Data-center law in Chile

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-02

Chile has no data-center-specific siting or permitting statute.

Data-center projects sit inside the general Sistema de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental (SEIA), Chile's environmental-impact-assessment system, and a January 2026 regulatory change to that system's entry thresholds, Decreto Supremo N° 17 of 2025, is what Chilean environmental groups and investigative press describe as the operative data-center rule, since it raised exactly the thresholds a data center's backup diesel generators and grid interconnection would need to trigger review.

The decree's own text is general in scope, amending thresholds across many project typologies (mining, waste, hazardous substances) and never naming data centers.

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Instruments on record

1 instrument on record, grouped by the family of approval each one governs.

Environmental review

What impact review must precede approval, and who leads it?

Decreto Supremo N° 17 de 2025, modifica el Reglamento del Sistema de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental

In force

Decreto Supremo N° 17 de 2025, Ministerio del Medio Ambiente (modifica el Decreto Supremo N° 40, de 2012, Reglamento del Sistema de Evaluación de Impacto Ambiental)

Effective 2026-01-21 · Applies to both

This decree modifies Chile's SEIA regulation (Decreto Supremo N° 40 of 2012). It raises the entry threshold for a flammable-liquid storage facility to trigger environmental review from 200,000 to 850,000 litres. It also narrows the high-voltage-transmission-line typology so that only a line carrying over 23 kV and running more than 2 kilometres now triggers review.

Chilean environmental groups (Fundación Terram) and investigative press (BioBioChile) attribute the two changes to the rise of data centers in Chile, whose backup diesel generators and substation interconnections previously fell inside the SEIA thresholds; a complaint over the change was reportedly filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in August 2026. The decree promulgated 17 June 2025 and published 21 January 2026; its changes took effect on publication.

Source: Full text of law

Every entry cites the instrument it describes. None of it is legal advice: verify a citation before relying on it. Full sourcing: read the methodology. The rest of the record: all jurisdictions.