If you hire a freelancer or contractor in Bolivia, the most direct way to pay is a SWIFT wire to their account at a Bolivian bank. The money lands at an institution supervised by ASFI (the Autoridad de Supervisión del Sistema Financiero, Bolivia's financial regulator), and the bank's credit slip is the proof of payment the tax authority asks for. The receiving bank charges your contractor a fee set in its own schedule: from Bs0 to Bs200 plus a Bs40 form fee in the two we checked. On taxes, the Servicio de Impuestos Nacionales (SIN, the national tax service) says work done in Bolivia for someone abroad is exempt from VAT but pays the 3% transactions tax (IT), and is billed with an export invoice.

Figures in US dollars use the official rate set by the Banco Central de Bolivia (BCB, the central bank) for November 10, 2026: Bs11.75 per dollar.

Option 1: a SWIFT wire to a Bolivian bank account

Ask your contractor for their name exactly as it appears at the bank, the account number, the bank's name and address, and its SWIFT code. If you pay in dollars, a dollar account on their side avoids a double conversion. What the bank charges to receive the wire varies. These are two published fee schedules, checked on November 10, 2026:

Bank (fee schedule date) Fee to receive a wire from abroad in US dollars
Banco Nacional de Bolivia (Oct. 16, 2026) Bs50 (about USD 4.26) up to the equivalent of Bs10,000 (about USD 851); Bs100 up to Bs50,000; Bs130 up to Bs100,000; Bs200 above that. Plus a Bs40 form fee
Banco Económico (Oct. 9, 2026) Bs0 commission and Bs0 communication fees

Other banks publish their own schedules; ask your contractor which one applies to their account.

Two things to watch. First, your bank and any intermediary banks can deduct their own charges before the money arrives; Banco Nacional de Bolivia warns in its fee schedule that it has no control over those charges. If the invoice amount must arrive in full, ask your bank how it handles transfer charges. Second, the fee rules that ASFI updated in April 2026 (Resolución ASFI/299/2026) set ranges for transfers sent abroad; for incoming wires, each bank's own schedule applies.

There is no longer a Bolivian tax on the transfer itself. The ITF (Impuesto a las Transacciones Financieras), a 0.30% tax on foreign-currency operations, was repealed by Law 1717 of April 10, 2026, which abrogated Law 3446, the law that created it.

Option 2: payment platforms

On November 10, 2026, we checked what each platform's official pages say about Bolivia:

  • PayPal. PayPal has a merchant fee page for Bolivia, but we could not load it on November 10, 2026, so we don't quote its rates here. Receiving an international commercial payment carries a percentage fee plus a fixed fee, and converting currency adds another charge. Before paying through PayPal, ask your contractor to check the current fees and to confirm inside their account that they can withdraw to a Bolivian bank.
  • Payoneer. Its pricing page says that receiving through a receiving account in a currency other than the user's local one costs 1% (minimum USD 1), and that withdrawing to a bank costs between 1.2% and 4%, with a minimum of up to USD 20 in some countries. It also charges USD 29.95 a year if the account receives less than USD 6,000 in 12 consecutive months. If you pay a Payoneer request by credit card, the fee on the recipient's side is up to 3.99% + USD 0.49. Payoneer's public pages don't confirm whether withdrawals to Bolivian banks are enabled; it says to check inside the account.
  • Wise. Wise works for you to send the money: its calculator for transfers from the US pays out bolivianos to a local bank account, and the recipient doesn't need a Wise account. On November 10, 2026, it showed a fee of USD 90.70 to send USD 1,000 paid by direct debit (more by bank transfer or card), and Wise warns that it applies "dynamic charges for less widely used currencies." Your contractor receives bolivianos, not dollars. We found no Wise page confirming that a Bolivian resident can open a Wise account of their own.

Some freelancers accept crypto. The BCB allowed the purchase and sale of crypto assets through electronic channels in 2024, but it reminds the public that they are not legal tender and that the risks fall on the people who use them.

Which exchange rate applies

Since June 2026, Bolivia has had a floating exchange rate. The BCB calculates the Tipo de Cambio Oficial (TCO, the official exchange rate) each business day as the volume-weighted median of the dollars banks buy from their customers, and publishes it at 11:30 p.m. for the next day; Friday's rate applies on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (RD 142/2026). The TCO in force on November 10, 2026, was Bs11.75 per dollar. It changes daily: check it on the BCB home page or on our dollar rate page (in Spanish).

