Does Chile's permitting reform actually make Chile faster?

Chile has a reputation for being the predictable Latin American market, and on contract enforcement and procurement it earns it. On permitting it does not, and the gap between the two is where European suppliers lose project schedules.

In September 2025 Chile legislated to fix this. The question for anyone forecasting when a Chilean project will actually buy equipment is whether it works, and the honest answer today is not yet.

The problem the law is answering

The Universidad San Sebastian permitting cost index found that in 2025 a full environmental impact study, an EIA, averaged 790 days in evaluation, and the lighter declaration, a DIA, averaged 304 days. Seventy-seven per cent of projects exceeded the timeframe the legislation anticipates.

On the same restated basis the 2024 figures were 776 and 325 days. Read the movement precisely, because it goes both ways: the environmental impact study lengthened by 14 days, about 1.8 per cent, while the lighter declaration shortened by 21 days, about 6.5 per cent, and the share of projects running over rose to 77 per cent. The heavy end got slower and more of everything overran; the light end improved.

Do not mix editions when you quote these. The 2026 report restates its own 2024 numbers, so the earlier published figures of 717 and 318 days at 65 per cent are not comparable with the current series.

What Ley 21.770 actually does

The Ley Marco de Autorizaciones Sectoriales was published in the Diario Oficial on 29 September 2025. Its substance is procedural and, on paper, exactly right:

• roughly 380 sectoral permits across 37 public services and 16 ministries brought into a common framework, on the count published by the law firm CMS
• six permit typologies, each with a maximum processing period
• a single founded request for additional information, rather than the successive rounds that have historically stretched timetables indefinitely
• regulated positive and negative administrative silence, so that inaction has a defined consequence
• a unified digital platform, SUPER, as the single point of entry
• regulatory stability of up to eight years for projects holding a favourable environmental resolution

The single request for additional information is the most important item on that list. Serial information requests are the mechanism by which a statutory deadline becomes advisory, and closing it is the change most likely to move the actual numbers.

Why it does not help you yet

One reason, and it is a large one.

Credit where it is due, because this is the part that has moved fastest and the part most commentary has not caught up with. SUPER is live. The Ministerio de Economia announced on 13 February 2026 the start of mandatory and gradual digital processing of permits through the platform, and reported that it closed 2025 with 251 procedures available, ahead of its own target. Mandatory digital processing is scheduled for ministries and public services by 31 December 2026 and for municipalities and regional bodies by 31 December 2027. This is a functioning platform on a published timetable, not a promise.

But environmental assessment is expressly excluded. The SEIA, the environmental impact assessment system, sits outside the framework law. That is where the 790 days are. A reform that streamlines the sectoral permits while leaving the longest one untouched improves the total by much less than the headline suggests, and for a large mining or energy project the environmental resolution is the gating item.

So the honest verdict is not that nothing has happened. It is that the thing that has happened is not the binding constraint.

What to plan against

For any Chilean project that requires an environmental permit, plan in years rather than quarters, and use the current published averages rather than the statutory periods. That means roughly two years for a full EIA and closer to a year for a DIA, with a better than even chance of overrun on the historical record.

For a supplier, the practical consequence is about forecasting rather than compliance. Chile's mining pipeline is large and 41 per cent of it is in execution, with the balance at feasibility or earlier: see what Chilean mining will be buying until 2034. Permitting is a large part of why the unfunded majority stays unfunded, and it is the reason a project at feasibility stage is not a purchase order in your next two budget years.

This is also the honest qualification to our published view that Chile is the lowest-friction market in the region. It is, for contracts, procurement and enforcement. It is not, for anything that needs a permit. Both statements are true and only one of them appears in investment promotion material. Our full position is on the Chile market page.

What would change our view

Three things, and they are observable rather than speculative:

1. Mandatory digital processing arriving on schedule for ministries and services by 31 December 2026, with the sectoral timetables actually being met rather than merely published.
2. The 2027 edition of the permitting index showing the delay rate falling from 77 per cent.
3. Any extension of the framework, or an equivalent reform, to the SEIA itself.

The third is the one that would change the answer rather than improve it. Until then, we would tell a client to plan Chilean project timelines off the observed data and treat the reform as upside.

Common questions

What is Ley 21.770?

Chile's Ley Marco de Autorizaciones Sectoriales, published on 29 September 2025. It brings roughly 380 sectoral permits across 37 public services and 16 ministries into a common framework, with six permit typologies, maximum processing periods, a single request for further information, regulated administrative silence and the SUPER digital platform.

Has Chilean permitting got faster since the reform?

Partly. The SUPER platform is live and carrying permits, with mandatory digital processing scheduled for ministries and services by 31 December 2026. But the most recent measured figures, for 2025, show an environmental impact study averaging 790 days and a declaration 304 days, with 77 per cent of projects exceeding the anticipated timeframe, and environmental assessment is expressly outside the reform.

Does the reform cover environmental permitting?

No. Environmental assessment within the SEIA is expressly excluded from the framework law, and that is where the longest delays sit. This is the main reason the reform is likely to improve the total timetable by less than the headline implies.

How long should I assume a Chilean permit takes?

Use the observed averages rather than the statutory periods: roughly 790 days for a full environmental impact study and 304 for a declaration, on 2025 data, with a 77 per cent chance of exceeding the anticipated timeframe.