Panama Withholding tax rates
Panama Withholding tax rates: no single figure applies. The reason is set out below, cited to the governing instrument. Last checked against the official source on 10 Aug 2026.
The withholding taxes Panama levies on payments to non-residents - dividends under articulo 733 of the Codigo Fiscal, and remittances abroad (interest, royalties, services and other Panama-source income) under the articulo 694/733 remittance mechanism, which applies the general income-tax rates of articulos 699/700 to 50% of the amount remitted - each at its domestic statutory rate before any double-tax treaty relief. Administered by the Direccion General de Ingresos (DGI).
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| Current value | structured — see the API |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2011-01-01 |
| Official source | DGI (dgi.mef.gob.pa), per-form legal notes: Formulario 07 (dividends, citing Arts. 708 y 733 del Codigo Fiscal) - 'Quedan obligadas a retener el Impuesto de Dividendo o cuota de participacion del diez por ciento (10%) de las utilidades que distribuyan a sus accionistas o socios cuando estas sean de fuente panamena' ('obliged to withhold the Dividend Tax of ten percent (10%) of profits distributed... when of Panamanian source'); Formulario 05 (remittances abroad) - 'sobre el cincuenta por ciento (50%) de este total se aplicara la tasa del articulo 699 (personas juridicas) o 700' ('on fifty percent (50%) of this total the rate of article 699 (legal persons) or 700 is applied'); Tarifa page - personas juridicas '2011 y siguientes 25%' |
| Last verified | 2026-08-10 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
THERE IS NO SINGLE WITHHOLDING TAX RATE, WHICH IS WHY value IS NULL. Panama withholds at different rates depending on the payment type and even the source of the profits being distributed: dividends at 10%, 5% or 20% depending on regime, and remittances abroad (interest, royalties, services, rents and other Panama-source income) at an effective 12.5% for corporate recipients via the 50%-of-gross mechanism. A caller wanting a number must name which payment type; read withholding_rates rather than expecting a headline figure. ALL RATES ARE DOMESTIC STATUTORY RATES, BEFORE TREATY RELIEF. A double-tax treaty can reduce any of them, and whether relief is available depends on the recipient's residence, beneficial ownership and the treaty's own conditions. We do NOT serve treaty rates: they are bilateral, run to thousands of country pairs, and applying one is a legal determination rather than a lookup. Panama also only taxes territorial-source income, so a payment abroad is withholdable only insofar as it is Panama-source income (broadly, the payer benefits from the service in Panama and deducts the expense - articulo 694 paragrafo 1, literal e). MECHANISM FOR REMITTANCES ABROAD (interest, royalties, services): the withholding is not a named flat rate. The payer applies the general income-tax rate of articulo 699 (25% for legal persons) or articulo 700 (progressive, for natural persons) to FIFTY PERCENT of the sum remitted. For a non-resident company this yields an EFFECTIVE 12.5% on the gross remittance, which is what we serve as 'rate'; for non-resident individuals the effective rate depends on the articulo 700 progressive brackets and 12.5 is only the top-bracket outcome. The series effective_from is 2011-01-01, the date the articulo 699 general corporate rate settled at 25% (DGI Tarifa page: '2011 y siguientes 25%'), which fixes the current 12.5% effective remittance rate; the dividend rate structure derives from Ley 8 de 15 de marzo de 2010, as amended.
Get it programmatically
curl https://latamref.dev/v1/pa/withholding-tax
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://latamref.dev/v1/pa/withholding-tax/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/pa/withholding-taxOther Panama series: Monetary policy rate · ITBMS (VAT) standard rate · VAT registration threshold · Minimum wage (lowest general statutory floor) · National public holidays · CPI inflation (year-over-year) · Corporate income tax (ISR personas jurídicas) · Statutory legal interest (interés legal) · Personal income tax (ISR personas naturales) · Statutory social-insurance contributions
The same figure elsewhere: Paraguay · Peru · Trinidad and Tobago · Uruguay · Argentina · all 22