Uruguay exempts beverage-container deposits from IVA and gives housing cooperatives an IVA credit from 1 January 2027 (Law 20.531)

What changed in detail

Uruguay’s Law No. 20.531, the Rendición de Cuentas y Balance de Ejecución Presupuestal for the 2025 financial year, was promulgated on 1 October 2026 and published on 16 October 2026. It amends Title 10 (IVA) of the Texto Ordenado 2023 in three places:

• Article 297 adds Article 70 bis, exempting from IVA the deposit and refund operations associated with single-use beverage containers carried out under approved waste-management plans that implement a deposit-return system (Sistema de Depósito, Devolución y Reembolso, SDDR).
• Article 300 adds literal F) to Article 87, giving housing cooperatives a credit for the IVA included in purchases of goods and services for the direct construction costs of the cooperative project. Only IVA on goods and services incorporated directly into the civil works qualifies. The regime applies to housing cooperative projects of any type whose deeds are executed after 1 January 2027 and whose purpose is building, or recycling exclusively for new dwellings. The Executive Power sets the procedure and may cap the credit per project.
• Article 301 empowers the Executive Power to modify the limit in literal H) of Article 36 of Title 10.

Under Article 2 the law applies from 1 January 2027 unless a provision states another date.

What it means

Both measures need implementing regulations before they work in practice: the cooperative credit depends on a procedure the Executive Power has still to set, and the container exemption depends on approved deposit-return plans. Cooperatives planning projects should note that only deeds executed after 1 January 2027 qualify, and that the credit covers construction inputs built into the works, not general project costs.