ceiling on lending rates set by Law 31143 of 2021. The central bank has estimated that about 500,000 people lost access to credit under the cap.
Peru’s legislative powers request also covers customs and a ban on imports made with forced labor. Officials link that item to a United States tariff increase from 10% to 12.5%.
Security, prisons and El Niño
Interior Minister César Astudillo says the security chapter would place armed forces in prisons and border zones. The package also covers criminal law, the prison system and migration.
Agriculture Minister Marco Vinelli described faster emergency procedures routed through the civil defense agency. That body is the Instituto Nacional de Defensa Civil, known as INDECI.
Peru is preparing for a global El Niño event that forecasters call strong. The framework expects primary sectors, including fishing and farming, to shrink 1.4% this year.
A new growth forecast published the same week
The Ministry of Economy and Finance published its Marco Macroeconómico Multianual for 2027 to 2030 on 28 August. The multiyear macroeconomic framework projects 3.4% growth in 2026 and again in 2027.
That lifts the ministry’s own April projection of 3.2% for both years. It sits just below the 3.5% Minister Elmer Cuba floated in public remarks on 7 August.
For 2028 to 2030 the framework pencils in 4.0% average growth. President Keiko Fujimori‘s platform had promised 5% by 2028 and 6% near the decade’s end.
Private investment carries the forecast, at 10.5% growth in 2026 against 5.5% assumed in April. Mining investment is put above US$7 billion a year, with a pipeline over US$20 billion.
The deficit path runs from 2.2% of gross domestic product in 2025 to 1.8% this year. It then falls to 1.4% in 2027 and 1% from 2028.
What the Fiscal Council actually said
The Consejo Fiscal, Peru’s independent fiscal watchdog, issued its opinion on 28 August. Its press note carries the reference number 03-2026-CF and is signed in Lima.
The council says the framework’s fiscal projections should be treated as referential. The government has announced changes to the fiscal rules, yet the numbers follow the current path.
It calls the growth projections demanding, citing El Niño risk and a smaller mining pipeline. It also warns that delayed project execution could undercut the 4.0% medium-term path.
The council links this year’s revenue surge to high export commodity prices, which can correct abruptly. It says the recent deficit fall is not proof of stronger structural collection.
Its closing line is blunt about design alone not being enough. A better framework, it says, will fail without credible commitment to compliance and sustainability.
Why the fiscal rules are in play
Minister Elmer Cuba said on 7 August that the government is weighing looser fiscal limits. He mentioned lifting the debt ceiling from 30% to 32% of output.
He also floated a 2028 deficit target of 1.2% rather than 1%. Cuba pointed to spending not budgeted for 2026, including El Niño costs and military pensions.
Peru’s legislative powers request does not itself rewrite the fiscal rules. Those changes would come separately, and the council will issue a prior opinion on them.
The 2026 public budget was approved at 257.562 billion soles (US$76.93 billion). That uses 3.348 soles per dollar, the banking system selling rate reported by Peru’s central bank for 27 August 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has Congress granted the delegation yet?
Not yet, and no vote has been scheduled. The bill reached the Chamber of Deputies on 28 August 2026.
What would the 120 days cover?
Tax and customs, citizen security, prisons, migration, labor rules, mining, housing and administrative reform. Peru’s legislative powers request lists 66 separate measures.
What did the Fiscal Council object to?
It called the growth path demanding and the fiscal projections referential. It warned that a commodity-driven revenue rise is not a structural improvement.
Connected Coverage
Sources
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- elcomercio.pe
- gestion.pe
- larepublica.pe
- estadisticas.bcrp.gob.pe
- lanoticia.com.pe
- comunicaciones.congreso.gob.pe
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