Can a German buy land in Chile? Yes, and the three things that are different

Short answer: yes, a German can buy land in Chile, on the same terms as a Chilean. The ban people remember about foreigners and the border applies only to nationals of Argentina, Bolivia and Peru, so it does not reach you. What is specific to a German buyer is something else, and it is worth knowing before you start: Germany has no tax treaty in force with Chile, which changes the cost of holding a property through a company, and German documents reach Chile through an apostille issued by a German authority and a Spanish translation.

The answer, and the rule it gets confused with

The Chilean Civil Code says that the law recognises no difference between a Chilean and a foreigner as regards the acquisition and enjoyment of civil rights. It also says that property situated in Chile is subject to Chilean law even where its owner is a foreigner who does not live in Chile. Together those two provisions are the whole answer for most nationalities, including yours: there is no permit, no minimum investment and no residence requirement for an ordinary purchase.

The rule everyone half remembers is article 7 of Decree Law 1.939, which prohibits acquiring property in the zones declared border zones. Read the text and it names only nationals of neighbouring countries, together with companies based in them, owned 40 per cent or more by their nationals, or controlled by them. Germany is not a neighbouring country. We took the rule apart in buying land in Chile's border zones.

The one exception worth checking in your own family: a second nationality. The article speaks of nationals of neighbouring countries, and a person who is German and also Argentine is one. For the 40 per cent threshold that applies to companies, the Comptroller General has counted as Argentine a person holding Argentine nationality together with another. If you or any co buyer holds Argentine, Bolivian or Peruvian nationality as well, the rule has to be worked through before anything is signed, as we explain in whether an Argentine can buy land in Chile.

State land near the border and the coast

There is a second article in the same decree law that does reach you, and it is routinely confused with the first. Article 6 reserves state owned land within 10 kilometres of the border to Chilean persons, under any title. State owned land within 5 kilometres of the coast follows the same rule, with an opening for foreigners domiciled in Chile and a favourable naval report, and state beach land within the 80 metre strip measured from the high tide line cannot be transferred at all.

None of this touches land already registered in a private name. It matters when what is being offered traces back to state land, which is its own problem and usually a sign that the title needs work, as set out in regularisation of title.

What you need before you buy

Two things, and neither is a visa. The first is a Chilean tax number, known as a RUT, which every foreigner who invests in Chile must obtain. The second is a representative domiciled or resident in Chile with sufficient power to act before the tax authority, which the authority itself requires of foreign investors without domicile or residence. The registration is done through that representative, so you do not have to travel for it. The route is set out in getting a Chilean RUT without travelling, and the rest of the purchase in buying property in Chile as a foreigner.

Germany has no tax treaty with Chile

This is the point that most separates a German buyer from an American, a Swiss or a Spanish one. The list of treaties published by the Chilean tax authority includes the United States, Switzerland, Austria and Spain, among others, and does not include Germany. The only agreements between the two countries in that list concern international shipping and air transport. The list of the German Federal Ministry of Finance at the first of January 2026 shows a first treaty with Chile at the negotiation stage, not signed.

What that does not change is the tax on a direct sale. The first 8.000 units of account of gain on a property held by a natural person are not income whatever the seller's residence, the excess is taxed at 35 per cent, and the buyer withholds either 10 per cent of the whole amount or 35 per cent of the gain. A treaty would not have reduced that either: the right to tax gains on immovable property stays where the property is. The mechanics are in selling Chilean property as a non resident, and the annual tax in property taxes in Chile for foreign owners.

What it does change is ownership through a Chilean company. When a Chilean company distributes profit to a shareholder abroad, the shareholder is taxed at 35 per cent with a credit for the corporate tax already paid, and that credit carries an obligation to restore to the Treasury an amount equal to 35 per cent of it. The law exempts from that restitution the residents of countries with a treaty in force. A United States shareholder benefits from the exemption. A shareholder resident in Germany does not.

