Gifting Money or Property to Family in Guatemala (2026): US Gift Tax, Form 709 and the Guatemalan Side

If you are a US citizen or resident, the IRS lets you give each person up to $19,000 in 2026 (the annual exclusion) without filing a gift tax return, as long as the gifts are present interests. Above that, the Form 709 instructions say you generally file by 15 April 2027, whether or not any tax ends up being due; the basic exclusion amount for 2026 gifts is $15,000,000. In Guatemala, Decreto 6-2026 repealed the old inheritance and gift tax law (Decreto 431) and exempted from IVA donations to relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity and the first degree of affinity: children, parents, grandchildren, grandparents and siblings fall inside that range under the Civil Code’s way of counting.

Quick summary

What counts as a gift on the US side

The IRS defines a gift as any transfer to an individual, direct or indirect, where you do not receive full consideration in return. “The gift tax applies to the transfer by gift of any type of property”, and the IRS gift tax page specifies that property includes money. A wire to your parents’ account in Guatemala, paying off your brother’s car loan, or signing a lot in your hometown over to your daughter can all be gifts. A gift is valued at its fair market value on the date you make it.

Form 709 is the donor’s return: the filing rules below apply to you, the US citizen or resident who gives, not to the relative in Guatemala who receives.

For gift tax, residence turns on domicile: the instructions treat an individual as a nonresident not a citizen if “neither domiciled in nor a citizen of the United States at the time the gift is made”, and add: “An individual may be a U.S. resident for income tax purposes yet be considered a nonresident for gift tax purposes.” A nonresident not a citizen is subject to US gift tax only on gifts of real or other tangible property situated in the United States, reported on Form 709-NA. If you have moved back to Guatemala and are not a US citizen, check which side of that line you are on before applying the rules below.

The 2026 numbers

• $19,000 per recipient. The IRS 2026 inflation release: “For tax year 2026, the annual exclusion for gifts remains at $19,000”. The annual exclusion table on the IRS estate and gift tax page shows $19,000 for both 2025 and 2026. Each recipient has their own $19,000, so gifts to your mother, father and sister are three separate exclusions.
• $194,000 for a non-citizen spouse. The same release raises the annual exclusion for gifts to a spouse who is not a US citizen to $194,000 for calendar 2026, up $4,000 from 2025. The Form 709 instructions attach conditions to the larger spouse figure: it covers gifts of present interests, and the amount above the ordinary annual exclusion must otherwise qualify for the gift tax marital deduction. If you are married to a Guatemalan who is not a US citizen, see US taxes when married to a nonresident spouse.
• $15,000,000 basic exclusion. Public Law 119-21, signed 4 July 2025, raised the basic exclusion amount to $15,000,000 for gifts made in calendar year 2026.

When you must file Form 709

Under the Instructions for Form 709, a US citizen or resident must file a gift tax return “whether or not any tax is ultimately due” in these situations, among others:

• You gave someone other than your spouse more than the annual exclusion in the year.
• You gave a gift of a future interest, meaning the recipient’s use or enjoyment starts only at a later date, even if it was worth less than the exclusion. A future interest cannot use the annual exclusion.
• You and your spouse want to split gifts. Spouses cannot file a joint gift tax return; each files their own Form 709. A gift of community property counts as half made by each spouse.

The instructions also list when you do not need to file: you must meet all three conditions of making no gifts to your spouse during the year, giving no more than the annual exclusion to any one person, and making only present-interest gifts.

Due date. File no earlier than 1 January and no later than 15 April of the year after the gift. If 15 April falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, it moves to the next business day. For gifts made in 2026, that is 15 April 2027. An extension of time to file does not extend the time to pay. The IRS FAQ says Form 709 can be e-filed.

Who pays. The IRS FAQ: “The donor is generally responsible for paying the gift tax”. Under special arrangements the recipient may agree to pay instead. The Form 709 instructions add that if the donor does not pay, the person who received the gift may have to.

Paying school or doctor bills directly

Under the Form 709 instructions, the gift tax does not apply to two kinds of payment, on top of the $19,000:

• Tuition. The gift tax does not apply to tuition you pay for someone to a qualifying domestic or foreign educational organization, which the instructions say is one that normally maintains a regular faculty and curriculum and normally has a regularly enrolled body of students in attendance where its educational activities are carried on. “The payment must be made directly to the qualifying educational organization and it must be for tuition”. Books, supplies, room and board do not qualify.
• Medical care. The gift tax does not apply to amounts you pay to a person or institution that provided medical care for someone. “The payment must be to the care provider”, the care must meet the tax code’s definition of medical care, and amounts the recipient’s insurance reimburses do not qualify.

