Guatemala's losses to smuggling and illicit trade
- Importing machinery and inputs
- Importing machinery: duty and clearance
- Audited
The most cited estimate comes from the FUNDESA-CACIF study of July 2014: an annual fiscal loss from smuggling (as evasion) of up to Q5,900 million, equivalent to US$755 million, around 1.6% of current GDP; the same study put the value of illicit trade in goods in 2012 at ~Q14.2 billion (3.6% of GDP) in the likely scenario, within a range of Q11.2-17.2 billion. The comparison with ministerial budgets that had been circulating does not appear in the study and was removed. CODECOF/CIG with CABI (April 2022) estimates a tax gap from smuggling and customs fraud of Q1,400 million a year ('more than 1% of GDP', with no year given in the source) and Q25,000 million (US$3,230 million) in annual economic losses. CONACON calculates losses of no less than US$1,600 million a year, but the original note could not be located and should not be used without a primary source.
The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.
Figures
- Pérdida fiscal anual por contrabando
- hasta Q5,900 M ≈ US$755 M (~1.6% del PIB)
- Valor del comercio ilícito de mercancías
- ~Q14.2 mil M (3.6% del PIB), rango Q11.2–17.2 mil M
- Brecha tributaria por contrabando
- Q1,400 M anuales (sin año)
Caveat
Sources
Organizations named in the answer
Related records
This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.