Remunerative or non-remunerative travel allowances in Argentina: what the missing receipt costs you

When does a travel allowance become remuneration?

Article 106 of the LCT is the master rule, and it did not change: “Travel allowances shall be considered remuneration, except for the portion actually spent and substantiated by means of receipts, unless otherwise provided in particular by professional statutes and collective bargaining agreements.” The default state is remuneration; non-remunerative is the exception, and it is earned with paper.

The test is two-pronged, not single

• Actually spent. The text requires the amount to correspond to an expense that occurred. Whether a fixed amount per travel day, paid whether or not it was spent, meets that condition in your setup is a reading for your advisor to sign.
• Substantiated by means of receipts. The text names a means — receipts — and mentions neither the plausibility of the expense nor the manager's sign-off. Which document counts as a receipt is covered in the companion guide on valid receipts.

The text joins the two with an “and,” not an “or,” and speaks of “the portion” actually spent and substantiated, not of the whole allowance. What falls inside that portion when the expense report arrives incomplete is a reading for your advisor, not for this page.

What Article 105 added in March 2026

Law 27.802 on Labor Modernization (Boletín Oficial, B.O., 3/6/2026 — March 6, 2026) replaced Article 105 of the LCT: supplementary benefits that are not social benefits form part of remuneration “with the exception of” a list. Four subsections are expense-policy material:

• Subsection c) — car. Reimbursements with receipts for use of a car, “calculated on the basis of kilometers traveled,” in accordance with “usage and custom and/or the parameters set, or to be set in the future, as deductible” by ARCA (ex AFIP).
• Subsection d) — travel allowances. “Travel allowances substantiated with receipts under the terms of Article 6 of Law 24.241”: the LCT text refers to the social security law.
• Subsection e) — public transportation. Reimbursement with receipts of public transportation to and from work, “per day actually worked.”
• Subsection g) — cell phone and internet. Cell phone and internet service for work purposes, “in accordance with the limits set by the Enforcement Authority.”

The social security leg: employee and employer contributions

Article 6 of Law 24.241 uses the same words, and uses them to define what counts as remuneration for the purposes of that system: it treats as remuneration “travel allowances and representation expenses, except for the portion actually spent and substantiated by means of receipts.” Article 7, which lists the exclusions, does not mention them. How much in employee and employer contributions (aportes y contribuciones) follows from that in your payroll, and on what base, is calculated by whoever signs it.

Why the answer can be the opposite for Income Tax

The current text of Article 82 of the Income Tax Law says that “compensation in cash and in kind and travel allowances paid as an advance or reimbursement of expenses, for service assignments performed away from the site where the work is carried out, shall also be considered income of this category.” It does not say “unless accounted for”: it says advance or reimbursement.

And Article 81 of Law 27.743 added to it, effective January 1, 2024, the paragraph that shuts the door that used to be open: “the provisions contained in any type of laws — general, special or statutory —” shall not apply, nor decrees nor collective agreements, that establish an exemption, reduction or deduction of the amounts received. The list names “representation expenses, travel allowances, meals, transportation”; the only exception the text keeps is Law 26.176.

The cap of 40% of the non-taxable income amount has been repealed

You may have been told that the employee deducts travel allowances up to the collective-agreement cap and, failing that, up to 40% of the non-taxable income amount (ganancia no imponible), with a special rule for long-distance transportation. That no longer applies: Article 70, subsection d), of Law 27.743 repealed the fourth through eighth paragraphs of Article 82, where those three rules lived, effective from fiscal year 2024. Corroboration: “ganancia no imponible” no longer appears in Article 82, “larga distancia” (long distance) appears nowhere, and in RG 4003 — the fourth-category withholding regime — neither “viático” (travel allowance) nor “movilidad” (transportation) appears.

Article 86, subsection e), survives — deduction of “transportation expenses, travel allowances and other similar compensation in the amount recognized by” the agency — but the amount is delegated and we have not verified any resolution in force that sets it. The non-taxable income amount of Article 30 is still published: ARCA publishes it at ARS 5,585,736.93 as the cumulative amount through December 2026, in the July–December table. It is the personal deduction, not the base of any travel-allowance cap.

The three laws that moved the floor between 2024 and 2026

Much of what circulates describes a framework that no longer exists.

What a missing receipt costs you

What is at stake is not the amount of the expense: it is how the payment is classified. Without the portion “actually spent and substantiated,” Article 106 of the LCT leaves that sum on the remuneration side and Article 6 of Law 24.241 brings it inside its definition of remuneration for social security purposes. Which employee and employer contributions follow from that, and on what base, is a calculation for your payroll and for whoever signs it. What else it carries over into each element of the employment contract — the 13th-month bonus (SAC), vacation, the severance base — depends on the collective-agreement framework, and this guide does not assert it: we have not verified an official source that resolves it in general.

And the pay slip?

Here you have to be careful: this is the easiest point to overstate. Article 138 ties the pay-slip obligation to “any payment by way of salary or other form of remuneration,” and the minimum content of Article 140 — rewritten by Law 27.802 — does not mention travel allowances or non-remunerative reimbursements. Its subsection j) requires including the items “paid by the employer by legal or collective-agreement provision,” which could reach a collective-agreement travel allowance, but that is interpretation, not text. Recording it on an identified line is good practice, not a verified obligation.

How to set up the expense report so the receipt exists

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The edges where the law still does not close the question

Four areas where an honest guide stops, because we found no official source that resolves the point. Always ask for the law, the article and the date behind any figure.

• Remote work. Article 10 of Law 27.555 says the compensation for connectivity expenses “shall be exempt from income tax,” but the paragraph added to Article 82 by Law 27.743, which is later, declares inapplicable the exemptions created by other laws, and Law 27.555 is not among the exceptions. Do not treat it as settled.
• Car per kilometer, cell phone and internet. Subsections c) and g) of Article 105 refer to usage and custom and to ARCA parameters whose specific issuance we have not verified. Put in writing the criterion you apply and its basis.
• Travel allowances without receipts. The power in Article 6 of Law 24.241 is in the law, but we found no rule that has exercised it. Any internal cap is risk tolerance, not a legal allowance.
• Collective bargaining agreement. Art. 106 preserves what professional statutes and collective bargaining agreements provide; the paragraph that Law 27.743 added to Art. 82 declares inapplicable the provisions of agreements that establish an exemption, reduction or deduction. The two texts speak of the same clause and do not say the same thing.

What to take to your accountant

This guide stays with the text of the law on purpose: it cites the article, flags which word it uses and warns when we found no official source that resolves the point. Applying that text to your payroll — to your collective agreement, to your industry, to the specific way you pay each item — is work for a licensed professional, and no one on the Clara Global team is one. Take this list with you.

• Item by item: are you paying a reimbursement against a receipt or a fixed-amount allowance, and how does each of the two texts classify it?
• Which document do they accept as a receipt for each expense category, and what do they do with a partial or late expense report?
• Your collective bargaining agreement: what does it say about travel allowances, and what effect does it still have after the paragraph that Law 27.743 added to Article 82?
• If you pay remote-work connectivity: how do they handle the tension between Article 10 of Law 27.555 and that same paragraph?
• If you want to set an internal cap for expenses without receipts: what risk does the company take on, given that we found no rule that allows any?
• Which items is it advisable to show on the pay slip, and with what wording, if Article 140 does not list them?

Ask them to put it in writing with the law, the article and the date. It is the same thing this guide does, and it is the only thing that can be reviewed later when the text changes again.