Money you send your sister so she can pay the school herself does not meet the direct-payment condition, so it counts like any other gift against the $19,000 exclusion.

No US-Guatemala gift tax treaty

The Form 709 instructions list the countries with which the United States has gift tax conventions: Australia, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom. Guatemala is not on that list.

The Guatemalan side: Decreto 431 is gone; IVA is what matters

Decreto 431 repealed. Decreto 6-2026, published in the Diario de Centro América on 2 March 2026, repeals Decreto 431 in full (Art. 1). That was the Ley sobre el Impuesto de Herencias, Legados y Donaciones. The decree took effect 30 days after its publication (Art. 6). Guatemala’s inheritance and succession guide covers what the repeal means for estates.

Gifts between living people were already under IVA. When the Ley del IVA (Decreto 27-92) was enacted, its transitory Article 7 repealed Decreto 431 as far as the tax on donations between living people went. Article 3, numeral 9, lists as a taxable event “La donación entre vivos de bienes muebles e inmuebles”, the donation of movable and immovable property between living people. Article 10 sets the rate at 12%. Under Article 3, the taxable base for a donation can never be lower than the property’s acquisition price or manufacturing cost.

The 2026 family exemption. Article 4 of Decreto 6-2026 amended Article 7, numeral 3, literal b) of the IVA law. The literal now lists inheritances, legacies and donations on death, and donations between living people, up to the second degree of consanguinity and the first degree of affinity.

Who is inside the second degree. The Código Civil counts degrees by generations, one per generation (Art. 193). In the direct line there are as many degrees as generations (Art. 196). In the collateral line you count up to the common ancestor and down to the other relative (Art. 197). Affinity, the tie between one spouse and the other’s blood relatives, is counted the same way and ends when the marriage is dissolved (Arts. 192 and 198). Counted that way:

The ISR question. Article 5 of Decreto 6-2026 rewrites Article 8, numeral 4 of the Ley de Actualización Tributaria (Decreto 10-2012), the ISR exemption, to read: “4. Las herencias, legados y donaciones por causa de muerte.” The new text does not mention donations between living people. Whether a gift between living people now creates ISR for the relative who receives it is not settled on this page: ask SAT or the notary.

Article 190 adds that spouses are relatives but do not form a degree. Neither the decree nor the IVA articles cited here say how that applies to a gift between spouses, or whether a cash gift counts as a bien mueble. Ask the notary or SAT before you sign. For a house or land, the donation deed guide covers the public deed and the recipient’s acceptance. To sign from the United States, see the consular power of attorney guide.

A worked example

Say that in 2026 you wire $25,000 to your mother in Guatemala to repair her house, and $10,000 to your brother.

• Your brother: $10,000 is under the $19,000 exclusion. Nothing to file for him.
• Your mother: $25,000 is $6,000 over the exclusion. You generally file Form 709 by 15 April 2027 and report the gift, whether or not any tax is ultimately due.
• In Guatemala: a mother and a brother are first- and second-degree relatives, the range that Decreto 6-2026’s IVA exemption for donations between living people covers.

If the money flows the other way, from family in Guatemala to you, a different IRS form can apply: see inheritance or gift from Guatemala: Form 3520. To send the money itself, see sending money from your US bank.

Sources

• IRS, What’s new: estate and gift tax (annual exclusion and basic exclusion tables), irs.gov, read 1 November 2026
• IRS, IRS releases tax inflation adjustments for tax year 2026, irs.gov, read 1 November 2026
• IRS, Frequently asked questions on gift taxes, irs.gov, read 1 November 2026
• IRS, Gift tax, irs.gov, read 1 November 2026
• IRS, Instructions for Form 709 (2025), irs.gov, and About Form 709, irs.gov, read 1 November 2026
• Congreso de la República, Decreto 6-2026, Derogatoria de la Ley sobre el Impuesto de Herencias, Legados y Donaciones (Diario de Centro América, 2 March 2026), PDF on minfin.gob.gt, read 24 September 2026
• SAT, Decreto 27-92, Ley del Impuesto al Valor Agregado (consolidated text), portal.sat.gob.gt, read 24 September 2026
• Organismo Judicial (CENADOJ), Código Civil comentado, Arts. 190-198, oj.gob.gt, read 1 November 2026