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SUMMARY
Yes. You can buy property in Argentina with physical US dollars now, as long as the seller accepts that form of payment and the transaction passes the normal notarial, registration and anti-money-laundering checks.
The recent “dólares del colchón” reforms did not suddenly legalize cash-dollar property purchases. Physical cash at an escritura already had explicit legal recognition, while DNU 70/2023 strengthened the rule that a contract agreed in dollars can actually require dollars.
The real change is around the transaction. Argentina has reduced several tax-reporting and documentation frictions, which makes it easier today for people with legitimate savings outside the banking system to put those dollars into property.
You do not have to deposit the dollars in an Argentine bank first. A property purchase can still be settled directly in physical US-dollar banknotes if that is what buyer and seller agree before closing.
Cash does not mean invisible. The escritura still records the deal, ownership is registered, and the notary can still ask for evidence showing where the money came from.
The distinction between undeclared savings and illicit money is crucial. Legitimate savings that were not previously declared may now receive stronger tax protection in some cases, but money from crime does not become acceptable because it is used to buy real estate.
The current UIF automatic-reporting threshold for a cash real-estate transfer is more than 750 minimum wages, which works out to roughly ARS282.45 million, or about US$187,000 using the exchange rate implied by the latest CABA deed data.
That threshold is not a cash limit. A larger transaction can be perfectly legal and automatically reportable, while a smaller one can still draw scrutiny if the source of funds does not fit the buyer’s financial profile.
Buenos Aires is still overwhelmingly a non-mortgage market. Roughly six out of seven recent purchases were completed without a registered mortgage, which helps explain why dollar savings remain so central even as home loans return.
For a buyer with documented dollars, the practical answer is therefore much simpler than the political discussion makes it sound: the purchase can be priced in dollars, paid in physical dollars at the escritura, and completed without routing the money through a local bank first. The recent reforms mainly make the surrounding tax and reporting environment less hostile.
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Why are people talking about buying Argentine property with cash dollars now?
Buying Argentine property with cash dollars is getting attention again because the government has sharply reduced the tax friction around savings kept outside the banking system.
The freshest development came this week. Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies approved Inocencia Fiscal II by 139 votes to 110, with two abstentions. The proposal would widen the simplified tax regime by removing the current income and wealth caps, making it easier for more Argentines to put previously informal savings to work. The Senate still has to approve it, so those broader rules cannot be relied on yet.
This comes after several earlier changes. ARCA eliminated COTI, which required a property to be reported when it was put up for sale, and CITI Escribanos, which required notaries to send information on certain transactions to the tax authority. UIF rules were also relaxed, with higher automatic reporting thresholds and a ban on routinely asking clients for national tax returns as proof of their financial profile.
All of that has made the environment friendlier to legitimate savings sitting outside banks. But the actual ability to buy a property in dollars existed before these reforms, which is where a lot of the current confusion starts.
Can an Argentine property deal be written in US dollars today?
Yes. Argentine property contracts can currently set the purchase price in US dollars and require payment in those same dollars.
Articles 765 and 766 of Argentina’s Civil and Commercial Code are unusually clear on this point. After the changes introduced by DNU 70/2023, a debtor who agreed to pay a certain currency is released by delivering the amount in that currency, and judges cannot simply change the currency or payment method agreed by the parties.
For a property buyer, that means a deed can state a price of US$150,000 and genuinely require US$150,000. The dollar does not have to serve merely as a reference for calculating a peso payment.
That fits the way Argentina’s property market works these days. Prices in Buenos Aires and many other urban markets are still routinely negotiated in dollars, even though the property, taxes and registration are all inside the Argentine legal system.
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Can I literally hand the seller US-dollar bills at the escritura?
Yes. Physical US-dollar banknotes can still be handed over at an Argentine escritura when the seller has agreed to that form of payment.
Decree 22/2001 specifically covers cash delivered when a public deed involving rights over real estate is executed. The decree says that this cash payment has the same cancelatory effect as the banking methods covered by Argentina’s anti-evasion rules, and the notary records the delivery and receipt in the deed.
So a buyer and seller can agree that US$120,000 will be delivered physically at closing. The escritura then documents the payment instead of the parties relying on an informal handover outside the deed.
The seller still controls the commercial terms. If the seller wants a bank transfer, a particular denomination of US bills or another settlement arrangement, the buyer cannot simply arrive with a bag of cash and impose a different method at the last minute. Those details should be agreed before the escritura.
Did the “dólares del colchón” reforms make cash property purchases legal?