If your contractor sells your dollars to their bank, the bank applies its own buying rate, which need not match the TCO.

Taxes: what your contractor pays

These taxes are your contractor's, not yours. Knowing them helps you understand the invoice you'll get and the rate they quote.

VAT (IVA): no. In a tax ruling, the SIN defines a services export as an activity carried out inside Bolivia that benefits a person located abroad, who uses it there and pays for it. That activity is exempt from Bolivia's 13% VAT under article 11 of Law 843, the country's main tax law. Work the freelancer does while outside Bolivia doesn't count as a services export.

Transactions tax (IT): yes, 3%. In the same ruling, the SIN says services exports pay the Impuesto a las Transacciones (IT), a 3% tax on gross income, because article 76 of Law 843 exempts only exports of goods. Its bulletin for exporters says the same.

No tax refund. Article 35, item 4, of RND 102100000011, the SIN's invoicing rules, requires anyone exporting services to issue a Factura Comercial de Exportación sin derecho a crédito fiscal (a commercial export invoice with no VAT credit) and states that these exports get no tax refund.

Income tax doesn't change. A self-employed professional pays the RC-IVA, a 13% tax on income, every quarter, as we explain in how to invoice as an independent professional (in Spanish). A company pays the IUE, the 25% corporate income tax, on net profit (Law 843, art. 50). For the two tax regimes, see Régimen General o Simplificado (in Spanish).

The invoice you should receive

  1. An export invoice. Your contractor issues a Factura Comercial de Exportación for the service, made out to you or your company abroad, with no VAT. It is a separate invoice type in the SIN's system, so they may first need to enable it in their tax registration.
  2. The official rate, if billed in dollars. Under RND 102600000026, invoices subject to VAT and issued in foreign currency must show the TCO in force on the date of the transaction, as the SIN announced in July 2026. Export invoices can state the amount in bolivianos or its foreign-currency equivalent.
  3. A paper trail. Your contractor keeps the contract, the invoice and the bank's credit slip. If a single transaction reaches Bs50,000 (about USD 4,255), Bolivia's bank-payment rules (in Spanish) require a payment document from an institution regulated by ASFI or the BCB. A credit to a Bolivian bank account qualifies; a balance on a foreign platform doesn't. That is a good reason to pay larger invoices by wire.

An example with numbers

Laura is a self-employed designer in Bolivia. Each month she bills USD 2,000 to a US agency, which pays her by SWIFT wire to her dollar account. We assume a TCO of Bs11.75 for all three months and Bs500 a month in pension contributions to the Gestora (Bolivia's public pension manager), paid on time.

  • Monthly income: USD 2,000 × 11.75 = Bs23,500.
  • IT for the month: 3% of Bs23,500 = Bs705 (USD 60).
  • Fee to receive the wire: at Banco Nacional de Bolivia, Bs100 + Bs40 = Bs140 (about USD 11.91); at Banco Económico, Bs0. Intermediary bank charges, if any, come on top.
  • RC-IVA for the quarter: income of Bs70,500, minus Bs1,500 in contributions, leaves a base of Bs69,000. At 13%, that's Bs8,970. After a credit of Bs2,574 tied to two national minimum wages of Bs3,300 each (DS 21531, art. 9; minimum wage set by DS 5516), she pays Bs6,396.

Over the quarter, Laura pays Bs2,115 in IT and Bs6,396 in RC-IVA: Bs8,511 (about USD 724.34), or 12.07% of what she billed. Because her invoice carries no VAT, the 13% VAT is not subtracted from her RC-IVA base: the regulation allows that deduction only for operations subject to VAT. Freelancers should confirm this calculation with the SIN or an accountant before their first filing.

Common mistakes

  • Expecting VAT on the invoice, or the contractor skipping the IT. According to the SIN, VAT doesn't apply and the IT does.
  • Treating work done outside Bolivia as an export. The SIN doesn't consider it a services export.
  • Incomplete bank details. A misspelled name or wrong SWIFT code can send the money back, and the return has a cost: Bs150 (about USD 12.77) at Banco Nacional de Bolivia and Bs200 (about USD 17.02) at Banco Económico.
  • Leaving the money on a platform without confirming that the contractor can withdraw it to Bolivia and what that costs.

This guide summarizes what the BCB, the SIN, ASFI, the banks and the platforms published as of November 10, 2026. Fees change: check them on the day you pay.