How to invoice foreign clients from Uruguay

A foreign customer does not automatically remove Uruguayan obligations. If you work from Uruguay, first identify your tax residence, the nature of the service and the regime under which you are registered.

Invoices and service exports

Receipts may document foreign-currency operations where appropriate, but VAT and income-tax treatment depend on the facts. A service export must satisfy specific legal conditions; a customer's foreign address alone is not enough.

Keep evidence

• Contract, statement of work or other evidence of the service.
• Customer tax details and country.
• Issued receipt and exchange rate where relevant.
• Payment evidence and bank or platform fees.

Common mistakes

• Assuming every foreign client means zero VAT.
• Recording only the net amount received after fees.
• Confusing the payment platform with the tax treatment of the income.

Example: a software developer working for a US company

DGI expressly analysed a sole proprietor with no employees developing software from Uruguay for a US company. In Consultation 6614 it concluded that qualifying development, implementation, updates, corrections, customisation, testing, maintenance, training and advisory services can be exempt from IRPF when fully used abroad. The actual work and where it is used matter more than the label 'IT'.

IRPF and VAT are two different questions

For VAT, Article 34 of Decree 220/998 includes, among other cases, design, development or implementation of specific software for foreign persons when the export conditions are met. IRPF has a separate software-related income exemption. VAT export treatment should not automatically be treated as proof that income tax is also zero.

What about consulting around software?

Consultation 6509 shows why tasks matter. DGI accepted IRPF exemption for certain consulting services connected to the foreign company's software, but not for consulting unrelated to that software. A contract mixing development, support, management and general consulting may need its components separated.

A sole proprietorship and a SAS do not get the same IRAE benefit

Consultation 6614 also explains an important limitation: if that sole proprietorship elects IRAE, DGI said it does not qualify for the software exemption under literal S because the entity is a sole proprietorship. Eligible companies face their own IRAE software requirements; forming a SAS does not automatically exempt all income.

A note on Decree 188/026

Decree 188/026, published in August 2026, is not the software-exemption decree. It amended Decree 148/007 for the impatriate regime and capital income. Software treatment continues to depend on the specific IRPF/VAT rules and, where relevant, literal S of Article 66 of Title 4 and its regulations.

What a developer should keep

• Contract and concrete task description.
• Evidence of who economically uses the result and where.
• Separation of development, support, licences and consulting when a contract mixes them.
• Invoices and payment evidence without using the bank account country as a tax rule.
• Support for the income-tax treatment applied to each service type.