No. Physical cash payments at Argentine property deeds had explicit legal recognition long before the latest “dólares del colchón” reforms.
Decree 22 dates back to 2001. More recently, DNU 70/2023 strengthened the treatment of contracts denominated in foreign currency. Neither reform was created by the current push to bring household dollar savings back into formal economic activity.
The recent changes mainly affect what happens around the purchase. The government has reduced automatic tax reporting, loosened some documentation requirements and created stronger tax protections for qualifying people who start using savings that had remained outside the system.
That makes buying property with accumulated dollars easier in practice. But saying Argentina has only just legalized cash-dollar property purchases mixes up the payment rules with the newer tax reforms.
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Do my dollars have to go through an Argentine bank before I buy property?
No. An Argentine property purchase can currently be settled in physical US dollars without first depositing those dollars into a local bank.
For someone with documented funds, a bank transfer can still make the process easier. Current UIF rules explicitly recognize banking documents as evidence that can help explain where purchase funds came from. A transfer from an account in the buyer’s own name therefore creates a very clean trail.
A cash buyer can use other evidence. A previous property deed, documentation showing the sale of investments or another asset, records of accumulated savings and a declaration of the origin and legality of the money can all become relevant.
Using an Argentine bank first is optional for the property payment itself. Whether avoiding the bank is sensible mostly comes down to how easily the buyer can make the source of the cash understandable to the notary.
Can I use undeclared dollar savings to buy property in Argentina now?
Possibly. Argentine property can now be bought with previously undeclared dollar savings when the money has a lawful origin and the buyer fits the tax rules that protect those savings.
This distinction gets lost in a lot of discussion about “mattress dollars.” Money can have been kept outside an Argentine bank or omitted from previous tax declarations without coming from crime. The government’s current policy is deliberately trying to reduce the fear that putting those savings back into use will automatically trigger years of tax investigations.
A property deed does not erase old tax problems by itself. The buyer still has to consider whether Inocencia Fiscal applies, whether previous taxes remain exposed and whether the source of the funds can be explained under AML rules.
Money from drug trafficking, corruption, fraud or another criminal source does not become clean because it is used to buy an apartment. Argentina’s tax simplification measures leave the anti-money-laundering framework in place.
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What can an Argentine notary ask about my cash dollars?
An Argentine notary can still ask where the money for a large cash property purchase came from, even though current UIF rules prevent notaries from demanding national tax returns as the routine proof.
UIF Resolution 78/2025 gives a surprisingly concrete list of evidence that can support a buyer’s financial profile. It includes a previous deed showing where funds came from, bank documents, evidence of the sale of property, securities or other assets, a sworn declaration about the origin and legality of the funds, and other documents that reasonably support the amount being spent.
That is a meaningful change from a system where proving tax compliance could dominate the conversation. A buyer who sold another home for US$200,000 can now point directly to that transaction. Someone who accumulated savings over years may need a different combination of records.
The notary uses a risk-based approach. A straightforward US$80,000 purchase by someone whose funds are easy to explain should not look the same as a US$500,000 cash purchase by someone whose financial history does not remotely support the transaction.
Did Argentina stop reporting property purchases to the government?
Argentina has cut back automatic tax reporting around property deals, but a registered property purchase is still visible through the deed, the property registry and the anti-money-laundering system.
ARCA abolished COTI and CITI Escribanos, removing two important streams of information that previously fed property data directly into the tax authority. That is a genuine reduction in routine tax surveillance.
A buyer still signs a public deed, ownership still has to be registered and UIF reporting rules still apply to notaries and property registries. Large cash transactions can generate systematic reports, while suspicious transactions can be reported on their own facts.
So these days the government receives less automatic tax information about an ordinary property deal, without making formal property ownership anonymous.
| Part of the transaction | What happens now | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| COTI | Abolished | Putting a property up for sale no longer triggers this ARCA report |
| CITI Escribanos | Abolished | Notaries no longer send this former monthly tax report to ARCA |
| Public escritura | Still required for the normal transfer of ownership | Buyer, seller, price and transaction remain formally documented |
| Property registry | Still operating | The new owner is registered |
| UIF controls | Still operating | Large cash and suspicious transactions can still be reported |
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How much cash triggers a UIF property report today?
A cash real-estate transfer above 750 minimum wages currently enters the UIF systematic monthly reporting regime.
The last officially published minimum wage is ARS376,600. Multiplying that by 750 gives a current threshold of ARS282.45 million.
