Most guides for foreign buyers stop at the closing table, as if owning were the end of the story. It is the middle. One day you will sell, and the exit deserves the same clear-eyed planning as the entrance, because two questions decide whether it goes well: what you owe, and how you get your money home.
I have taken foreign owners through this many times. Done right, it is unremarkable. Done blind, it is where a good investment leaks value at the door.
You hold title in your own name. You sell exactly as a local sells. There is no foreigner exit surcharge, and the old extra withholding on foreign sellers is no longer in effect as of 2026. The market does not price you differently on the way out than it did on the way in.
What is different is purely logistical: you may be abroad, and you will want your proceeds in dollars, outside Argentina. Both are solvable, and both reward planning ahead of the deal rather than after it.
There are two regimes, and which one applies depends on when you bought.
| Situation | What you pay |
|---|---|
| Property acquired before 2018 | ITI: 1.5% of the sale price (Impuesto a la Transferencia de Inmuebles) |
| Property acquired 2018 or later | Capital gains: 15% on the gain (price less indexed cost), for individuals |
| Selling to reinvest in a primary home | Possible ITI exemption (certificado de no retención) |
The escribano withholds and remits these at closing, which is one more reason the notary sits at the center of every Argentine transaction. The deeper mechanics of capital gains, and how the indexed cost base softens the bill, are worth their own read before you list.
Just as on the buy side, the escribano is the engine of the sale. The buyer typically chooses the notary, who then verifies your title is clean, confirms there are no liens or debts against the property, withholds the applicable taxes, certifies the deed, and registers the transfer. Your job as seller is to arrive with a clean title and current accounts: expensas paid, ABL current, no surprises in the informes. A property that has been well managed sells smoothly. One that has not, drags.
This is the question foreign sellers actually lie awake over, and it is the one most listings will not address. You sold for dollars, in cash, at the table. Now you want those dollars in your account at home.
The clean path is to receive the proceeds into a local account and repatriate through legitimate financial channels, the same dollar routes that bring money in, run in reverse. The relevant rails and the difference between the official and financial-dollar routes are covered in our note on moving money in and out of Argentina. The headline: plan the exit route before you accept an offer, because the structure of how you get paid is part of the deal, not an afterthought.
A foreign seller can also handle the entire closing remotely, by power of attorney, without flying down for signing day. We arrange this routinely.
A clean sale in Buenos Aires moves quickly by international standards.
From accepted offer to deed, a clean transaction often closes in a matter of weeks, not months. The variable is rarely the system. It is whether your paperwork and accounts were in order before you started.
A foreigner who bought through a portal sells alone, navigating taxes and repatriation in a language they do not speak. A foreigner who bought through a firm that is still there, still licensed, still holding the file, sells with the same people who know the apartment, the building, and the buyer pool. The exit is where that relationship pays its last and largest dividend.
When you are ready to think about selling, even if it is a year out, the smart move is to plan the exit early. That conversation, in English, starts on a call.
Max.-
Thirty minutes. Free. In English. We answer everything in this note plus everything not in it.
