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How to apply for Puerto Rico Act 60
Use the official law and live DDEC portal to identify the benefit, assemble the facts behind the application, and keep federal residence and income-source questions on their own track.
By Ben Guo · Sources verified · Publisher reviewed
Separate the decisions before opening the portal
Application planning becomes easier when the Puerto Rico grant, federal residence, income sourcing, and practical move are treated as connected but distinct projects.
| Question | What decides it | Do not substitute |
|---|---|---|
| Which Act 60 benefit fits? | The current Spanish statute, regulations, and facts of the proposed activity or investment. [1] [3] [4] | A calculator result or an old Act 20/22 label |
| Which IRI application terms apply? | Act 38 changed the Individual Resident Investor framework in 2026. For the pre-2027 IRI filing treatment, DDEC 2026-004 uses receipt no later than December 31, 2026 at 11:59 p.m., measured by the Incentives Portal filing-fee time stamp confirmation. [2] [8] | An account-creation date, saved draft, attachment upload, or another event that is not the filing-fee time stamp confirmation |
| Will I be a bona fide Puerto Rico resident? | The separate federal presence, tax-home, and closer-connection tests. [9] [10] | Approval of the Puerto Rico decree |
| What income receives a particular treatment? | The grant terms plus Puerto Rico and federal income-source rules applied to the actual income | A business location, mailing address, or day count by itself |
Use this bounded application workflow
- Name the benefit and legal basis. Write down the statutory chapter, the activity or income at issue, and why the facts appear to fit. Record open questions rather than converting them into assumptions.
- Read the current law and regulations. Check the consolidated Act 60 text, later amendments, Incentives Regulation 9248, and its amendments. A prior blog post or prior applicant's decree may reflect a different revision.
- Open the portal from DDEC's official page. DDEC's incentives page points to the government's Incentives Portal. [5] [6]
- Answer from a fact packet. Keep the ownership, service, client, income, residence, entity, and identity facts that support each answer. Use the portal's current prompts as the filing interface; this guide does not reproduce or predict every field.
- Preserve the submitted record. Retain the filed application, attachments, filing-fee time stamp confirmation, payment evidence, notices, correspondence, and the exact version of every material statement. For an IRI relying on the pre-2027 filing treatment, preserve the portal confirmation that establishes DDEC's stated receipt time.
- Read the proposed and issued grant. Compare names, entities, covered activity, conditions, effective dates, and ongoing obligations with the application. Resolve differences before relying on the grant.
Build a fact packet, not a generic checklist
The categories below are preparation prompts. They are not a statement that every applicant must submit every item, and they do not replace the portal's current fields or a professional's request list.
| Category | Questions to resolve | Evidence to preserve |
|---|---|---|
| Applicant and ownership | Who is applying, through which entity if any, and who owns or controls it? | Identity, formation, ownership, and authority records actually used |
| Benefit facts | What activity or income is claimed to fit, under which statutory provision? | Contracts, descriptions, projections, counterparties, and factual support cited in the application |
| Puerto Rico operation | What people, decisions, work, assets, premises, or other operations will actually be in Puerto Rico? | Contemporaneous operating records, not a future narrative alone |
| Residence plan | How will presence, tax home, and closer connection be evaluated for the tax year? | Travel, housing, work-location, family, former-state, and everyday-life records relevant to the actual facts |
| Open issues | Which facts are uncertain, changing, or dependent on a later event? | Written questions and the dated answer from the responsible professional or agency |
Submission is the beginning of the operating record
An application can produce follow-up questions, requested corrections, or conditions in the final grant. Keep an issue log that ties each response to the source document and the exact portal or correspondence event. Do not silently replace an earlier answer in your own files.
- Keep federal residence and income-source analysis current while the Puerto Rico application is pending.
- Update plans when the business, clients, ownership, work locations, assets, family, or travel pattern changes.
- Translate the issued grant into a dated operating calendar only after its exact obligations have been reviewed.
- Preserve the source and reasoning for each compliance item; do not rely on memory or an undated checklist.
Bona fide residence
Understand presence, tax home, closer connection, travel-day rules, and the limits of a day count.
Year of move
Map the move year separately from the Puerto Rico grant application.
