On April 17^th, 2025, the Chilean Internal Revenue Service (SII, for its initials in Spanish) issued Ruling No. 771 of 2025, modifying the interpretive criterion regarding the exemption from inheritance and donation taxes applicable to lands classified as preferentially suitable for forestry, with at least 30% of their surface covered by Native Forest. 
 

This exemption establishes that such lands will not be considered for the purposes of applying the Law on Inheritance, Assignments, and Donations Tax. 

Previously, through Ruling No. 1454 of 2013, the SII had interpreted that if what was acquired through inheritance due to death or by donation consisted of shares in a company owning lands classified as Native Forest, the tax exemption in question did not apply. 

However, with the issuance of the recent Ruling No. 771 of 2025, this interpretation has been modified. The current criterion establishes that lands preferentially suitable for forestry, with at least 30% of their surface covered by Native Forest, should not be considered for the valuation of shares acquired through inheritance due to death or by donation, provided they are part of the assets of the respective partnership. 

The procedure for a land to be classified as Native Forest is: 

1. Request for a technical study: A technical study must be commissioned from one of the professionals authorized by the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF, for its initials in Spanish), such as a forestry engineer or a specialized agronomist, to certify that the land qualifies as Native Forest. 

2. Submission to CONAF: Once the study is completed, a request must be submitted to CONAF, accompanied by the technical report, to obtain the formal declaration of the property as Native Forest. CONAF has a 60-day period to issue a decision; if it does not do so within this period, the request will be deemed approved. 

3. Tax exemption: Once the declaration is obtained from CONAF, the SII, based solely on the certificate issued by the Corporation, will order the immediate exemption from inheritance and donation taxes, which will take effect from the date of the respective certificate. 

Finally, it is important to note that, pursuant to the first paragraph of Article 13 of Decree Law No. 2.565 and Article 35 of Law No. 20.283, lands preferentially suitable for forestry, with at least 30% of their surface covered by Native Forest, are also exempt from the property tax applied to agricultural lands. In this case, the exemption will take effect from January 1 of the year following the one in which the corresponding certification was obtained from CONAF.