To put that into a more intuitive property-market number, the latest CABA deed statistics reported an average transaction of ARS176.58 million, equivalent to US$116,967. Using the exchange rate implicit in those figures, ARS282.45 million comes out at roughly US$187,000.
That is a surprisingly normal property price rather than a multimillion-dollar luxury threshold. A family-sized apartment in a good part of Buenos Aires can easily approach or cross it.
There is also a small wrinkle worth knowing if you search the UIF website yourself. The operative Resolution 78/2025 raised the rule from 700 to 750 minimum wages, and the current UIF page is titled “superiores a 750 SMVM.” One sentence inside that guidance page still contains the old 700-SMVM wording. We use 750 because that is what the controlling resolution currently says.
The banking threshold is much lower. Cash transactions of at least 40 minimum wages are systematically reported by financial institutions, which currently means ARS15.064 million.
| Current UIF rule | Threshold in minimum wages | Current peso amount | Rough USD scale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash property purchase or sale reported by notary | More than 750 SMVM | ARS282.45m | ~US$187k |
| Property-registry purchase reporting | More than 750 SMVM | ARS282.45m | ~US$187k |
| High-value cash transaction at a bank | At least 40 SMVM | ARS15.064m | ~US$10k |
Does staying below the UIF property threshold keep a cash purchase off the radar?
No. As we saw above, staying below 750 minimum wages only avoids that specific automatic cash-property report; suspicious-transaction rules can still apply.
The UIF threshold is a reporting threshold rather than a legal maximum for cash. A US$250,000 cash purchase can be perfectly lawful and reportable. A smaller transaction can still attract attention if the buyer cannot explain the money or if the structure looks strange.
Trying to break a larger payment into smaller pieces does not solve this. UIF rules explicitly look at patterns, transaction frequency, the origin and destination of funds and activity that falls outside the client’s expected financial profile.
For an ordinary buyer, the useful test is simple: does the amount being spent make sense when compared with the documents showing where the money came from? If yes, an automatic report is mostly a compliance event. If no, staying a few thousand dollars below a threshold offers very little comfort.
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Does Inocencia Fiscal let Argentines spend “mattress dollars” freely now?
For eligible Argentine residents, Inocencia Fiscal currently gives much stronger tax protection for using legitimate savings that were kept outside the formal system.
The law already in force applies to resident individuals and undivided estates using the simplified income-tax declaration regime. Under the current statutory limits, qualifying taxpayers can have total annual income of up to ARS1 billion and total assets of up to ARS10 billion, and they cannot be classified by ARCA as major national taxpayers.
The regime can create a presumption that accepted simplified declarations are accurate and restrict how easily ARCA can reopen earlier periods, subject to the exceptions written into the law. For someone who accumulated legitimate savings but avoided using them because every large purchase risked prompting a tax investigation, that changes the calculation quite substantially.
The rules may broaden again soon. The Chamber of Deputies has just approved Inocencia Fiscal II by 139 votes to 110. Among the proposed changes is the removal of the income and wealth caps, which would allow a much wider group to enter the simplified regime.
For now, the Senate has not completed that change. Anyone buying property today has to work from the existing law rather than assume the broader proposal will become law exactly as approved by the lower house.
Are most Buenos Aires property purchases still happening without a mortgage?
Yes. Most Buenos Aires property purchases are still closing without a mortgage, despite the return of home loans.
The latest data released by the Colegio de Escribanos recorded 6,051 property deeds in CABA and only 959 deeds with a mortgage. Mortgages therefore appeared in about 15.8% of transactions, leaving roughly 84.2% without one.
Looking across the first seven months of the year smooths out the monthly noise. There were 35,528 purchases and 5,111 mortgages, which puts the mortgage share at about 14.4%. Roughly 85.6% of purchases were completed without registered mortgage financing.
That does not mean 85.6% of buyers handed over physical dollars. Some used transfers, proceeds from another property sale or other forms of financing.
Still, the numbers explain why dollar savings remain so important in Argentina’s housing market. Even with mortgages back, around six out of seven Buenos Aires purchases are still being completed without one.
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Can a foreigner buy Argentine property with cash dollars too?
Yes. A foreigner can generally buy ordinary urban property in Argentina and pay the agreed US-dollar price in cash, subject to the same notarial, registration and anti-money-laundering checks.
The UIF’s own property-reporting system explicitly includes “persona humana extranjera” and “persona jurídica extranjera” as possible buyers and asks for foreign identification details and a CDI where applicable. Argentina’s property registry rules also contemplate both resident and nonresident foreign owners.