Form 8898
Check whether the federal change-of-residence information return may apply.
A Puerto Rico decree is not federal residence
Compare a Puerto Rico grant or DDEC receipt with the federal presence, tax-home, and closer-connection tests.
The Act 60 business benefit is not the investor benefit
Compare the Export Services chapter with the Individual Resident Investor chapter before naming one benefit.
Planning calculator
Compare the Business and Investments benefit models without treating the result as eligibility.
Primary-source starting points
Use the official source archive to compare the saved, hashed official PDFs with the current issuer URLs. The source list below records what this guide checked; it is not a professional opinion on your facts.
Sources checked
- Código de Incentivos de Puerto Rico, Ley Núm. 60-2019, según enmendada — Oficina de Gerencia y Presupuesto de Puerto Rico; Official compilation; ES. Source date . Archived manifest id:
act-60-2019-consolidated. The current official Spanish compilation is primary official source material. Current enacted law, applicable regulations, agency action, and the issued grant control the particular question; act60.me does not treat an English explanation as a substitute. - Ley Núm. 38-2026 — Asamblea Legislativa de Puerto Rico; Departamento de Estado; Controlling law; ES. Source date . Archived manifest id:
act-38-2026. - Reglamento de Incentivos Núm. 9248 — Departamento de Desarrollo Económico y Comercio de Puerto Rico; Regulation; ES. Source date . Archived manifest id:
regulation-9248. - Enmienda al Reglamento de Incentivos Núm. 9248, Reglamento Núm. 9414 — Departamento de Desarrollo Económico y Comercio de Puerto Rico; Regulation; ES. Source date . Archived manifest id:
regulation-9414. - Ayudas e Incentivos — Departamento de Desarrollo Económico y Comercio de Puerto Rico; Agency guidance; ES. Official incentives landing page linking to the current DDEC Incentives Portal.
- Puerto Rico Incentives Portal — Departamento de Desarrollo Económico y Comercio de Puerto Rico; Agency guidance; ES. Live government portal; its fields and workflow can change without a statutory amendment.
- Carta Circular de la Oficina de Incentivos para Negocios en Puerto Rico Núm. DDEC 2026-001 — Departamento de Desarrollo Económico y Comercio de Puerto Rico; Agency guidance; ES. Source date . Archived manifest id:
ddec-2026-001. IRI-specific circular about required donations and evidence of residential-property acquisition. DDEC 2026-004 says its provisions remain applicable when they do not conflict with Act 38-2026 or that bulletin. - Informative Bulletin DDEC No. 2026-004 — Puerto Rico Department of Economic Development and Commerce; Agency guidance; EN. Source date . Archived manifest id:
ddec-2026-004. IRI-specific bulletin interpreting Act 38-2026. It identifies receipt by the Incentives Portal filing-fee time stamp confirmation, no later than December 31, 2026 at 11:59 p.m., for the pre-2027 IRI filing treatment; filing remains subject to agency evaluation and does not guarantee approval. - 26 C.F.R. § 1.937-1, Bona fide residency in a possession — Electronic Code of Federal Regulations; Regulation; EN.
- Publication 570 (2025), Tax Guide for Individuals With Income From U.S. Territories — Internal Revenue Service; Agency guidance; EN. Source date . Archived manifest id:
irs-publication-570.
About this guide
Scope and editorial record
- Applies as of
- Published
- Last modified
- Jurisdiction
- Puerto Rico; United States federal
- Applies to
- People evaluating or preparing a Puerto Rico Act 60 application; Individual Resident Investor and Export Services benefit applicants
- Author
- Ben Guo, publisher and product author
- Review
- Publisher-reviewed against the sources shown below. No Puerto Rico attorney, CPA, enrolled agent, or DDEC representative has professionally reviewed this guide.
- Next source review
Ben Guo publishes and builds act60.me from his own planning research. He is not presented here as a Puerto Rico attorney, CPA, enrolled agent, historian, or cultural reviewer.
Revision history
- : Initial application map published with the DDEC 2026-004 IRI receipt timestamp, IRI-only scope, no-approval guarantee boundary, source hierarchy, and federal-residence boundary.