Uruguay issues DMTT regulations on GloBE calculations, elections and compliance

Uruguay’s signed IMCD decree dated 16 October 2026 supplies a broad technical framework for its domestic minimum top-up tax. Its 44 articles add previously missing elections, develop the GloBE income and Covered Tax calculation, restrict foreign-tax pushdown, and address negative tax expense and transition years. Detailed safe harbours and filing/payment provisions form part of that wider implementation.

The existing Title 21 already contained the €750 million group-revenue threshold, 15% minimum rate and much of the core GloBE structure. The significance of the October decree is the additional rules needed to operate that structure, including provisions that had been absent from the statutory election list or left to regulation.

Previously missing elections are now available

Articles 8–11 introduce an annual election for qualifying debt-release income, a five-year portfolio-dividend election, a five-year election for qualifying foreign-exchange hedges of non-portfolio equity investments, and the jurisdictional Equity Investment Inclusion Election. These affect which gains, losses and associated taxes enter the calculation; they are not merely reporting simplifications.

Article 25 also adds the investment-entity Tax Transparency Election, subject to the owner being taxed under a mark-to-market or similar regime at a rate of at least 15%. Article 26 extends relevant investment-entity rules to insurance investment entities. The annual and five-year election periods, entity or jurisdictional scope, conditions and restrictions on revocation need to be considered individually.

The domestic ETR calculation changes too

Article 19 supplies restrictions on allocating foreign main-entity, CFC and hybrid-owner taxes to the Uruguay domestic calculation, and excludes allocated tax on distributions except for withholding imposed in Uruguay. These provisions fill an important gap between the statutory allocation rules and the domestic minimum-tax design.

The decree also deals with alternative accounting standards and currency conversion (articles 6–7), pensions, asymmetric FX and unilateral transfer-pricing adjustments (articles 12–15), and the excess negative tax expense procedure (article 20). Articles 39–41 develop the transition-year rules, including the consequences of later foreign qualified IIR exposure and the interaction with the Transitional CbCR Safe Harbour.

Safe harbours and administration complete the framework

Articles 27–32 set detailed Transitional CbCR Safe Harbour conditions. The transition period covers fiscal years beginning on or before 31 December 2027 and ending no later than 30 June 2029; the simplified-ETR threshold is 16% for years beginning in 2025 and 17% for 2026–2027. Articles 33–34 provide the permanent simplified-calculation/NMCE framework.

Article 37 makes the designated local filer responsible for filing and payment for the Uruguay group. Filing remains due within 15 months; extending first-transition-year filing to 18 months and making qualifying foreign-filing relief available require DGI action. A zero-tax safe-harbour result does not itself settle the procedural obligations.

Status of the instrument

This analysis uses the signed Presidency text dated 16 October, listed as Decree S/N/026. A numbered Official Gazette version and publication date have not been independently verified. Article 44 does not establish a new first fiscal year for IMCD. The instrument is separate from the August decree on fiscal-stability compensation, covered in our earlier analysis.