Buying an office or shop to rent out: the real math

An asking gross yield compares asking annual rent with the asking price of the unit; it does not define every possible gross yield. If A is monthly rent and P the price, the percentage is (A × 12 ÷ P) × 100. A and P must use the same currency, converted on the same date and basis, and A must exclude VAT collected for remittance to the tax authority. It ranks units, not future collections.

Both sides of that division are asking figures, not money collected or paid. That is why the number works as a quick ranking and fails as a forecast: it carries no vacancy, no running costs, no taxes and no date for the sitting tenant to leave.

That percentage is a fact about the listing, not an outcome. Each item the division cannot see belongs in your own spreadsheet, with a number you chose rather than one printed in an ad.

The gross yield assumes twelve payments a year. Between one lease and the next there are months with no rent coming in while the unit keeps costing money: the building service charges (expensas), the ABL property tax in Buenos Aires or the provincial equivalent, insurance and any repair stay on your plate while the unit is empty, because there is no lease to pass them to.

Then there is the rent itself. This guide takes an individual buying to let as its reference; a company needs analysis of its own tax regime. Commercial rent is declared under income tax in the general regime; eligible monotributo landlords follow that regime instead of separate taxation of this income. VAT depends on the landlord regime and lease exemptions. Personal assets tax depends on the individual estate and applicable conditions: buying does not by itself mean tax is payable.

And then there is leasing it again. A new lease costs negotiation time, stamp duty on the contract in the province that applies and, if you work through an agency, its commission. Purchase costs, such as deed stamp duty and the notary fee, belong on a separate line but form part of total invested capital. They are absent only from the bare asking ratio, whose denominator is the price alone. For operating net yield on all-in capital, subtract vacancy and operating expenses from annual income and divide by price plus acquisition costs. If financed, cash-on-cash return compares cash flow after debt service with your own cash invested. Define personal taxes, reserves and works separately so the metrics do not get mixed.

No page publishes the net result of your operation. It comes out of your own vacancy assumption, your real running costs and your tax position. Writing those assumptions down before you make an offer is what makes two units showing the same percentage comparable at all.

The listing price is what the owner hopes to obtain, and the listing rent is what the owner hopes to collect. What actually closed shows up in the deed or in the signed lease, and that figure does not travel as fast as a listing. A yield built from two asking numbers contains two unresolved negotiations.

That does not make listings useless. It makes them an input. The way to use them is to compare units of the same type, read how many listings stand behind each figure and how recent it is, and then negotiate knowing the starting point is an expectation.

PlataStar publishes asking prices drawn from active listings and availability, meaning square metres on offer, always with the number of listings behind each figure. A median or average of US$/m² is published only when three or more listings support it, and the comparison shown on each listing page draws on the same type and the same operation in the same place, within 40% of the unit area and with at least three other listings.

What PlataStar never publishes is a vacancy rate or rents actually collected. Those facts do not live in listings. The outgoing owner, the tenant and the building administrator hold them, which is why they enter your calculation as your own assumption or as a direct question during the visit.

As a general rule, commercial rent carries VAT when the landlord is VAT-registered and the lease is not exempt; the lessor is the taxpayer for taxable leases. Exceptions include certain state-lessee leases and others below the regulatory threshold. A monotributo landlord issues a type C invoice and does not add VAT to rent. The rate, the exemptions and what happens to the tenant's VAT are covered in the guide on the real monthly cost of occupying an office.

Where VAT applies, the lease can clarify whether it is included or added. For charges, Civil and Commercial Code art. 1209 assigns the tenant charges arising from their activity, not levies on the property or extraordinary building charges. Only habitual expenses linked to normal, permanent services available to the tenant may be allocated to them, regardless of their ordinary or extraordinary label. In a commercial lease, any departure needs legal review for validity under applicable rules and public-order limits; do not assume every property levy or expense can be passed on. What the lease cannot change is who answers to ARCA for VAT, income tax and personal assets tax: that follows your tax position.

