Part 3+3 of 3: Ley 562 of 2026 — Lodgings Get Their Tax Credit Back, Fewer Foreign Guests Qualify

Continuation of the series on the senior discount. Previous chapter: Part 3+2, "Mulino vetoed Bill 226 — what still applies to lodgings, and what the new Bill 256 proposes" (October 20, 2026).

After the veto of Bill 226, the National Assembly approved a new text, Proyecto 746 de 2026, in third debate on October 30, 2026. It was published as Ley 562 de 2 de noviembre de 2026 in Gaceta Oficial No. 30647. It amends Law 6 of 1987, the law on benefits for retirees, pensioners and older adults. It takes effect six months after its promulgation, around May 2, 2027.

For lodgings, the law brings one major change, one notable restriction, one new obligation, and one article that is easy to overlook. Here they are, in order of importance.

1. The tax credit is back

As we explained in Part 2, Law 92 of 2020 rewrote Article 6 of Law 6 so that the 100% tax credit applied only to restaurants and fast-food chains. Since then, hotels, motels and pensiones have had to grant the discount with no way to recover it.

Ley 562 replaces Article 6 again. It now says that all discounts and concessions under the law "serán deducibles del impuesto sobre la renta del contribuyente que otorgó los descuentos, al momento de su declaración de renta."

The wording matters: the discount is deductible from the income tax itself, not from taxable income (renta gravable). It is a tax credit. These are the same words the original 1987 text used. In practice: if a retiree pays $50 instead of a regular $100 for a Tuesday night, the hotel can subtract the full $50 from the income tax it owes.

What it takes to use the credit

1. The discount must be one the law refers to. That means a hotel, motel or pensión granting the legal discount to an eligible guest. A voluntary discount given by a lodging the law does not name (a hostal familiar, for example) is not a "descuento a que se refiere esta Ley".
2. It must be granted after the law takes effect. Discounts given before about May 2, 2027 are not covered. The first year in which the credit can be claimed is the 2027 income tax return.
3. It must be documented. Guests prove their status with their cédula, their retiree or pensioner card, or their permanent residence card. Keep, for each stay, the guest's name and document number, the dates, the regular rate and the discount applied, and issue the invoice showing both the regular price and the discount.
4. There must be income tax to offset. The credit is applied "al momento de su declaración de renta". The law says nothing about refunds, carrying an unused credit forward to later years, or selling it to third parties.
5. The business must declare its income. A lodging that does not file an income tax return has nowhere to claim the credit. It is one more advantage of operating legally.

One point is still open. Article 6-A, added by Law 92 of 2020, says the tax credits "a que se refiere el artículo anterior" may be transferred by assignment (cesión). Ley 562 neither mentions nor repeals Article 6-A. Whether it now applies to the new Article 6 will have to be settled by the DGI. Until then, nobody should count on being able to sell an unused credit.

2. The discount itself does not change — and still applies to only three categories

Numeral 3 of the new Article 1 is word for word the old one: "Un descuento mínimo en los precios regulares de hoteles, moteles y pensiones así: a. 50 % de lunes a jueves. b. 30 % los días viernes, sábados y domingos."

Bill 226 would have added "hostales". The final law does not. Apart-hotels, cabañas, bungalows, residenciales, albergues and private apartments or houses are not named either.

What distinguishes the categories

The category of a lodging is the one under which it is registered with the ATP. The legal definitions are in Article 3 of Decreto Ley 4 of 2008, which created the ATP (the same list appears in Article 77 of Decreto Ejecutivo 82 of 2008):

1. Hotel: an establishment whose entire structure is dedicated to public lodging, built and equipped for that purpose, that permanently provides paid lodging to its guests and, as a rule, food and related services such as a reception office, a lounge and a public telephone, with daily cleaning of rooms.
2. Motel: a tourist lodging establishment located in rural areas or near beaches or highways, whose purpose is to provide motorists with paid lodging and food.
3. Apart-hotel: a building furnished to be rented to national and foreign tourists, with daily cleaning and individual kitchen facilities so that guests can prepare their own meals.
4. Hostal familiar: a tourist facility operated by an individual or a family alongside the owners' own rooms or house; small establishments with personalized service, regional home-style food, and buildings closely tied to the local popular architecture.
5. Albergue: a lodging facility located at a tourist site, aimed at travelers, where visitors serve themselves for food and lodging.
6. Cabañas or bungalows: a group of individual buildings intended to provide lodging in rural areas, beaches, bathing resorts and ecotourism sites.
7. Sitios de acampar: areas for ecotourism equipped with toilets, drinking water and first-aid materials.

