At a glance
- Your tax year 2025 annual report is filed with DDEC through its incentives portal, not with your Puerto Rico income tax return. That changes for 2026.
- For an Act 60 decree on a calendar year, DDEC has published the date as Monday, November 16, 2026. November 15 falls on a Sunday this year, so the date moves.
- A legacy Act 22-2012 decree is on a different clock entirely, tied to your income tax return rather than to November.
- The fines run on a timer, not on an examiner’s judgment: $1,000, then a further $5,000, then proceedings to revoke the decree.
Most of the attention on Act 60 goes to getting the decree. Very little goes to keeping it, which is a mistake, because the obligation that most often puts a decree at risk is not a residency test or a sourcing question. It is an annual report that takes an afternoon and is easy to forget, because it is not attached to anything else you file.
For tax year 2025 that report goes to the Department of Economic Development and Commerce — DDEC — through its own portal. It does not travel with your Puerto Rico return, it does not travel with your federal return, and nobody sends you a reminder. Here is the date, what goes in with it, and what happens if it is late.
Which deadline is actually yours
If you read nothing else, read this. The date depends on your decree, and the governing pronouncement says so in terms.
For tax year 2025, Hacienda and DDEC set out three alternatives: within 30 days of filing your income tax return including extensions, or November 15, 2026, or the fifteenth day of the eleventh month of the year following the close of the tax year for a fiscal-year filer — each “según aplique conforme los términos de cada Decreto”, as applicable under the terms of each decree. Which one binds you is therefore a question about your own decree, not a choice you get to make. The table below is how those alternatives usually land.
| Your decree | Deadline for the tax year 2025 report | Where that leaves you now |
|---|---|---|
| Act 60 decree — individual resident investor (Chapter 2) or export services (Chapter 3), calendar year | Monday, November 16, 2026 | About eight weeks. Enough, if you start now. |
| Act 22-2012 decree, return extended | Within 30 days of filing your extended return | Depends on your extension. Check it this week. |
| Act 22-2012 decree, no extension requested | Thirty days after the unextended return, which fell in May 2026 | Already passed. The penalty clock is running. |
| Exempt business filing Form 480.3(II) with both extensions | December 22, 2026 | Only if the extension is requested by November 16. |
The statutory date for a calendar-year Act 60 decree is the fifteenth day of the eleventh month after the close of the tax year, which is November 15. Because November 15, 2026 is a Sunday, DDEC’s own guidance moves the filing date to November 16. It is a small point that becomes a large one if you file on the 16th believing you are already a day late and stop there.
Why November 16 and not November 15. The Incentives Code sets the statutory date at November 15. November 15, 2026 falls on a Sunday, and DDEC has published the rolled-forward date: Boletín Informativo Núm. DDEC 2026-005 (May 14, 2026) gives the tax year 2025 annual report deadline as “el 16 de noviembre de 2026,” explaining that “Siendo el 15 de noviembre de 2026 un domingo, la fecha de radicación del IANE se extiende al 16 de noviembre de 2026.” The earlier joint pronouncement, Determinación Administrativa Núm. 26-01 / Orden Administrativa Núm. DDEC 2026-01 (February 6, 2026), states the unadjusted date of November 15, 2026. Boletín 2026-005 is later in time and is issued by the agency that receives the report.
One caution worth putting plainly: the weekend roll is not automatic. November 15, 2025 was a Saturday, and DDEC’s bulletins that year stated November 15 with no rollover at all. So the November 16 date for this cycle rests on DDEC having published it for this cycle, not on a rule that applies every year.
The legacy fork is the one that catches people. A decree issued under Act 22-2012 was never brought onto the November date. It is tied to your income tax return instead, and the published guidance is worded inconsistently on whether the 30 days run from the return’s due date or from the day you actually filed. Treat the earlier of the two readings as controlling and you will not have to argue about it.
The one-line version. For 2025 the annual report is not part of your tax return — it is a separate filing with DDEC, and the fine for missing it arrives on a timer rather than after a review.
One more thing worth knowing before you plan next year: this is the last year the report stands alone. A 2025 amendment folds it into the Puerto Rico income tax return, and that change was postponed by a year. So the report you file in 2027 for tax year 2026 will be part of the return. The one in front of you now is not.
What happens when it is late
This is the part that separates the annual report from the rest of your compliance calendar. There is no notice-and-negotiate stage and no examiner forming a view. The portal registers that the report is not there, and the fines follow on a schedule.
| When | What happens | Running total |
|---|---|---|
| The deadline passes | DDEC notifies you through the portal that the report is outstanding | — |
| 15 days after that notice | An automatic fine of $1,000 for each report not filed | $1,000 |
| A further 15 days | An additional $5,000 if the report and the first fine are still outstanding | $6,000 |
| 30 days after the original deadline | Proceedings begin to revoke the decree | The decree itself |
Separately, the statute lets the Secretary of DDEC impose an administrative fine of up to $10,000 for a report that is not filed or is filed late. And a report that is filed but incomplete is treated as never filed at all if you do not supply what is missing within 15 days of being told, which means a rushed submission on the deadline is not the safe harbor it feels like.