For individuals and undivided estates in the general regime, ARCA classifies urban and rural property rent as first-category income, declared as it accrues. That description does not impose separate income tax on landlords whose activity falls within monotributo. The same page puts taxes taken over by the tenant and amounts paid for furniture or services the owner supplies into that income, so the rent is not the only figure you declare.

Since 1 January 2026, rental income from property used as a home is exempt from income tax, whatever the date of the contract, under Law No. 27,802 on labour modernisation (art. 192, published 6 March 2026) and Decree 406/2026, which regulates it. That decree reads a home as a property destined for the single, family and permanent dwelling of the person living in it. A shop, an office or a warehouse leased for a business sits outside the exemption: commercial rent is declared under income tax in the general regime; an eligible monotributo landlord follows that regime.

ARCA's page for landlords opens the simplified regime as an option when annual billing stays under the amount set for category K and you hold no more than three business units or activities. Leasing counts as a single business unit no matter how many properties you rent out.

The incentives chapter of Law 27.737 went further on the simplified regime: income coming exclusively from leasing up to two properties is exempt from paying the monotributo. ARCA's category table says that people who join only as landlords of real estate, with up to two leased properties, do not pay the fixed monthly component, nor the social security and health contributions. The rest of the duties stay: the lease contract, the receipts and the returns that apply.

The law makes those incentives conditional on duly registered contracts, and the tax agency implemented the Registro de Locaciones de Inmuebles registry by general resolution in 2024. The other three in the same chapter, the personal assets exemption, the bank debit and credit exemption and the 10% income tax deduction, were written for leases of homes. Do not apply that 10% deduction to residential income exempt from income tax from 2026: Law 27.802 excludes the art. 85(k) deduction against that income.

For covered individuals and undivided estates, personal assets tax considers the estate at 31 December each year, in Argentina and, depending on the case, abroad. ARCA describes the mechanics like this: when the total valuation of your estate passes the minimum amount the agency publishes for each fiscal period, you register and file a return, and what you owe comes from applying a rate to whatever exceeds that minimum.

Buying to let moves that return. The unit joins your estate for the year, and the amount is set against the minimum for the period.

The reliefs in force were written for homes. Alongside the minimum for each period, ARCA publishes a higher amount below which property used as a home is not reached at all, and Law 27.737 exempts property leased as a home under a registered contract when the value of each unit is no higher than the amount set in the second paragraph of article 24 of the tax statute. A shop or an office fits neither: a commercial unit adds to the base.

Worth looking at before you sign, not when the deadline arrives. The tax follows the calendar while the rent arrives every month, and that difference in timing is part of the net number you were after in the first place.

For the owner, the lease is where the month-to-month reality is decided: currency and how the rent is updated, term and renewal, the tenant's guarantee, what the unit may be used for, valid charge allocation within the art. 1209 framework, works and repairs, and the conditions for leaving before the end. That ground is covered in the guide on what to negotiate in a commercial lease, clause by clause.

Before you buy, the unit itself has its own review. None of this replaces the deed or the title report your escribano notary will pull; it is the material you bring to them.

1. Permit for the activity

   Check that the unit can legally run the use you have in mind. If you buy with a tenant in place, their permit belongs to them and follows its own path: commercial permits in the City of Buenos Aires explains what gets authorised and on which unit.

2. Building rules and minutes

   The condominium rules and the minutes of recent meetings are material to read before you sign. Recent minutes show the extraordinary charges already voted and the ones still being argued.

3. Service charge debt

   Ask the administrator for the debt position of the unit and of the building, separating approved charges from disputed ones, before you sign.

4. Tenant and existing lease

   If the unit comes tenanted, read the lease as a buyer: rent, update mechanism, expiry, guarantee, deposit and debts. The commercial lease guide works for this reading too.

5. State of the building

   Lifts, installations, facade and common areas: whatever needs repairing in the next few years comes out of the same pocket as the rent.