Pensiones and residenciales are not defined in the 2008 framework. Their definitions come from the regulation of the hotel law, Decreto 17-B of 1977 (Article 2), which also gives motels a minimum size:

1. Residencial: a lodging establishment with fewer than 30 rooms "que reúne las condiciones de hotel, pero no ofrece servicio de comedor", and may in some cases offer breakfast or a cafeteria.
2. Pensión: a paid lodging establishment that does not meet the elements of hotels, motels and residenciales, except daily room cleaning, has at least 6 rooms, and offers optional meals to its guests.
3. Motel (1977): at least 20 rooms, with reception, lounge or lobby, parking and public telephone, and daily room cleaning.

What the three named categories have in common

Read side by side, the definitions show what hotels, motels and pensiones share: they rent rooms (not apartments or separate buildings), with daily room cleaning, and with meals available to guests. Hotels and motels provide food "por regla general", and a pensión offers optional meals.

Every other category lacks at least one of these three features:

1. A residencial meets the conditions of a hotel but has no dining service.
2. Apart-hotels and albergues leave guests to feed themselves (individual kitchens, or self-service).
3. Cabañas and bungalows are separate individual buildings, and campsites are not buildings at all.
4. A hostal familiar does serve home-style meals, but it is a small family operation in the owners' own house, without the daily room-cleaning requirement.

The law itself gives no reason for its choice; the three names were taken from the 1977 list of "Hoteles, Moteles, Residencias, Pensiones y Apart-hoteles". What counts in practice is the category on your ATP registration: if it says hotel, motel or pensión, the discount is mandatory; if it says anything else, the law does not oblige you.

The choice produces an odd result: a pensión, the simplest of these establishments, must give the discount, while a residencial, which meets the conditions of a hotel except for the dining room, does not.

In short, the deciding criteria are: a whole building dedicated to lodging with hotel services (hotel), a hotel without a dining room and under 30 rooms (residencial), at least 6 rooms with daily cleaning and optional meals (pensión), a roadside or rural location serving motorists (motel), individual kitchens (apart-hotel), owners living on site in a small family operation (hostal familiar), self-service (albergue), and separate individual buildings (cabañas and bungalows).

In numbers: of the 1,244 lodgings in the ATP report of October 2, 2026, 333 are hotels, 4 are motels and 63 are pensiones. These 400 are the establishments the law names. The other 844 (427 hostales familiares, 147 residenciales, 106 cabañas, 57 bungalows, 54 apart-hotels, 40 albergues and 13 campsites) are not named.

3. Fewer foreign guests qualify

The new Article 1 begins: "Los panameños jubilados o pensionados o que tengan cincuenta y cinco años o más si son mujeres o sesenta años o más si son hombres y los extranjeros con residencia permanente en el territorio nacional que tengan cincuenta y siete años o más si son mujeres o sesenta y dos años o más si son hombres gozarán de los siguientes beneficios".

1. Panamanians: no change. Retirees and pensioners of any age, and everyone 55+ (women) or 60+ (men).
2. Foreigners: they must have permanent residence and be 57+ (women) or 62+ (men). Until now, the same ages applied as for Panamanians, and all retirees and pensioners qualified regardless of age.

The consequence: a foreign retiree on a Pensionado visa who is younger than 57 (women) or 62 (men) no longer gets the discount once the law takes effect. Foreign tourists without permanent residence have never qualified.

Article 20 of the Constitution says Panamanians and foreigners are equal before the law, and allows the law to set special conditions for foreigners only "por razones de trabajo, de salubridad, moralidad, seguridad pública y economía nacional". Ley 562 gives no reason for the different ages.

