The norm, in detail
What duty the equipment you are importing pays
Decreto 557/2023 (Official Gazette 26-Oct-2023), amended ten times — most recently on 4-May-2026
in forceNATIONAL
Trade opening
Decreto 557/2023 is the tariff table in force: capital goods carry their rate in Annex III and IT goods in Annex IV. It has been amended ten times.
What changed and who it applies to
What changed
This is the table that sets, line by line, how much import duty a good pays when it enters the country from outside Mercosur, and it comes split into eleven annexes that are NOT interchangeable. Section 1 approves ANNEX I: the whole Mercosur Common Nomenclature, with its Common External Tariff and its export rebates. Section 2 points to ANNEX II, the National List of Exceptions to that common tariff. Section 3 is the one that matters to whoever is buying a machine: it sets the extra-zone import duty rates for CAPITAL GOODS lines, and those rates live in ANNEX III, not in Annex I. Section 4 does the same for information technology and telecommunications goods, in ANNEX IV; section 5, for the lines carrying a temporary tariff increase, in ANNEX V; and section 6 replaces the used-goods regime of Resolución 909/1994 with ANNEXES VI to VIII. What makes all of this possible is in the recitals and has an expiry date: Decisión 8/21 of the Consejo del Mercado Común authorised Argentina, until 31 December 2028, to set a tariff different from the common one — zero per cent included — for capital goods and for information technology and telecommunications goods. verif · Oct 26, 2023 ↗
In force
2023-10-27 verif · Oct 26, 2023 ↗
Are you in or out?
Anyone importing equipment: the supplier buying abroad the machine it will manufacture with, the project holder bringing in the plant, and the customs broker doing the classification. ⚠️ And it is a LIVING TABLE, not a fixed figure: the decree has been amended ten times in under three years, and the one that touched the capital-goods annex is Decreto 513/2025 (29-Jul-2025, «amends Annexes II, III and V»). The two most recent are from the same day, 4 May 2026: Decreto 305/2026 replaced Annex V in full and Decreto 311/2026 adopted Decisión 1/25 of the Consejo del Mercado Común. In between, Resolución 11/2026 (16-Jan-2026) set out guidelines for applying the 0% rate. That is why no rate is copied here: any number published ages with the next decree, and the tariff line has to be read in the annex in force on the day the goods are imported. verif · May 4, 2026 ↗
The norm
Decreto 557/2023 of the national Executive, issued on 25-Oct-2023 and published in the Official Gazette on 26-Oct-2023 (issue 35,285, page 4). It has been in force since the day after publication (section 15) and remains in force. verif · Oct 26, 2023 ↗
Our reading
It is good for one concrete thing, and it is worth saying plainly: before quoting a project, a supplier has to know what the equipment it will produce with actually costs, and that cost does not come from the manufacturer invoice but from the machine tariff line. Here is the map of where to look — capital goods in Annex III, information technology and telecommunications in Annex IV, used goods in Annexes VI to VIII — and how long the permission that makes a zero tariff possible lasts: 31 December 2028, under Mercosur's Decisión 8/21. thesis And there is a crossing point that makes this table more important than it looks: joining the RIGI supplier regime is said to exempt import duties on inputs, parts and capital goods — which would make this table exactly the bill that joining wipes out. ⚠️ But we have not read that exemption in the decree, and we do not take it as given here. The only source we have is the Secretaría de Industria's frequently-asked-questions document, which is explanatory material and already failed once on this same regime: it said the 20% local content is calculated «on the amount allocated to suppliers» while Decreto 749/2024 says «allocated to paying suppliers of goods and works», with services excluded. Of the decree's sections actually opened first-hand (3(f), 47(l), 49, 50 and 51) none deals with the customs benefit. ⇒ until the section creating the supplier registry is opened and the exemption read there, the crossing point is not published as fact. thesis
Where it lands, province by province
Applies the same nationwide
No effect lands differently in any one province: it applies the same across the country.
The other rules on this subject19
Imports without prior permit: from SIRA to a reporting SEDIRes. 1/2023 Trade Secretariat + Joint GR AFIP-Trade 5466/2023 (Official Gazette Dec 26, 2023)in force
Mercosur–EU ratified: 450 million consumers open up to agriculture and industryLey 27.800 (Official Gazette Feb 26, 2026); provisional application from May 1, 2026in force
Argentina and the US sign their first trade and investment agreementBilateral agreement signed Feb 5, 2026 (no number; submitted to Congress)pending
Industrial export taxes to zero: chemicals, metals and autos export duty-freeDecreto 566/2026 (Official Gazette Jul 1, 2026)in force
Congress approved MERCOSUR's first free trade agreement with an Asian countryMERCOSUR-Singapore treaty · final passage Aug 27, 2026in execution
The RAF stops being an automotive privilege: tax-suspended inputs for all of industryDNU 252/2026 (Official Gazette Apr 17, 2026)in force
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Fact sheet built on the published rule, with the gaps declared. Back to the reforms
How to read the seals → verif primary source · prob primary source pending · unconf not sufficiently backed · estim our own calculation · thesis our reading