Peru’s Tax Agency Targets Digital Platforms and Offshore Accounts

Peru · Economy

Peru’s tax authority is widening a campaign to capture revenue from the digital economy, from streaming subscriptions to short-term rentals and offshore bank accounts, in a drive that mirrors moves across Latin America.

The head of Peru’s customs and tax agency, known by its Spanish acronym SUNAT, said collections tied to digital services had grown steadily as platforms such as Netflix, Spotify, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video expanded in the country. A levy introduced in 2024 made foreign providers responsible for charging and remitting value-added tax directly, closing a gap where these sales were taxable in theory but rarely collected in practice.

The push fits a wider regional pattern. Governments across Latin America have moved in recent years to tax cross-border digital services and to lean on international data-sharing to track income that once slipped through national systems, part of a broader effort coordinated through the OECD’s transparency forum. For Peru, where informality has long limited the tax base, the digital economy offers a rare lever to raise revenue without lifting headline rates.

What Peru’s digital platforms crackdown collects

Officials said the digital-services tax had already raised more than S/300m ($80m) since it took effect, with a full-year estimate above S/500m ($133m). Separately, the agency said it had identified more than 15,000 Peruvians holding undeclared accounts abroad, work that brought in close to S/260m ($69m), and that information exchange with other tax authorities had yielded more than S/585m ($155m) between 2023 and 2025. A parallel effort has flagged over 34,000 people earning rental income through booking apps, who are now being asked to regularize their payments.

AI and data-sharing widen the net

The agency said it now uses artificial intelligence to detect patterns linked to informal commerce, particularly people importing goods for resale rather than personal use, and to cross-reference taxpayer records. The approach leans heavily on international information exchange, the system under which countries swap financial-account data to catch undeclared income held abroad. The agency’s chief made the comments at a regional meeting of the Latin America initiative of the OECD’s Global Forum on tax transparency, which also released a 2026 report on the region’s progress.

Why the digital platforms drive matters for Peru

For foreign residents and businesses, the message is that activity routed through digital platforms is increasingly visible to the tax office, and that all such activity is expected to issue payment receipts. Peru has long struggled with a large informal economy, and digital taxation offers a way to broaden the base without raising headline rates. The agency is also consulting on technical changes to how VAT on foreign services is declared and paid, with a new procedure due to take effect from July, signaling that the digital-tax framework is still being refined.