4. Regular and promotional prices must be shown together

The new Article 1-A requires every business that offers products or services subject to the law "con precios menores o promocionales" to "colocar o anunciar de forma conjunta el precio de venta regular del producto o servicio y el precio de venta menor de ofertas o promocional."

Bill 226 also gave an extra 10% off the promotional price. That rule did not make it into the final law. The discount is calculated on the regular price, so publish your regular rates and show them next to any offer.

5. Fines

Refusing the discount can cost between B/.50 and B/.5,000, imposed by ACODECO. Each repeat offense doubles the previous fine. The money goes to the Fondo Especial para Jubilados y Pensionados.

6. Until about May 2, 2027, nothing changes

Until the law takes effect, Law 6 of 1987 as amended by Law 92 of 2020 still applies. The discount is mandatory, lodgings have no tax credit, and foreign residents still qualify at 55 (women) and 60 (men). The new tax credit does not apply to discounts granted before that date, not even retroactively.

7. The article that is easy to overlook: "Esta Ley es de interés social"

Article 8 of Ley 562 has a single sentence: "Esta Ley es de interés social." It looks like a formality. It is not.

Article 50 of the Constitution says: "Cuando de la aplicación de una Ley expedida por motivos de utilidad pública o de interés social, resultaren en conflicto los derechos de particulares con la necesidad reconocida por la misma Ley, el interés privado deberá ceder al interés público o social." (Article 46 also allows laws of social interest to be retroactive, but only when they say so expressly. Ley 562 does not.)

This matters because the law burdens businesses unequally in two ways:

1. Hotels, motels and pensiones carry an obligation that other lodgings competing for the same guests do not.
2. A business with little or no income tax — a start-up, a micro-enterprise, a business in a loss year — must still grant the discount but cannot use the credit, because the law offers no refund, no carry-forward and no sale of the credit.

The second point was made in La Prensa by law professor Miguel Ángel Esbrí during the debate on Bill 226: "Un crédito contra el impuesto sobre la renta solo tiene valor inmediato cuando la empresa genera suficiente impuesto para utilizarlo." (A credit against income tax only has immediate value when the business generates enough tax to use it.) In his view, it would work only with refunds, offsetting against other taxes, or carry-forward. Press reports on Bill 256 mentioned a transferable credit and reimbursements for micro-enterprises registered with Ampyme. Neither is in the final law.

Note also that Article 19 of the Constitution, which forbids privileges and discrimination, lists race, birth, disability, social class, sex, religion and political ideas, not types of business. A business that wants to challenge the unequal burden would therefore face Article 50: because the law declares itself of social interest, the private interest must yield.

What owners should do

1. Until about May 2, 2027: keep applying the discount under current law (50% Monday to Thursday, 30% Friday to Sunday, off the regular price).
2. From that date: for every discounted stay, keep the guest's name, document number and dates, and invoice the regular price and the discount. That is the basis for the credit.
3. Publish your regular rates, and show them next to every promotional rate.
4. For foreign guests, check permanent residence and age (57 or 62).
5. Talk to your accountant about claiming the credit in your 2027 return, and watch for DGI rules on documentation and on whether Article 6-A allows the credit to be transferred.

Sources:

1. Ley 562 de 2 de noviembre de 2026 — Gaceta Oficial No. 30647
2. Ley 6 de 16 de junio de 1987 — MICI
3. Decreto Ley 4 de 27 de febrero de 2008, Art. 3 (definitions) — Gaceta Oficial No. 25989, via FAOLEX
4. Decreto No. 17-B de 1 de junio de 1977, Art. 2 (hoteles, moteles, residencias, pensiones y apart-hoteles) — Gaceta Oficial No. 18,425, Sept. 22, 1977
5. Constitución Política de la República de Panamá (texto único 2004), Arts. 19, 20, 46, 50
6. "Descuentos a jubilados y límites constitucionales" — Miguel Ángel Esbrí, La Prensa, Sept. 20, 2026
7. Part 3+2 of this series and Part 2: How a Shared Subsidy Became a Hotelier's Bill