Revenue close to home
Strengthening property tax collection in Peruvian municipalities
Main points
- 47 percent tax revenue growth: From 2019 to 2025, the five municipalities significantly improved their property tax collection. The highest jump was in Abancay, at 138 percent.
- Early fiscal liquidity: By issuing tax bills on time, funds started arriving earlier – allowing for better, more reliable planning of public spending.
- Closing gaps in the tax - base: Municipalities were able to identify unregistered and under-declared properties, update outdated records, and strengthen coordination between tax, IT, legal and other departments.
- Low-cost, high-impact tech: By leveraging widely used digital channels, the programme helped set up mass payment reminders, enforcement messages and 24/7 support for taxpayers.
- Changing taxpayer - behaviour: Frequent, targeted communication raised awareness of tax payment processes and deadlines. More importantly, it helped create a culture of compliance.
- A playbook for other governments: Practical tools and evidence from the interventions can now support other subnational governments seeking to boost their tax collection rates.
Property tax is an important source of revenue for local governments in Peru. It allows them to finance local projects that directly benefit their communities. But collection rates are low, meaning less money to spend on public services.
Between 2019 and 2025, the Swiss-funded Subnational Public Finance Management (PFM) programme, implemented by the Basel Institute on Governance, has supported five provincial municipalities to diagnose, reform and strengthen their revenue mobilisation.
By focusing on every stage of the tax management cycle, it helped them identify unregistered taxpayers, update real estate ownership records, launch tax campaigns on time and leverage technology to reach taxpayers more effectively.
As a result, property tax collection grew by an average of 47 percent. Abancay and San Martín made the strongest gains, with an increase of 138 percent and 46 percent respectively.
About this publication
This publication presents insights and lessons learned from over a decade of working with regional and municipal governments in Peru to strengthen public financial management systems and practices under our Programa GFP Subnacional. The programme is funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) through its cooperation programme in Peru.
You may share this publication under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International Licence.
Disclaimer: The contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Basel Institute on Governance, its donors and partners, or the University of Basel.
Programa GFP Subnacional. 2026. “Revenue close to home: Strengthening property tax collection in Peruvian municipalities”. Basel Institute on Governance. Available at: https:/