Visiting
Australian citizens have needed no visa to enter Chile since 17 September 2025. You get a stay of up to 90 days with no fee, and you can extend it once for up to 90 more for US$100, about A$144. A visitor may not do paid work. Whether doing your own job remotely for a foreign employer counts is unknown, so ask SERMIG in writing.
- You must show lawful means to support your stay. SERMIG sets the minimum daily amount by resolution, and the amount is unknown.
- A narrow exception lets speakers, advisers, technical experts and similar one-off workers ask SERMIG for an authorisation. It costs 150% of the paid-activity residence fee for your nationality, which is unknown.
- Paid work without authorisation carries a fine of half to five monthly tax units.
- You cannot apply for residence from inside Chile on a visitor permit, except in cases such as family ties to Chileans or permanent residents.
Staying a year or longer
Decreto 177 lists sixteen subcategories of temporary residence and none is for remote workers. The paid-activity subcategory covers a Chilean employer, a formal job offer or a self-employed contract with a Chilean or a permanent resident. Retirees and rentistas have their own subcategory, and Australians aged 18 to 30 can apply for a Working Holiday permit. Residence lasts up to two years and can be extended for up to two more.
- For retirees and rentistas, income must meet at least your basic needs by the Ministry of Social Development and Family's indicators. The decree states no amount, so the test is unknown.
- For scale, the ministry's September 2026 poverty line per equivalent person was CLP 255,422 (about A$377) for households that do not rent and CLP 378,098 (about A$557) for households that rent.
- The Working Holiday permit asks for a degree or a completed or accepted third year of an undergraduate course, functional Spanish as rated by the Chilean consul, no dependent children and a return ticket or the funds for one. You also need a letter from the Australian authority that selected you. The length of stay, quota and work limits are unknown.
- Whether an employee of a foreign company working remotely fits the paid-activity subcategory is unknown. Ask SERMIG.
More detail
A job offer from a Chilean person or company gives a 90-day permit first, with 45 days after you enter to file the notarised contract and its electronic registration. A self-employed contract must cover services lasting more than 90 days and be signed before the competent consulate before you enter.
A pension file needs a certificate of the pension's amount and duration and proof of the last payment. A rentista file needs a certificate of ownership, the contracts under which property income is paid, and proof of the income, apostilled or legalised unless the asset is in Chile.
Permanent residence generally needs 24 months of temporary residence, can be shortened to not less than 12 months in listed cases or lengthened to up to 48, and is revoked if you are away for more than two years in a row unless you ask for an extension first.
Documents, fees and timing
A temporary-residence file asks for a passport valid for at least a year and, for adults, a criminal record certificate from your country of origin or from where you lived in the last five years. Foreign public documents must be apostilled or legalised, and English documents need no translation. The fee depends on your nationality, and the amount for Australian nationals is unknown, so check it in SERMIG's portal before you pay.
- Documents from public bodies must be issued no more than 60 days before you file, and from private bodies no more than 30 days.
- Which Australian certificate SERMIG accepts is unknown, so ask before you order one. The Australian Federal Police issue a National Police Certificate for A$57, or A$114 if fingerprints are needed, and a fingerprint certificate takes at least 15 working days.
- The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade puts an apostille on Australian public documents for A$105 a document, and accepts only originals or copies notarised by an Australian Notary Public. Whether it will apostille a digital certificate is unknown.
- The processing time for temporary residence is unknown.
More detail
SERMIG may ask for more documents, and a Chilean consulate may collect further information, including an interview. Before any refusal you have ten working days to answer the reasons.
After a grant from abroad you have 120 working days to download the electronic stamp and then 90 calendar days to enter Chile. For the paid-activity subcategory the permit counts from the day you enter. Book the identity card within 30 days of the permit taking effect.
Tax
You become a Chilean tax resident on the day you pass 183 days in any 12 months. A foreigner who sets up domicile or residence is then taxed only on Chilean-source income for the first three years from entry, and on income from any origin afterwards. How this applies to pay for work you do in Chile for a foreign employer is unknown, so ask a Chilean adviser. Australia keeps its claim if you remain an Australian resident, and the treaty decides which country counts you as resident if both do.
- The SII counts every day you are physically in Chile, including arrival and departure days, and leaves out days in transit.
