Do I have to file at home while living in Peru?
It depends on residence, not on address — except for US citizens and green-card holders, for whom the answer is yes regardless of where they live. We settle the residence question first, because every other answer follows from it.
Is there a treaty between my country and Peru?
Possibly, and the version in force for your year is the one that matters — protocols and multilateral-instrument positions change what a treaty does without changing its name. We check it against the authority rather than a summary. Where no treaty applies, domestic relief takes over.
I own property in Peru. Where is the rent taxed?
In Peru, because that is where the property sits. The complication is the base: gross-rent withholding takes no account of mortgage interest, tax or repairs, so a leveraged property can face tax on turnover. An election onto net profit, where it exists, is what fixes that — and it has its own timing.
I work rotations at a mine in Peru. Where do I pay tax?
Both places, usually, with one of them relieving the other. Peru taxes employment carried out on its soil, and mine sites run their payroll locally, so tax comes off there from the first cycle. If you remain resident in Canada — and rotation work rarely breaks residence, because the home, the family and the accounts all stay put — Canada taxes the same employment income and gives credit for the Peruvian tax on it. The work lies in the arithmetic and the evidence rather than in the principle: matching the local payroll year to the Canadian one, converting correctly, and holding a document that proves the foreign tax was actually paid.
How do I prove to Canada that I paid tax in Peru?
With something issued by the local payroll or the local authority, not with a payslip alone. A withholding certificate, the annual statement your employer files, or a local return with proof of settlement will each do the work; a spreadsheet from a site administrator will not. Keep the document in the name the return is filed in, covering a period you can tie to the Canadian year. Where the local year differs from the Canadian one, the allocation has to be shown on the face of the working papers. Ask for these at the start rather than at the end, because they are far easier to obtain while you are still on the contract.
Does time on site in Peru make me tax resident there?
Presence matters, but employment income sourced to Peru is taxed whether or not you become resident. Residence changes the rate and the scope rather than switching the charge on. What residence does change is everything else you own: once a country treats you as resident it generally reaches your worldwide income, and two systems then claim the same investment and rental income, resolved by the treaty tie-breaker where a treaty applies. For rotational workers the practical question is usually narrower — which days were worked in country, on which contract, and which entity bore the cost of them.
My employer withheld Peruvian tax but gave me no certificate. What now?
Ask in writing, and ask early. Local payroll providers issue certificates on a cycle, and a request made while the contract is live is answered far more readily than one made after the assignment ends. If the employer has gone or will not respond, the fallback is reconstruction: payslips showing the deduction, bank credits showing the net, and where possible a statement from the local authority of what was remitted under your identification number. A credit claim supported by reconstruction is weaker than one supported by a certificate, so the gap should be explained on the file rather than left to be discovered on review.
I am Peruvian and live in Canada. Do I report my flat in Lima?
Yes, on both counts. The rent belongs on the Canadian return, because Canadian residents are taxed on income from everywhere, computed under Canadian rules even though it arises in soles. The flat itself is a holding outside Canada and is dealt with through the information filing that covers foreign property — a separate exercise from the income, and the one most often missed by people who arrived with assets already in place. Rent paid to somebody living abroad is usually subject to deduction at source in Peru, and that deduction becomes the basis of the credit claim here, so keep whatever the tenant or agent withholds and remits.
Which days count when a country tests how long I was there?
It depends on the country, which is why the count is done against the rules of the place asking rather than from a general impression. Some systems count any part of a day spent in the country, including arrival and departure days; others exclude transit. Travel days on a rotation, rest days taken in country, and training days at a site office can all fall on different sides of the line. The practical answer is to keep a contemporaneous record — flight itineraries, stamps, the rotation calendar the employer issues — rather than rebuilding it from memory long afterwards when a question arrives.
How much foreign income is tax-free in the United States?
Nothing is exempt in the USA merely for arising abroad — a US person is taxed on worldwide income. What exists is an election: the foreign earned income exclusion removes foreign *earned* income up to an annual cap if you meet one of two qualifying tests, $132,900 for 2026 and $130,000 for 2025, with a separate housing amount alongside it. It does not touch investment income, pensions or gains, and it is claimed on a form rather than assumed. See the foreign earned income exclusion.
Does the foreign earned income exclusion cover capital gains, dividends or a pension?
No. It covers earned income — pay for services performed abroad — and nothing else. Investment income, rental income, capital gains, pensions and social security all stay fully taxable, relieved if at all by the foreign tax credit or a treaty article. This is the single most common misreading of it: people exclude a salary, assume the rest followed, and discover the gap when the investment income is assessed. See exclusion against credit.