Put against what the decree is worth, the arithmetic is not close. A Chapter 2 decree exempts qualifying investment income from Puerto Rico tax entirely. Losing it over a form is the most expensive filing error available in this area of the law.
What goes in with the report
The report is not a standalone document. Three other obligations are evidenced through it, and a report missing any of them is the incomplete filing described above.
| Item | Chapter 2 — individual resident investor | Other exempt businesses |
|---|---|---|
| Annual filing fee | $5,000, plus a $5 transaction charge | $500, plus a $5 transaction charge |
| Annual charitable donation | $10,000 minimum, from your second tax year onward | Not applicable |
| Property evidence | Proof of the residential property purchase required within two years of the decree | Not applicable |
| Government cost, Chapter 2 | $15,005 a year before professional fees | $505 a year |
The $5,000 fee is set by statute and expressly covers Act 22-2012 holders as well. Of it, $300 funds a DDEC special fund and $4,700 goes to the General Fund; both are payable to the Secretary of the Treasury. The $500 figure for other exempt businesses comes from the incentives regulation, and it is worth saying plainly that the regulation’s fee schedule is subject to periodic review. Treat it as current rather than permanent.
The donation is more complicated than the number suggests
The $10,000 is a floor, it begins in your second tax year after the decree is issued, and it must go to Puerto Rico nonprofits certified under the local revenue code that are not controlled by you, your spouse, your business partners, or your ascendants or descendants.
How it must be divided is genuinely unsettled, and any page that gives you a clean rule is overstating what the statute says. Section 6020.10(b) directs $5,000 to organizations working on child poverty that appear on a list published each year by a joint legislative commission, $2,500 to another qualifying nonprofit not on that list, and $2,500 to the Fondo Especial para la Igualdad Social. The same provision then says that nothing prevents the entire contribution going to listed organizations. Both sentences are in force. Document what you gave and to whom, keep the certification for each recipient, and take advice before assuming the version that is convenient for you is the one that governs.
Two groups are carved out of the donation altogether: new residents recruited as hard-to-recruit professionals, and qualified physicians holding a decree under the same chapter. If you are in either group and you have been paying $10,000 a year, that is worth revisiting.
On the property side, one point is frequently reported wrongly. The requirement to buy a residence within two years of obtaining your decree applies broadly. The newer requirement to show the title recorded, or pending recording, in Puerto Rico’s Property Registry applies only to people who applied for a decree from January 1, 2027 onward. If you already hold a decree, that recording requirement is not yours.
A realistic year for a Chapter 2 holder
Take a decree issued in 2023 to a single filer who moved from New York, now in a normal compliance year. Figures are illustrative and rounded.
| Obligation | Amount | When |
|---|---|---|
| Puerto Rico individual income tax return | — | April 15, extendable |
| Federal return, reporting non-Puerto Rico income | — | April 15, extendable |
| Annual charitable donation | $10,000 | During the year, evidenced with the report |
| Annual report filing fee | $5,005 | With the report |
| Annual report to DDEC | — | November 16, 2026 |
| Cash out the door, government only | $15,005 | — |
Professional fees sit on top of that. Ongoing annual compliance, meaning the Puerto Rico and federal filings that keep a decree intact, generally runs $5,000 to $7,000 a year in a boutique practice, and rather more in the first year after a move, when residency is being established and the two returns have to be reconciled against each other for the first time.
The number that matters is not any single line. It is that roughly $20,000 a year of cost, and a decree worth many multiples of it, hangs on a filing that has no reminder attached to it.
What to do about it
- Find out which row you are in. The first page of your decree names the law it was issued under. An Act 22-2012 decree and an Act 60 decree carry different dates, and the difference is six months.
- Confirm last year’s report was actually filed. Log in to the DDEC incentives portal and look. This is the single most common gap we see in a new Act 60 engagement, and it is far cheaper to find in September than in a revocation notice.
- Get the donation evidenced now, not in November. You need proof of payment and the recipient’s certification. Chasing a nonprofit’s paperwork in the second week of November is how a complete filing becomes an incomplete one.
- Decide about an extension before the deadline, not on it. An automatic extension is available and carries a $105 charge; the option has been offered year to year rather than permanently, so confirm it is open for this cycle before relying on it.
- Put the 2026 change in the calendar now. The report you file in 2027 travels with your Puerto Rico return. If you extend that return, understand what that does to the report before you extend it.
