El Salvador VAT registration threshold

What this value means

PERIOD BASIS: a ROLLING twelve months, not the calendar year — turnover (gravadas AND exentas together) of the preceding twelve months must be below ¢50,000 / US$5,714.29, AND total assets below ¢20,000 / US$2,285.71; the conditions are cumulative, so crossing either line ends the exclusion. On crossing, contribuyente status attaches "a partir del mes subsiguiente a aquel en que ello ocurra" — from the SECOND month after the breach month — and the DGII inscribes the person on request or ex officio (art. 28). Startups are excluded only while initial total assets are under ¢20,000, and never for imports (art. 29). Voluntary registration is allowed, taking effect from 1 January of the following year (art. 30). Registered contribuyentes charge 13% and file monthly (F-07). NON-ESTABLISHED SUPPLIERS: nil threshold and no registration route. The art. 28 exclusion never applies to importadores, and imported/internated SERVICES are a hecho generador in their own right — art. 14: "Existe importación o internación de servicios cuando la actividad que generan los servicios se desarrolla en el exterior y son prestados a un usuario domiciliado en el país que los utiliza en él" ('there is an import of services when the activity generating them is carried out abroad and they are supplied to a user domiciled in the country who uses them there'), instancing advisory/technical assistance, marks, patents, models, information, software and movable-asset leasing. Collection is by the LOCAL payer: Código Tributario art. 161 makes the domiciled user/beneficiary the agent obliged to withhold the full 13% IVA on such payments to non-domiciled suppliers (the MH publishes standing mandamientos de ingreso for '13% IVA a Terceros No Domiciliados' and 'IVA por Importación de Servicios'). Non-residents neither must nor can register. IMPORTED DIGITAL SERVICES: no dedicated non-resident digital-services regime as of 2026-08 — no registration, platform rules or card-issuer collection. B2B digital imports are captured by art. 14 + art. 161 withholding; B2C purchases by final consumers are in practice uncollected, since consumers are not withholding agents. Traps: (1) 'Monto MENOR a' — turnover of exactly ¢50,000 already ends the exclusion. (2) Exempt sales COUNT toward the ¢50,000 ('gravadas y exentas') — the opposite of Honduras next door. (3) The asset test usually bites first: US$2,285.71 of total assets is minimal, so tiny traders with any stock or equipment are contribuyentes despite negligible sales. (4) Sociedades and importers have a nil threshold regardless of size; multi-establishment persons aggregate all locations. (5) The statutory figures are still in colones and have never been re-indexed — the 2009-2014 and later reform waves left art. 28 untouched; serve the fixed-rate USD equivalents but cite the colón amounts. (6) Status crossing runs from the 'mes subsiguiente' (second month after), not the next month — a common off-by-one. (7) Purchases from sujetos excluidos yield no crédito fiscal (art. 60) and must be documented by the BUYER; misclassifying a supplier propagates errors both ways.

Get it programmatically

curl https://latamref.dev/v1/sv/vat-registration-threshold
# $0.005 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History:    curl https://latamref.dev/v1/sv/vat-registration-threshold/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://latamref.dev/provenance/sv/vat-registration-threshold

Other El Salvador series: Central bank policy rate · VAT (IVA) standard rate · Minimum wage (lowest general statutory floor) · Public holidays · CPI inflation (year-on-year) · Corporate income tax (ISR) standard rate · Withholding tax rates · Statutory legal interest (interés legal) · Personal income tax (ISR) brackets · Statutory social-insurance contributions

The same figure elsewhere: Guatemala · Guyana · Honduras · Jamaica · Mexico · all 22