The practical conclusion is the one we set out in general in holding Chilean property personally or through a company, only sharper: for a German holding one property, buying in your own name is usually the better answer. How the German side of all this is taxed is a matter of German law and of your tax adviser there.

Your documents: apostille and translation

Germany has been party to the Hague Apostille Convention since 1966, and the convention has been in force for Chile since the 30th of August 2016. So a German public document needs no legalisation to be used in Chile, only the apostille of the competent German authority, and the apostille itself needs no further certification here.

Which authority depends on the document. For a document from a notary or from the ordinary courts, the apostille is issued by the justice administration of the Land, normally the president of the Landgericht or of the Amtsgericht, or the Land ministry of justice. For administrative documents, by the Land ministry of the interior or the Regierungspräsident. For documents from federal authorities and federal courts, by the Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten. A power of attorney signed before a German notary is therefore apostilled by the courts of the Land, not by the federal office.

Then the language. A document in German needs a Spanish translation. The translation service of the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is optional, and it is the body receiving the document that decides whether it demands an official translation. Before a court, the judge orders the translation by an expert at the cost of whoever submits the document, and a translation attached from the start stands unless the other party asks for it to be reviewed within six days.

Signing from Germany: the four consular offices

Chilean consuls act as notaries for acts intended to take effect in Chile, granted by Chileans or by foreigners. Before them you can grant a public deed: a general or special power of attorney, a purchase, a promise of sale. That deed then has its consul's signature legalised at the Legalisations Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Santiago, and without that step it has no effect in Chile.

The honorary consulates in Cologne and Bremen appear in the official register without authority to act as public notaries, so a power of attorney has to be granted at one of the four offices above.

The alternative is a power granted before a German notary and apostilled, which Chilean law accepts without protocolisation. It has one weakness. If the notary only certified your signature on a private document, the apostille certifies that certification and does not turn the document into a public instrument, which can fall short where Chilean law demands a public deed. For anything that ends in buying or selling a property, the consular route is the safer one. Both routes are compared in more detail in inheriting a Chilean property from the United States.

The investment treaty, and what it does not do

Chile and Germany do have one treaty that touches property: the treaty on the promotion and reciprocal protection of investments, promulgated in Chile by Decree 522 of 1999 of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in force since the 8th of May 1999. Its definition of investment includes ownership of movable and immovable property.

Two things follow. The treaty admits investments in accordance with the host country's laws, so it changes nothing about how you buy: the deed, the registration and the taxes are the same. And its protection is protection after the purchase, not a shortcut through it. It also does not cover a person who holds both Chilean and German nationality, nor a German who had been domiciled in Chile for more than five years when investing, unless the money came from abroad.

You cannot sign the purchase remotely

A sale of real property in Chile requires a public deed, and the reform of the notarial system published in October 2025 kept the deed on paper and kept the requirement of a thumbprint beside each signature. There is no electronic public deed and no signing by video. Somebody has to appear before a Chilean notary, and that somebody can be the attorney you appointed at the consulate.

And because ownership only passes when the purchase is registered, not when the deed is signed or the money is paid, the funds should be released against the registration in your name. What to check before that point is in the checks before you wire the money.

Rural land, water and title

The questions that decide most rural purchases have nothing to do with nationality. Rural land cannot as a rule be divided below half a hectare, and a plot created in breach of that rule is a problem the buyer inherits; our subdivision test gives a first reading. Water rights are a separate asset from the land, registered separately, as explained in buying land with water rights. And land sold cheaply in remote areas is where titles fail most often, which is why the five checks in buying land in Patagonia apply to any rural purchase.

How we work on it

We start with the title, because that decides whether there is anything to buy. Then we set the structure with the treaty point in mind, draft the power of attorney so that one instrument covers the tax number, the promise and the deed, and tell you which consular office corresponds to your Land. The title reading is our title study service; when the title needs work first, our title regularisation service, with a first indication from the regularisation test; and where rural land is to be divided, our rural subdivision service. You do not need to travel at any stage.

Frequently asked questions