Frequently asked questions
I have an Act 22-2012 decree and did not extend my return. How much trouble am I in?
Your report was due 30 days after your return, which without an extension put it in May. You are late, and the automatic fines begin 15 days after DDEC notifies you through the portal: $1,000, then a further $5,000, then revocation proceedings. The practical answer is to file immediately rather than wait for the notice, and to check whether the same gap exists for earlier years. Late is a fixable problem. Late and undiscovered for three years is a different conversation.
Is the annual report the same thing as my Puerto Rico tax return?
Not for tax year 2025. It is a separate filing made through the DDEC incentives portal, with its own fee and its own deadline. That is precisely why it gets missed, because filing your return does not discharge it. From tax year 2026 onward the report is folded into the return, following a 2025 amendment that was postponed by a year.
Must I really donate $10,000 a year?
If you hold a Chapter 2 individual resident investor decree, yes, from your second tax year onward, to Puerto Rico nonprofits certified under the local revenue code and not controlled by you or your close family. Two groups are exempt: new residents holding a decree as hard-to-recruit professionals, and qualified physicians under the same chapter. How the $10,000 must be split between a child-poverty list, other nonprofits and a government fund is contradictory on the face of the statute, so document what you gave and take advice rather than relying on a rule of thumb.
Can I get an extension?
An automatic extension has been available, with a $105 processing charge, and an exempt business filing Form 480.3(II) that takes both extensions can reach December 22, 2026. Two cautions. The extension option has been announced year by year rather than granted permanently, so confirm it is open for this cycle. And the request itself has to be in by the original deadline, so an extension you ask for on November 17 is not an extension.
What counts as an incomplete report?
Anything the reviewing agency asks you to supply and does not receive. Missing donation evidence and missing property documentation are the usual culprits. The consequence is worth stating precisely: an incomplete report is treated as not filed at all if the omission is not cured within 15 days of notice, which means it is exposed to the same fines and the same revocation track as never filing.
I hold a Chapter 3 export services decree. Is my date different?
No. An Act 60 decree on a calendar year files on the same November 16, 2026 date for tax year 2025 whether it is Chapter 2 or Chapter 3. The filing fee differs, because the $5,000 figure is specific to individual resident investor and Act 22-2012 decrees, and a Chapter 3 business has employment and other operational commitments evidenced through the same report. See our Chapter 3 export services guide for those.
Does filing the report have anything to do with proving bona fide residence?
They are separate tests and separate filings, but they are read together. The annual report is a Puerto Rico requirement for keeping your decree. Bona fide residence is a federal question that determines what the decree is actually worth to you, and it is tested through the presence, tax home and closer connection tests. A decree in good standing does not establish residence, and residence does not keep a decree alive. You need both, which is our three residency tests guide.
Related reading
- Puerto Rico Act 60 — how we work with decree holders
- Act 60 Chapter 2: the individual resident investor guide
- Act 60 Chapter 3: export services businesses
- The December 31, 2026 application deadline and what changes after it
- Bona fide residence: the three tests, in order
Talk to us before November
An annual report is a small piece of work with an outsized consequence. If you hold a decree and you are not certain it has been filed every year it was due, a short call is the cheapest way to find out. The firm handles the Puerto Rico and federal sides together, so nothing sits in the gap between two preparers.
Sources. Filing dates, the November 16 adjustment, the penalty ladder, the extension charge and the December 22 date come from DDEC Boletín Informativo 2026-005 (May 14, 2026) on the Informe Anual de Negocio Exento; its footnote 2 states that “Siendo el 15 de noviembre de 2026 un domingo, la fecha de radicación del IANE se extiende al 16 de noviembre de 2026.” The three alternative filing dates and the postponement of the return-integration requirement are Hacienda Determinación Administrativa 26-01 and DDEC Orden Administrativa 2026-01 (February 6, 2026), implementing Ley 65-2025; that pronouncement states the unadjusted statutory date of November 15, 2026, and the November 16 date used here is the rolled-forward date later published by DDEC in Boletín 2026-005. The $10,000 donation and its allocation are section 6020.10(b) of the Puerto Rico Incentives Code, Ley 60-2019, as written by Ley 32-2024; the filing fee, the administrative fine and the incomplete-report rule are sections 2021.02, 2023.01 and 6020.10 of the same code, consolidated text revised July 16, 2026. The Property Registry recording requirement for applications from January 1, 2027 is Ley 38-2026. Reports are filed through the DDEC incentives portal, the address for which is given in Boletín Informativo 2026-005. This article is general information about tax year 2025 filings and is not advice for your situation; incentive rules and fee schedules change, and your decree governs. Figures in the illustrations are rounded.
