Filing Taxes in Paraguay: Marangatu, Deadlines and Nil Returns

Filing your taxes: the short version

Form numbers and obligation codes are as the DNIT publishes them. Returns are filed "exclusively by electronic transmission of data via the internet" through Marangatu.

Marangatu and the clave de acceso

Marangatu is the DNIT's online system for returns, your tax account and notices sent to your electronic mailbox (Marandu). To use it you need a RUC and a clave de acceso confidencial de usuario, a password you create yourself. The DNIT does not issue one. Its published FAQ gives these steps for an individual:

1. Submit the access-key request (Form 630) through the DNIT's online services.
2. Print it and sign it, together with the Acta de Manifestación de Voluntad (Form 625).
3. Deliver both, with a copy of your identity document, to a DNIT office. You can take them in person, send someone else, or use a courier.
4. After the DNIT has checked the documents, it emails a link to the address you declared. You use that link to set the password.

The DNIT describes the password as strictly personal, secret and non-transferable, and anything filed with it is your responsibility.

The filing calendar: the last digit of your RUC

Under the Calendario Perpetuo de Vencimientos (Resoluciones Generales N° 01/2007 and N° 38/2020), your due day each month is set by the last digit of your RUC. The check digit after the hyphen does not count. The DNIT confirmed in March 2025 that it remains in force.

A deadline that falls on a non-working day moves to the next working day. Resolución General N° 38/2020 fixes the month:

• IRP: the due day of the third month after the fiscal year ends. The IRP year is the calendar year (Article 52 of Ley N° 6380/2019), so this means March.
• IVA: the due day of the month following the period being declared.

Example: RUC 1234560-7 ends in 0 before the hyphen, so its day is the 7th. The 2026 IRP return is due on 7 March 2027, a Sunday, so it moves to the next working day. If that person is also registered for IVA, each month's return is due on the 7th of the next month.

The annual IRP return

The IRP's two categories are declared separately, and Article 53 of Ley N° 6380/2019 bars setting expenses or gains in one against the other.

• Form 515, IRP-RSP: income from personal services, whether employed or self-employed. Under Article 62 of the law, a person comes within this category once their gross taxable income from personal services exceeds ₲80,000,000 since 1 January of that year. The implementing decree (Decreto N° 3184/2019, Article 60) requires registration, or an update to the RUC, within 30 working days of crossing that amount.
• Form 516, IRP-RGC: capital income and gains, such as rent, some dividends, and gains on the sale of assets. Under the same decree (Article 40), registration is due within 30 working days of first obtaining such income. Capital income that has already been taxed by withholding as a final payment does not go on the return (Article 41).

Rates are in Paraguay's income tax rates. For filing, the key point is that registration continues. The DNIT's published guidance, citing Article 61 of the decree and Article 28 of Resolución General N° 69/2020, says an IRP-RSP taxpayer must file every year even if in that year they received no personal-service income, or received less than the threshold.

The decree provides a way out. If you stay at or below ₲80,000,000 for two consecutive fiscal years, the obligation to file the IRP-RSP return ends from the following year (Article 62). The DNIT counts the first year of registration as one of the two. The obligation also ends on death, or when a taxpayer moves abroad permanently and cancels or updates the RUC. Separately, Article 69 of the law says that with gross personal-service income of ₲80,000,000 or less, you still have the formal obligations, but no tax is payable.

Monthly IVA returns

Under Article 82 of Ley N° 6380/2019, an individual is an IVA taxpayer for independent personal or professional services and for renting out property. IVA is calculated each month (Article 86) as output IVA minus input IVA. The return is Form 120 under obligation 211, due in the following month on your RUC day.

For a foreign resident, that usually means renting out Paraguayan property (residential lets carry the reduced 5% rate under Article 90) or invoicing Paraguayan clients. Monthly means twelve returns a year, each with its own deadline and its own late-filing fine, including months when nothing happened.

"Sin movimiento": the nil return

A nil return (declaración sin movimiento) is a return filed for a period with nothing to declare. In its published FAQ, the DNIT tells a taxpayer who has made no sales to file the returns anyway, in the same months, sin movimiento, and warns that a fine applies if they do not. For IRP-RSP it says the same in terms, as set out above. The DNIT also offers an online service for filing a nil return.

This is how people who owe no tax end up with fines: a RUC is registered for one purpose, obligations are recorded against it, nobody files the nil returns, and the account shows as not up to date when a DNIT document is next needed.

What a resident with only foreign income files

The IRP reaches Paraguayan-source income. Foreign-arising income is outside it, subject to the narrow exceptions in Article 48, set out in what the 0% actually covers. The registration triggers above are Paraguayan taxable income. So:

• If you have no Paraguayan-source income and no RUC, nothing we have found in the law or decree requires you to register or file an IRP return merely because you are resident.
• If you have a RUC, for whatever reason, the obligations recorded against it must be filed every period, nil or not. A registered taxpayer applying for a tax residency certificate must be up to date, so a missed nil return can block the certificate.
• If you have some Paraguayan income, such as a rented flat or a local client, the rules above apply to it regardless of your foreign income.

Penalties for filing late

Filing late and paying late are different offences.

Two points follow. First, the late-filing fine applies per return and does not depend on whether any tax was due. Second, Resolución General N° 38/2020 says that a return filed on time but paid late does not attract the late-filing fine, only the mora. If you cannot pay, file on time anyway.

The role of a contador

No accountant is required to file, and one nil IRP return a year is manageable alone. A contador earns their fee for three reasons:

• The system is in Spanish and the forms follow Paraguayan tax concepts.
• IVA is monthly, and IRP-RSP and IVA taxpayers must also register their invoices (comprobantes) in Marangatu.
• Classifying income is the real risk. Whether a given receipt is Paraguayan-source, and whether it belongs under the IRP or IRE, is a judgement. A good contador will ask the question instead of just typing numbers.

Do not hand over your password; the DNIT says not to. Use the Tercero Autorizado facility (Resolución General N° 32/2010) instead, which lets you authorise an accountant or firm to file on your behalf in Marangatu, with a password of their own, for the period you choose.

What we would actually do

1. Decide whether you need a RUC at all before you get one. With no Paraguayan-source income and no need for a certificate, local invoices or a lease in your own name, you may not need one. Each obligation on a RUC is a return you must file every period.
2. If you do register, read your own RUC record in Marangatu the day it is active. Note which obligations are recorded against it (715, 716, 211 or others), because those are the returns you owe.
3. Put your RUC day in the calendar, monthly for IVA and in March for the IRP, with a reminder a few days before.
4. File nil returns on time. A late nil return costs a fine and gains you nothing.
5. If you use a contador, authorise them as a Tercero Autorizado. Do not give them your password, and check your tax account yourself once a quarter.
6. Check you are fully up to date well before you need a certificate.

This page describes how filing works. It is not advice on what your RUC should carry or your return should contain; that needs a Paraguayan accountant and your figures.