Report contents
LATAM · Emerging
Chile
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 52 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +1 |
| Inflation 5.4% · unbanked 15% · remittances 0% GDP · capital controls 0.3 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.111 |
| Need multiplier | ×0.667 |
| Livability score | 0.413 |
Raw 52/84 = 0.619 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.11, from five components: inflation 5.4% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 15% of adults, remittances 0% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.30 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×0.67. Livability score 0.413, rank #42 of 79.
Three findings
One crypto-accepting store network of five thousand, and no way to pay a single utility bill
Chile clears the merchant sub-pillar at the top score on the back of Flow's Cryptocompra gateway, which the platform says reaches more than 5,000 affiliated stores. Yet utility-bill coverage scores 0/6: every documented Chilean rail is prepaid mobile top-up, which the methodology disqualifies, and no Chilean equivalent of Argentina's native bill-pay integration exists. The country can shop with crypto but cannot pay Enel, Aguas Andinas or a postpaid phone contract with it.
Crypto gains are folded into income and taxed up to 40%
Chile taxes crypto as ordinary income under the Global Complementary Tax, with progressive rates reaching 40%, pulling the tax sub-score to 1. This sits beside one of Latin America's most mature digital backbones: internet penetration of 94.1%, among the highest measured in the region.
The country that proves stability blunts the case
Chile's centralised-exchange liquidity sits at the bottom band, the auditor noting that relative economic stability against neighbouring Argentina reduces the desperate necessity for high-volume stablecoin accumulation. The need multiplier of 0.67 reflects an OECD high-income economy with a freely convertible peso and inbound remittances near zero, roughly $70 million received against $682 million paid out.
In one line
"Chile has the rails of a developed market and the macro calm to match. Crypto here is a convenience, a dollar-denominated savings habit for freelancers and remote workers, not the survival tool it is one border north."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 3/4, trending liberalising. Chile is implementing rather than merely drafting the 2023 Fintech Law: the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero set a hard 3 February 2025 registration deadline for crypto-asset service providers under General Rule 502, and Circular 62 brought a Travel Rule (a rule requiring identity data to accompany transfers) above USD 1,000 into force on 1 June 2025. The Central Bank of Chile is drafting prudential rules for fiat-backed stablecoins used as a means of payment, the next concrete step to watch.