This is orientation. Tax rates, the UIT, and bank rules change. Confirm the current figures with a Peruvian notary, your lawyer, and a cross-border accountant. I am not any of those people.
Moving money
Buyers wire funds, exchange dollars for soles, or agree a price in dollars and settle in soles at a rate you should lock with eyes open. The rate at a bank, an exchange house, and a contract can be three numbers. Write down which one the contract uses.
Bancarización. Above a threshold, payments are supposed to go through the banking system. The threshold is set in UIT, and the UIT changes, so I will not print today’s sol amount as if it were permanent. Look up the current multiple and the current UIT. This is not bureaucracy for its own sake. Later, when you sell, or when someone asks what you really paid, the bank trail is how you prove the price. A large cash payment can fail that test and can also be how fraud stays easy.
A bank account as a foreigner
Banks differ, and a branch can say no when the brochure sounds friendly. In practice they ask for categories of documents: a passport, an immigration status they accept (a tourist stamp is not the same conversation as a carné de extranjería), a tax number if they require one, proof of address, and sometimes proof of where the money came from. I opened accounts in a different life-stage than a new arrival will. I am not giving you a bank-by-bank checklist, because it would be wrong next year.
What I can say from buying before and after I had a carné, and later as a citizen: the notary and the bank both get simpler when your status is stable, and the purchase itself did not create that status. More on the difference, without a procedure, is on the residency page.
What buyers usually pay at the closing
Alcabala. The transfer tax, commonly described as 3% of the price above an exempt amount. That exempt amount changes. It is often discussed as a multiple of the UIT. Confirm the current exemption before you budget. The first home people live in has had special treatment in some years. I will not state this year’s rule as permanent.
Notary fees. For the escritura pública. They vary with the price and the notary.
Registration fees. SUNARP is not free.
Your lawyer. Separate from the notary. Worth more than the line looks like when a file is dirty.
The seller may owe income tax on a gain. I am not stating a rate or this year’s exemption. Buyers should know the point because it shows up in negotiations: a seller who must document a real price has a reason to care how the number is written. That is their tax, confirmed by their accountant. It is not a discount you invent.
Illustrative closing calculator
Every output is an illustration to confirm, not a quote, a tax assessment, or an invoice. Type the exempt amount only after you confirm the current UIT rule. Leave it at 0 and the illustration overstates the tax on purpose, so you can see the difference.
Costs that continue
Impuesto predial. The annual municipal property tax, tied to the municipality’s valuation.
Arbitrios. Municipal charges for services such as trash collection and local upkeep. Separate from predial.
Building fees. An owners’ association or a similar charge, if the building has one.
Maintenance and a caretaker. An empty house in the rain is not free. See after the purchase.
I am not printing this year’s rates. Municipalities differ.
Financing
A Peruvian mortgage is hard for someone who does not live here and hard for many people who do. Most foreign buyers I meet pay cash. Plan on cash unless a specific bank has already told you otherwise in writing. “The website mentioned loans” is not credit approval.
The taxes of the country you still belong to
Using the United States as the example, because that is the system I was born into: US persons can have FBAR reporting on foreign accounts, and FATCA reporting (often Form 8938) with thresholds that depend on filing status and where you live. Rental income from a Peruvian property is generally something you report at home, even if Peru also taxes it. Rules and dollar thresholds change. This is not tax advice. Hire a cross-border accountant before you open the account, not after a letter arrives.
If you are not a US person, your home rules are different. I will not invent them.
Selling later
A documented purchase price is what makes a later gain, or a later loss, something you can explain. That is the practical reason for bancarización and for refusing a “lower price on the deed.” Getting money back out of Peru is a banking and tax question of its own: source-of-funds documents, the exchange rate that day, and whatever your home country asks. I have sold properties, and I am not offering a guarantee that you can, or that you will like the price. Land values can fall.