- The treaty's tie-breaker looks at a permanent home, then your centre of vital interests, then nationality, which for an Australian points back to Australia if the first two cannot be settled. Pensions are taxable only in the country where you are resident.
- If you stop being an Australian resident, you are taken to have sold your capital gains tax assets other than taxable Australian property at market value at that time, unless you choose to disregard all gains and losses.
- Employees pay a monthly tax that is exempt up to 13.5 monthly tax units and then rises in seven bands to 40%.
More detail
The ATO says you are generally an Australian resident if you go overseas temporarily and do not set up a permanent home in another country. Residents declare foreign income on the Australian return and may claim a foreign income tax offset. Study and training loans must still be repaid from overseas.
The social security agreement covers the Age Pension and Disability Support Pension, and the Superannuation Guarantee: an Australian employer that sends an employee to Chile temporarily can apply for a certificate of coverage lasting up to four years. Which country's system covers you if you move to Chile and take a job there on your own initiative is unknown.
The annual tax that applies to self-employed and investment income, and the additional tax rate for non-residents, are unknown. If you get the Age Pension and live outside Australia for more than 26 weeks, your rate depends on your years of Australian residence between 16 and Age Pension age.
Setting up
The Civil Registry issues the foreigner's identity card, which carries your RUN, once you hold a residence permit. Health cover is either Fonasa, the public insurer, or an Isapre, a private insurer. Medicare does not cover you in Chile, and Chile is not among the countries with an Australian reciprocal healthcare agreement. Isapre plan prices are unknown.
- Book the identity card within 30 days of the permit taking effect. It costs CLP 4,270, about A$6, and takes around 20 working days.
- Fonasa takes 7% of taxable pay up to a legal cap of 90 UF. You cannot belong to Fonasa and an Isapre at once. What an Australian on a residence permit must show to join Fonasa is unknown, so ask a Fonasa office.
- If you cancel private hospital cover in Australia, you may owe the Medicare levy surcharge above the income threshold.
- A valid Australian licence can function as a Chilean class B licence for non-commercial driving during your tourist visa, and otherwise you need an International Driving Permit. Chile's licence exchange agreements do not include Australia.
More detail
To start activities as a self-employed resident, you declare them to the SII online within two months. The tax key is free and you request it on the SII website with a valid Chilean identity card. Once you have started second-category activities you can issue electronic fee invoices (boletas de honorarios) online.
BancoEstado's CuentaRUT needs your identity card and has no opening or maintenance cost, but charges 1.9% on international transactions. Which documents other banks ask for is unknown, so ask the bank.
Smartraveller says private hospitals in Santiago and other major cities are good, that treatment is expensive and you may need to pay cash before it, and that travel insurance must cover medical evacuation.
Living in Santiago
At the Santiago station, January averages a high of 30.1°C and a low of 13.3°C, and July a high of 15.3°C and a low of 3.9°C, with about 342 mm of rain a year, roughly 270 mm of it from May to August. The Metropolitan Region holds 60% of Chile's foreign-born residents. Casen 2024 puts the average monthly rent or mortgage payment of its households that pay one at CLP 462,078, about A$681. The rent for a specific home is unknown.
- Smartraveller says smog and air pollution occur in Santiago throughout the year, particularly from April to October, and that Chile is in an active earthquake zone.
- It advises Australians to exercise a high degree of caution because of civil unrest and violent crime, and says mugging, armed robbery and bag snatching are common.
- Demonstrations occur regularly and can disrupt transport. Public transport is the most used way of getting to work in the region, at 51.3%.
- By income fifth, the average rent or mortgage payment runs from CLP 290,711 to CLP 627,491 a month, and 33.1% of occupied homes in the region are rented.
More detail
Other living costs such as building charges, utilities, groceries and transport are unknown. For scale, the ministry's basic food basket was CLP 92,833 per person in September 2026, about A$137.
Other places
Viña del Mar and Valparaíso are on the coast. Their region counted 100,655 foreign-born residents in Census 2024, 5.3% of its population, and 24.5% of occupied homes there are rented. Households in the region that pay rent or a mortgage spend CLP 350,927 a month on average, about A$517. The rent for a home in either city is unknown, and so is the climate.
- Smartraveller names both among the places where thieves target foreigners, and says express kidnappings have been reported in Valparaíso.
- In the region, public transport is the most used way of getting to work, at 41.8%, ahead of a private car at 36.5%.
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