Venezuela: local rules

Venezuela's transfer pricing rules are in Title VII, Chapter III of the Ley de Impuesto sobre la Renta (ISLR), arts. 109 to 168, as published in Gaceta Oficial 6.210 Extraordinario of 30 December 2015. Taxpayers that deal with related parties must set their income, costs and deductions at the prices independent parties would have used in comparable deals (art. 109). If related-party terms differ from market terms, the profit lost because of them is added back and taxed (art. 111). Related parties are companies where one takes part, directly or indirectly, in the management, control or capital of the other, or where the same persons do so in both (art. 114). Dealings with low-tax jurisdictions are presumed to be with related parties unless shown otherwise (art. 117). Interest paid to related parties is deductible only while the taxpayer's total debts do not exceed its net equity (art. 116). The 1995 OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines, or those that replace them, apply where the law is silent, as far as they fit the law (art. 113).

Venezuela has no master file, local file or country-by-country report to file. The only transfer pricing filing is the informative return Forma PT-99 on related-party dealings (art. 166). No amount threshold was found, and the return creates no tax to pay. The law says to file it in the month of June following the year end, so 30 June for calendar years. For other year ends this tool uses the earlier of that June and 6 months after year end, because firms still quote a 6-month rule. The taxpayer must also keep the supporting file, in Spanish, for the limitation period (art. 167): it lists items such as the functional analysis, contracts, financial statements, comparables and the method chosen. Taxpayers that trade securities internationally keep an extra chronological book (art. 168).

The law lists five methods (art. 134): comparable uncontrolled price, resale price, cost plus, profit split and transactional net margin. The taxpayer must consider the comparable uncontrolled price method first, and SENIAT checks whether the method used is the most suitable (art. 140). Ranges may be used (arts. 130 and 131); Moore Venezuela says SENIAT uses the interquartile range and adjusts to the median. Advance pricing agreements are available (arts. 141 to 165). They cover the year they are signed and the next three years (art. 162). SENIAT has 12 months to decide a request, and no answer counts as a rejection (art. 151).

Under the Código Orgánico Tributario (COT, Gaceta 6.507 Extraordinario of 29 January 2020), fines are set as multiples of the official exchange rate of the highest-value currency published by the Banco Central de Venezuela, valued on the payment date (art. 91). Not filing a return, or filing it more than a year late, costs 150 times that rate plus a 10-day closure of the premises (art. 103(1)). Filing late within a year or incomplete costs 100 times (art. 103(3)), and filing on forms or at places SENIAT has not authorized costs 50 times (art. 103(6)). Not keeping the transfer pricing support costs 1,000 times plus a 10-day closure (art. 104(12)). Fines for these formal breaches rise by 200% for special taxpayers (art. 108).

Venezuela has not enacted Pillar Two. It is not on the OECD list of Inclusive Framework members, and no GloBE rules, qualified domestic minimum top-up tax or GloBE information return were found. There is no Pillar Two filing for Venezuela. There is no country-by-country reporting either: Venezuela has not signed the OECD CbC multilateral agreement, and no CbC law was found.

US and other sanctions may restrict dealings with Venezuelan entities, so check current sanctions rules before acting; this is not legal advice. The tax year is the calendar year unless the company is allowed a different 12-month year. The annual ISLR return is due within 3 months after year end. Special taxpayers (sujetos pasivos especiales, notified by SENIAT) follow a yearly SENIAT calendar by the last digit of the RIF instead: for 2025 calendar years it ran from 30 January to 16 March 2026 (Providencia SNAT/2025/000091), and the tool shows the earliest of these dates. Under COT art. 10, a deadline that falls on a day the tax office is closed moves to the next business day; for filing and payment, days the collecting banks are closed also count. SENIAT has extended the general return deadline in some years by providencia (to 15 May 2024 for 2023 returns of non-special taxpayers).