Chile is the most competitive economy in Latin America with the
44th rank worldwide. Recent years Chile has shown improvements in areas such as Public Finances, infrastructure and especially technological infrastructure, having intentions to be one of the digitals hubs in Latam.
Chile is a friendly country in case of starting a business. The average time to open a company is
4 days according to World Bank stats, that is almost the same level with the USA. The process could take different time depending on the complexity of a corporate structure. For small businesses there is a program called “
Company in one day” where you can open a business totally online. For corporations with a complicated ownership structure the process could take longer than 4 days.
Corporate tax rate is
27% and 25% for small and medium businesses. It had increased significantly because of the recent tax reform that started in 2014. It is still one percentage point lower than the average rate in Latam, but higher than the world rate, which decreased to
23.5% in 2023.
Dividends paid to a non-resident recipient are subject to a
35% withholding of ‘additional’ tax, with the tax paid at the corporate level being totally or partially creditable against this withholding tax.
Personal income tax has
progressive rates from 4 to 40%. As for consumption taxes Chile has value-added tax with
the rate 19%.Chile’s solid macroeconomic policy framework the country boasts the strongest credit ratings in Latin America. It’s the only country in Latam with an
A rating according to S&P Rating.Chile has a sound legal framework and there is general respect for private property rights. Corruption exists in Chile but on a much smaller scale than in most Latam countries. Chile ranks
38th worldwide and second after Uruguay in Latin America in the International Property Rights Index. Such components of this Index like Rule of Law, Control of Corruption, Perception of Physical Property Protection and Patent Protection have better scores than overall result. But in general Chile's scores are
falling down in recent years mostly because of Political Stability and Intellectual Property components.
In 2024 Chile ranks
39th worldwide in Global Startup Ecosystem Index after a decline of 5 spots in 2 years. The best in the region is Brazil followed by Colombia, which has been improving its position for a third year in a row. Venture capital investment took the
4th place in Latin America after huge markets of Brazil and Mexico and rapidly developing as a startup hub Colombia. Public business accelerator “Start-Up Chile” is the largest startup incubator and accelerator in Latin America by the number of startups they have accelerated to date. It did
954 investments according to crunchbase. Startup Chile welcomes founders from all over the world and provides them with equity free funding and accelerating programs.
Chile gave the world 2 unicorns: a manufacturer of plant-based products NotCo with a valuation of
1.5 billion dollars and HealthTech application BetterFly valued at
1 billion dollars.The core of top Chilean companies by revenue is formed by public companies and is pretty diverse in terms of industries. EmpresasCopec leads the rating with annual revenues
around 30 billion US dollars. This company is owned by AntarChile and controls a huge part of the energy and forestry sectors. It is followed by two retail giants - Cencosud and Falabella. The largest airline in Latin America - LATAM - closes the top-5 list with
around 12 Billion dollars in revenue.
Also one state-owned company joins the top by revenue. It’s CODELCO - one of the largest copper producers worldwide with the revenue around
17 billion dollars in 2023. Chile has one stated-owned bank - Banco Estado and around
26 more stated-owned companies mostly in infrastructure, transportation and defense sectors. As an OECD member, Chile adheres to the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance for SOEs.