VAT Calculator (Mexico, Spain & Latin America)
Add or back out VAT for 18 countries — with the rate presets and currency each one actually uses.
Amounts are computed in your browser — nothing is sentAdd or back out VAT (IVA / IGV / ITBIS / ITBMS / ISV) at every current rate
Decimals: use a period or a comma — 19.99 or 19,99. Verified August 2026.
How VAT works, what each country calls it, and the trap when you back it out
Pick a country, pick a rate (most countries have one; several have two or three), and the tool either adds VAT to a price or backs it out of a total. Rates are the ones each country's tax authority actually publishes as of August 2026 — Mexico 16% (or 8% in the northern border region), Spain 21% general with 10% reduced and 4% super-reduced, Chile 19%, Colombia 19%, Argentina 21% with a 10.5% reduced tier and a 27% telecom tier, Peru 18% IGV, Dominican Republic 18% ITBIS, and so on down through Central America and the Southern Cone. The tax's local name (IVA, IGV, ITBIS, ITBMS, ISV) shows up in the results so the label matches your receipt.
The single most common mistake with a value-added tax is backing it out by subtracting the percentage — which never gives the right answer. VAT is charged on the base price, not on the total, so undoing it means dividing the total by (1 + rate), not multiplying by (1 − rate). At 21% general, a €121 total divided by 1.21 gives the correct €100 base and €21 of VAT; subtracting 21% would give €95.59, off by four euros. The "Back VAT out" mode does the division for you; the guide below shows the same formula for Excel and SQL so you can apply it to a whole column at once.
A short tour of what these three-letter names actually mean. IVA (Impuesto sobre el Valor Agregado / Añadido) is what fifteen of these countries call it. Peru uses IGV (Impuesto General a las Ventas), the Dominican Republic uses ITBIS (Impuesto sobre Transferencias de Bienes Industrializados y Servicios), Panama uses ITBMS (Impuesto de Transferencia de Bienes Muebles y Servicios), and Honduras uses ISV (Impuesto sobre Ventas). The mechanic is identical in every case — a percentage added to the sale price and remitted to the treasury — only the label and the rate change.
Every rate on this page was checked against the corresponding tax authority in August 2026, and the page is date-stamped so you can see how fresh the data is. Rates do change: Ecuador raised its general IVA from 12% to 15% in 2024 and kept it there through 2025 and into 2026, and Uruguay periodically updates the reduced tier. If a rate changes, the file at the top of the source (the constants array) is the one place to edit and the whole tool updates with it. Everything runs in your browser — no amount, price or total is ever sent to a server — so this is safe to use with quotes, invoices and real business figures.
One thing this tool deliberately does not do is compute withholdings. Several countries layer VAT withholding regimes on top of the headline rate — Argentina's RG 2408 and Peru's retention regime being the two most familiar — and those depend on the payer's registration status and on the specific invoice, not on the rate alone. Getting them right needs the country's per-invoice rules, which is a per-country decision this page cannot make for you. Use this to compute the base VAT correctly, then apply your local withholding on top.
The VAT rate table (verified August 2026)
One row per country and per selectable rate. Where a country has a reduced or special tier documented by its tax authority, the additional rows appear immediately under the general rate.
| Country | Local name | General | Other rates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mexico | IVA | 16% | 8% border region · 0% exempt items |
| Spain | IVA | 21% | 10% reduced · 4% super-reduced |
| Argentina | IVA | 21% | 10.5% reduced · 27% telecoms |
| Chile | IVA | 19% | — |
| Colombia | IVA | 19% | 5% reduced |
| Peru | IGV | 18% | includes 2% IPM |
| Dominican Republic | ITBIS | 18% | 16% reduced |
| Uruguay | IVA | 22% | 10% reduced |
| Ecuador | IVA | 15% | 5% construction · raised from 12% in 2024 |
| El Salvador | IVA | 13% | — |
| Guatemala | IVA | 12% | — |
| Costa Rica | IVA | 13% | 4% private healthcare |
| Bolivia | IVA | 13% | — |
| Paraguay | IVA | 10% | 5% reduced |
| Honduras | ISV | 15% | 18% on alcohol & tobacco |
| Nicaragua | IVA | 15% | — |
| Panama | ITBMS | 7% | 10% alcohol & lodging · 15% tobacco |
| Venezuela | IVA | 16% | — |
Add or back out VAT in Excel or Google Sheets
A2 holds the price or total; B2 holds the rate as a decimal (0.16 for Mexico, 0.21 for Spain, 0.18 for Peru's IGV). The formulas are identical between Excel and Sheets.
VAT on a base price (A2 = price, B2 = rate):
=A2*B2
Total with VAT included:
=A2*(1+B2)
Back VAT out of a total (A2 = total with VAT):
=A2/(1+B2)
Just the VAT inside a total:
=A2-A2/(1+B2)Regional-settings note: if your Excel uses a comma as the decimal separator (which is standard in Spain and most of Latin America), write the constants with a comma — =A2/1,21 — or Excel will read 1.21 as one hundred twenty-one hundredths of a decimal. No named functions differ between English and Spanish Excel here.
VAT math across a whole table in SQL
Given a table sales(amount_before_vat, country_code), joined against a small rates lookup, the whole calculation is one query. This example uses PostgreSQL; MySQL and SQL Server work the same after the usual cast fixes.
-- One rate per country in a lookup CTE
WITH rates(country_code, rate) AS (
VALUES ('MX', 0.16), ('ES', 0.21), ('AR', 0.21),
('CL', 0.19), ('CO', 0.19), ('PE', 0.18),
('DO', 0.18), ('UY', 0.22), ('EC', 0.15)
)
SELECT s.amount_before_vat,
s.country_code,
r.rate,
ROUND((s.amount_before_vat * r.rate)::numeric, 2) AS vat_amount,
ROUND((s.amount_before_vat * (1 + r.rate))::numeric, 2) AS total_with_vat
FROM sales s
JOIN rates r USING (country_code);One trap: integer division. If amount_before_vat is stored as an integer, divide-based expressions truncate — cast to numeric or double first, exactly like the CAGR SQL guide shows.
FAQ
How do I back the VAT out of a total?
Divide the total by (1 + rate) — do not subtract the percentage. At 21%, divide by 1.21; at 19%, divide by 1.19; at 16%, divide by 1.16, and so on. Subtracting the rate systematically over-removes the tax, because the rate was charged on the base price and not on the total. Switch this tool to "Back VAT out" mode and it does the division for you.
Which countries and rates does this cover?
Eighteen countries: Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Paraguay, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela. Each country's general rate is included, and where a country has documented reduced or special rates (Spain 10%/4%, Argentina 10.5%/27%, Colombia 5%, Panama 10%/15%, etc.) those are in the rate dropdown too. All rates were verified in August 2026 against each country's tax authority.
Are these rates current?
They were current as of August 2026, and the page is date-stamped so you can see how recent that check was. VAT rates change less often than income-tax brackets — a country typically holds its rate for years at a time — but they do change; Ecuador is the recent example, going from 12% to 15% in 2024. If you notice a rate is out of date, the fix is a single number in the source; open an issue or drop us a note and it gets updated.
Does the tool cover VAT withholdings?
No, and that is deliberate. Withholding regimes (Argentina's RG 2408, Peru's retention system, Colombia's reteIVA) depend on the payer's status and on the specific invoice, not on the headline rate. This tool computes the base VAT correctly; you or your accounting system layer any local withholding on top of that.