ARCA expedites the VAT refund process for exploration that the mining companies claimed

The Mining Investment Law (No. 24,196) allows companies in the sector to recover VAT that they pay when they buy or import goods and services to explore a deposit (for example, geological studies, drilling or equipment). This recovery is not automatic.: the company has to collect these VAT credits and, after twelve months, ask the collecting agency to return them. This refund process is known as “VAT recovery for mining exploration.”

Until now, This procedure was governed by a 2004 regulation (a joint resolution between the collecting agency at that time and the Ministry of Mining), which established the steps, deadlines and papers that had to be presented. The chambers of the sector had been pointing out for years that that circuit was slow and bureaucratic, and that delays in repayment complicated the financing of exploration projects.

ARCA published the General Resolution 5879/2026 in the Official Gazette, with which he decided to move that procedure to an online system that he already uses for other tax refunds: the Comprehensive Recovery System (SIR). In other words, instead of managing the order with the paper circuit that dated back to 2004, the company will now be able to process it through a digital platformalong with other refunds that ARCA already centralizes there (such as the VAT refund on exports).

Along with this resolution, ARCA and the Ministry of Mining issued another joint regulation that cancels the old regulations of 2004, so that it ceases to govern and is replaced by the new digital circuit.

The change in procedure comes at a time of strong rebound in mining exploration in the country. According to data from GEMERA (the chamber that brings together exploratory mining companies), spending on exploration went from an average of between 100 and 200 million dollars annually between 2014 and 2021 to about 400 million dollars per year in the three-year period 2023-2025, with a similar expectation for 2026. It is a 3.5-fold jump since 2014, with 74 companies currently active in the country.

The real figure could be even higher, since a good part of Chinese investment is not reflected in official statistics. However, the sector itself emphasizes that The potential is much higher than what has been invested so far.

The comparison with Chile is eloquent: while the neighboring country registers between 10 and 20 meters of drilling per square kilometer, Argentina barely reaches between 3 and 5 meters, that is, less than a quarter of that exploratory density.

The president of GEMERA, Michael Meding, who is also CEO of Los Azules, of McEwen Copper, gives the example of that copper project in San Juan: the deposit already accumulates more than 200,000 meters drilled, of which 120,000 only in the last four years, at a current cost of between 400 and 600 dollars per meter in the mountain range, and even so they still do not know how many additional copper porphyries there could be in the zone. It is, in summary, a territory that remains underexplored in relation to the magnitude of its resources.