Sending money to Venezuela: no remittance ceiling in the exchange agreement

Convenio Cambiario No. 1, the exchange agreement that governs exchange operations in Venezuela, sets no remittance ceiling and no personal reporting threshold in any of its 89 articles. A distinction between a business payment and a personal one is made by a separate instrument. It is a tax on financial transactions. Its taxable events do not include a credit, and its taxpayer is the payer.

Key Takeaways

• Convenio Cambiario No. 1 has no remittance chapter, no ceiling and no personal reporting threshold in any of its 89 articles.
• Where it does sort by activity it does so on the export side, at articles 41, 55, 57 and 74 to 77.
• An instrument that does distinguish by payment type is the Impuesto a las Grandes Transacciones Financieras.
• None of the eight taxable events in its article 3 is a credit, and article 4 makes the payer the taxpayer.
• Article 24 fixes the rates expressly as a default, until the National Executive sets a different one.

Convenio Cambiario No. 1 sets no ceiling on a personal transfer

The instrument to look at first is Convenio Cambiario No. 1, the exchange agreement governing exchange operations, published in Gaceta Oficial No. 6.405 Extraordinario of 7 September 2018. The Banco Central de Venezuela's own index of convenios cambiarios lists it and nothing later. That is the strongest available evidence of what the issuer treats as current. It is not a commencement and amendment history.

Across its 89 articles it sets no remittance ceiling, establishes no reporting threshold for a personal transfer, and devotes no chapter to remittances. The word remesas appears in it only in the public sector chapter, at articles 48(c) and 52, on diplomatic and mission payments.

That absence is itself the finding, so it is worth stating plainly. If you are looking for a rule that treats money sent to a relative differently from money sent to a supplier, this is not the instrument that contains it.

Where the Convenio does sort by activity, it does so at the point money is earned abroad, not the point it is received from abroad. Article 57 lets a private exporter of goods or services retain and freely administer up to eighty per cent of foreign currency export receipts. The remainder is sold to the central bank. Article 41 requires hydrocarbon export proceeds to be sold in full and article 55 does the same for gold and strategic minerals, both harsher than article 57. Articles 74 to 77 set a parallel eighty per cent retention for tourism receipts and duty free operators. None of those provisions is about an arriving transfer.

A tax draws the distinction, and no taxable event is a credit

An instrument that does draw it is the Impuesto a las Grandes Transacciones Financieras, or IGTF. The form that matters is the partial reform published in Gaceta Oficial No. 6.687 Extraordinario of 25 February 2022.

Article 3 lists eight taxable events. Not one of them is a credit.

1. Debits on bank, correspondent and custody accounts and other financial instruments.
2. The cession of cheques, securities and negotiable instruments, from the second endorsement onward.
3. The acquisition of cashier's cheques in cash.
4. Active operations between banks with terms of not less than two banking business days.
5. Transfers of securities held in custody between different holders, even without a disbursement through an account.
6. The cancellation of debts without the financial system intermediating.
7. Debits on accounts in private organised payment systems not operated by the central bank and distinct from the national payment system.
8. Debits on accounts for cross-border payments.

Nothing in that list is a credit. Money arriving in an account is not among the events the tax attaches to.

Article 4 puts the tax on whoever makes the payment

Every limb of the taxpayer list is framed on payments made.

A special taxpayer is a status assigned under Venezuelan tax administration rules. Which persons hold it is not established here.

Numerals 5 and 6 are the ones that reach an ordinary individual, and both are framed around what that individual pays. Article 8 numeral 4 then exempts exchange operations carried out by a duly authorised exchange operator.

Where this lands for your recipient

Three questions a sender usually has, answered from the two instruments above.

The third is the one that travels furthest. Whether this tax touches money you send is decided by what your recipient does with it afterwards. Article 24 sets a higher default rate for a foreign currency payment than for one by the taxpayers in numerals 1 to 4.

The rates are a default the Executive may move, not a settled figure

Article 24 is explicit about its own status. It applies until the National Executive establishes a different rate. On that footing it sets two per cent for transactions by the taxpayers in article 4 numerals 1 to 4, and three per cent for those in numerals 5 and 6.

Article 13 sets the ranges within which the Executive may move. They are nought to two per cent generally, two to eight per cent for numeral 5, and two to twenty per cent for numeral 6. Article 23 separately lets it grant exonerations by decree.

Set against those bands, the two figures behave differently. Article 24's two per cent for numerals 1 to 4 sits at the very top of the range available for them, so it can only be moved down. Its three per cent for numerals 5 and 6 sits inside ranges reaching eight and twenty per cent, so it can be moved either way.

The figures in article 24 are therefore the rate the statute fixes subject to variation, rather than the rate in force on any particular day. Whether any change or exoneration has issued since the 2022 reform is not established here, and a current figure would have to come from the Executive's own instruments.

Where to look next

How international transfers work sets out the sequence a payment moves through before any national rule reaches it. What a payment rail is made of explains the infrastructure a credit lands on. Understanding transfer fees covers the separate question of what a transfer costs. The live rate page for this corridor is AUD to VES, and the AUD to VES convert page shows the pair on its own.

Sources

• Convenio Cambiario No. 1, Banco Central de Venezuela, Gaceta Oficial No. 6.405 Extraordinario of 7 September 2018 - all 89 articles, including article 57 on the eighty per cent export retention, articles 41 and 55 on hydrocarbons and on gold and strategic minerals, articles 74 to 77 on tourism receipts, and the absence of any remittance chapter, ceiling or personal reporting threshold.
• Index of Convenios Cambiarios, Banco Central de Venezuela - the central bank's own register, which lists Convenio Cambiario No. 1 of 7 September 2018 and nothing later.
• Ley de Reforma Parcial del Decreto con Rango, Valor y Fuerza de Ley de Impuesto a las Grandes Transacciones Financieras, Gaceta Oficial No. 6.687 Extraordinario of 25 February 2022, facsimile of the gazette pages hosted by a private accounting firm, no issuer-hosted copy located - article 3's eight taxable events including numeral 8 on cross-border payment accounts, article 4's taxpayer definitions including numerals 5 and 6, article 8 numeral 4's exemption for authorised exchange operators, article 13's rate ranges, article 23's exoneration power and article 24's default rates.

General information about sending money to Venezuela and about how its rules treat business and personal payments. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.