Most buyers in Panama pay 0.5% to 0.7% a year on their property's registered value above a $120,000 exemption — and if the property is your declared primary residence, that first $120,000 is tax-free entirely. Non-primary properties (rentals, second homes, land you're not living on) only get a $30,000 exemption before higher rates kick in. That's the direct answer. The part that actually changes your bill is whether the property is correctly registered for the exemption you qualify for — and that step is easy to miss.
The rate brackets, in full
Panama's property tax (impuesto de inmueble) is governed by Law 66, and it treats primary residences differently from everything else.
| Primary residence (patrimonio familiar tributario) | Rate |
|---|---|
| $0 – $120,000 | Exempt |
| $120,001 – $700,000 | 0.5% |
| $700,001+ | 0.7% |
| All other properties (rentals, land, second homes) | Rate |
|---|---|
| $0 – $30,000 | Exempt |
| $30,001 – $250,000 | 0.6% |
| $250,001 – $500,000 | 0.8% |
| $500,001+ | 1.0% |
The tax base is the cadastral value the DGI has on file — land plus construction plus improvements — not necessarily your purchase price, though the two are usually close for a recent transaction.
The exemption that most owners never claim
The $120,000 primary-residence exemption isn't automatic. You have to file the patrimonio familiar tributario declaration with the DGI to register the property as your primary home. We regularly see buyers — especially foreign owners who bought through a corporation, or who simply didn't know the step existed — paying the non-primary rate on a home they actually live in, because nobody filed the paperwork.
New construction: a separate, time-limited exemption
Properties with construction permits issued between 2012 and December 31, 2018 also got an exemption on the construction value only — not the land — scaled to how expensive the build was: 20 years for construction valued up to $120,000, 10 years for $120,001–$300,000, and 5 years above that. Projects permitted after 2018 follow different, project-specific transitional rules, so this one genuinely needs to be checked against your property's actual permit date rather than assumed.
How and when you pay
Property tax is billed in three installments — April 30, August 30 and December 31. Pay the full year before March 1 and the DGI gives a 10% discount; miss an installment and a 10% surcharge applies. For a well-documented primary residence under $120,000 in registered value, that can mean paying nothing at all, on time or otherwise — which is exactly why getting the registration right matters more than the rate table itself.
The bottom line
The brackets above are public information. What actually determines your bill is whether your specific property is registered correctly — as a primary residence, under a qualifying construction-exemption window, or neither — and that's a five-minute check worth doing before you assume you know what you'll owe.