A foreign buyer should be more careful with the tax side. The resident simplified Inocencia Fiscal regime does not automatically extend to someone who simply flies into Argentina and purchases an apartment.
Rural land also has a separate set of rules. The government’s current Rural Lands Registry says that although DNU 70/2023 attempted to repeal Law 26.737, a court injunction restored the law and that injunction remains in force. Foreign buyers of covered rural land therefore still need the relevant authorization certificate and remain subject to foreign-ownership limits.
For a foreigner buying a normal apartment in Buenos Aires, those rural restrictions are usually beside the point. For someone buying a finca, vineyard or large rural property, they can determine whether the purchase is allowed before anyone discusses how to pay for it.
Can I bring the property cash into Argentina on a plane?
Yes, but anyone entering Argentina with US$10,000 or more in cash or bearer monetary instruments currently has to declare it to Customs.
ARCA’s current traveler guidance allows larger sums to enter when they are properly declared. So physically bringing US$100,000 or US$200,000 into Argentina is not automatically prohibited simply because the amount exceeds US$10,000.
The declaration also gives the buyer a document showing how the physical money entered the country. It does not prove how the money was originally earned, but it closes one obvious gap in the trail.
There is a practical issue too. Carrying enough banknotes to buy an apartment creates theft, loss, transport and counting risks that a transfer avoids. Someone who already has the purchase money sitting in a documented foreign bank account may gain very little by converting the whole deal into physical cash.
The rules are different when taking large amounts of foreign cash out of Argentina: amounts at or above the permitted threshold generally have to leave through an authorized financial institution rather than in a suitcase.
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So, can I buy property in Argentina with cash dollars now?
Yes. You can currently buy property in Argentina with physical US dollars when the seller accepts them and the transaction clears the normal notarial, registration and anti-money-laundering checks.
The core claim is true. Argentine contracts can require payment in dollars, physical cash can be delivered at the escritura, and the dollars do not first have to pass through an Argentine bank.
The environment has also become easier lately for people using legitimate savings held outside the banking system. ARCA is collecting less automatic property information than before, notaries have fewer tax-document requirements, reporting thresholds are higher, and Inocencia Fiscal provides meaningful protection for eligible residents. A further expansion has already passed the Chamber of Deputies but is still waiting for the Senate.
The remaining limit is important. A cash property purchase does not give the buyer anonymity or a free pass on the origin of the money. The deed records the transaction, ownership is registered, the notary can ask for source-of-funds evidence and UIF reporting can apply.
So if by “cash dollars” you mean documented US-dollar savings that you want to hand directly to the seller at closing, the answer today is a clear yes. If you mean money whose origin cannot be explained at all, Argentina’s recent reforms do not make that problem disappear.
OUR METHODOLOGY
We approached the question “Can I buy property in Argentina with cash dollars now?” by separating three things that are often blurred together: whether a property can legally be priced and paid for in US dollars, whether physical dollar bills can be delivered at the escritura, and whether the recent “dólares del colchón” reforms changed the tax and reporting consequences around that purchase.
For the legal core, we prioritized operative legislation over market convention. We used DNU 70/2023 for the current treatment of foreign-currency obligations and Decree 22/2001 for the specific treatment of cash delivered when a public deed involving real estate is executed.
We then treated tax rules and anti-money-laundering rules as separate layers. We used Law 27.799 and ARCA guidance to assess the protection available under Inocencia Fiscal, while separately using UIF Resolution 78/2025 and the updated notary rules to assess source-of-funds checks and systematic reporting.
For reporting thresholds, we followed the controlling UIF resolution rather than secondary summaries. The operative rule uses more than 750 minimum wages for systematic reporting of cash real-estate transfers. We calculated the peso amount from the official minimum wage and translated it into an approximate dollar scale using the exchange rate implicit in the latest CABA deed statistics; that dollar figure is an analytical comparison, not a legal threshold.
For the financing comparison, we used the latest data from the Colegio de Escribanos de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires and checked the year-to-date totals as well as the latest month. A deed without a registered mortgage was treated as a non-mortgage purchase, not automatically as a physical-cash purchase.
We also checked the recent reduction in routine property reporting through ARCA Resolution General 5697/2025 on COTI and ARCA Resolution General 5698/2025 on CITI Escribanos. For travelers carrying cash, we used ARCA Resolution General 5659/2025.
Finally, we treated ordinary urban property and rural land separately for foreign buyers. The rural-land discussion is grounded in the current National Rural Lands Registry framework, because those special restrictions should not be used to describe an ordinary apartment purchase in Buenos Aires.
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