How to Expand to Latin America from Italy: A Practical Guide

€20.3 billion. That’s what Italian companies sold to Latin America in 2025, while buying €13.8 billion back. Not bad. Look at the shares, though: Italy is only the region’s ninth supplier, with 1.6% of everything Latin America imports. Is that distance talking, or room to grow? A bit of both, probably.

Planning to expand to Latin America? Nine minutes from now you’ll know the basics. Which markets matter for Italian companies. What the EU’s deals with Mercosur, Mexico and Chile change. How to pick a first country, who can sell for you on the ground, and how to get paid in a currency that keeps moving. New to all this? Start from the beginner’s map from zero to a first round.

Why expand to Latin America? What Italy’s trade figures show

The numbers come from the Foreign Ministry’s economic observatory, which works on ISTAT data. For 2025 it counts €34 billion of trade between Italy and Latin America: €20,287 million of Italian exports against €13,762 million of imports. That leaves Italy with a surplus of about €6.5 billion.

Now look at who buys. In the first half of 2025 Italy sold €3,027 million to Brazil and €3,006 million to Mexico, almost 60% of everything it shipped to the region. The next four fall away fast: Argentina €599 million, Chile €587 million, Colombia €454 million, Peru €312 million.

You won’t arrive alone. The ministry counts 3,273 Italian companies in the region, with more than 300,000 employees and a combined turnover of €75.4 billion. If you sell machine parts, software or services, some of them are your first customers. If you sell what they sell, they’re your first competitors.

Does a 1.6% share mean an open door? Not by itself. Tariffs, taxes, distance and slow payment terms may be what keeps so many products out. Treat the number as a reason to phone real buyers, never as a stand-in for them. And if your offer hasn’t proved itself in Italy yet, sort that out first: here’s how to validate a startup idea before you spend abroad.

What do the EU’s trade deals with Mercosur, Mexico and Chile change?

Mercosur, the bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, is the messy one: the EU signed its agreements with it on 17 January 2026, and four days later the European Parliament asked the Court of Justice for an opinion and put its own consent procedure on hold. The Commission went ahead anyway: its page says the interim trade agreement “provisionally applies as of 1 May 2026”.

Application runs country by country, from the first day of the second month after both sides notify each other. Argentina and Uruguay had finished ratifying by 26 February, so they came first. The Senates of Brazil and Paraguay approved on 4 March 2026, and each joins when its own process ends. Tariffs fall in stages over up to 18 years. If the Court finds a conflict with EU law, the agreements can’t enter into force as written. Our guide to the EU-Mercosur agreement for Italian SMEs covers what that means for exporters.

Mexico: negotiations on a modernised agreement with the EU ended on 17 January 2025, and the signing, together with an interim trade agreement, came on 22 May 2026. When does the trade part start to apply? The Commission’s page doesn’t say, so check before you quote a tariff to a buyer. Chile is further along. Its interim trade agreement with the EU has been in force since 1 February 2025 and, in the Commission’s words, removes most remaining tariffs on goods. Trade between the two reached €21 billion in 2025.

A trade deal lowers tariffs. It doesn’t register your product, find your distributor or pay your invoice.

Which country first? Five markets side by side

Choosing the first country is the first real decision of your go-to-market plan, meaning how you reach and win your first customers. Our guide to market entry strategy explains the general method; the table applies it to five markets. If the US is on your list too, read how to enter the US market from Italy.

Country	Why	Watch out
Brazil	Biggest buyer of Italian goods in the region: €3,027 million in H1 2025. Its Senate approved the Mercosur deal on 4 March 2026.	Portuguese, not Spanish. Tax and import rules are heavy: budget for a local accountant and a customs broker from the start.
Mexico	Almost level with Brazil: €3,006 million in H1 2025. EU agreements signed on 22 May 2026.	Check whether the trade part applies yet. Expect strong competition, especially from US suppliers next door.
Argentina	€599 million in H1 2025. About 990,000 Italian citizens are registered in the AIRE. Mercosur deal applies from May 2026.	Currency and payment rules have changed often. Confirm the current ones with a bank before you ship.
Chile	€587 million in H1 2025. EU interim trade agreement in force since 1 February 2025.	A smaller market, so one weak distributor costs you a large share of it.
Colombia	€454 million in H1 2025, fifth on the list. Spanish-speaking.	Food, cosmetics and medicines need a registration with the national authority (INVIMA). Start it early.

No ranking can pick for you. A real signal can, so the list below starts there.

1. A signal you can point to: an inbound request, an Italian client with a plant over there, a business card from a fair.
2. The entry requirements for your product: today’s tariff, any registration the local health or product authority asks for, and the language the label must be in, Portuguese or Spanish.
3. A way of getting paid, agreed before anyone signs: which method, and which currency.
4. Somebody to do the legwork on the ground: a distributor, an agent, a marketplace, or a person of your own.
5. Run a small test for six months. Only then think about a company.

How do you sell there: distributor, agent or marketplace?

A distributor buys from you and resells on its own account. It carries the stock, the credit risk on local customers and most of the paperwork, and in return it wants a margin and often an exclusive territory. An agent just finds customers and takes a commission, while you ship and send the invoice.

Be careful with exclusivity. Ask a local lawyer whether the country’s law gives agents or distributors a right to compensation when the contract ends. In some places it can, and a loose exclusive deal turns expensive to leave, so keep the first contract short and put a review date in it.

Say you list a line of espresso-machine parts on Mercado Libre. In a few weeks you’ll see who asks about them and what they want to know before paying. It’s probably the cheapest market test there is, and no distributor hands you that information for free. Duties, customs and returns stay yours to sort out, alone or with a partner.

For distributors who already carry Italian goods, three doors are worth trying: the Italian chambers of commerce abroad, trade fairs, and ICE, the Italian Trade Agency. Whoever you meet, ask for two references from other Italian suppliers. Then call them, both.

The Italian communities are another door, with limits. In Argentina alone about 990,000 Italian citizens are registered in the AIRE, the register of Italians living abroad (Fondazione Migrantes, 1 January 2025; 6,412,752 worldwide). Someone in that crowd may know the right importer. Buy them a coffee. A surname still isn’t a customer.

Do you need a local company?

Not at the start. Say you sell through a distributor in São Paulo: the distributor has the company, the stock and the customers, and you just invoice it. Now say you hire two salespeople there, rent a small warehouse and start invoicing in reais. At that point a local company begins to make sense.

The usual vehicle is a limited-liability company, and the names change at every border. Brazil: Ltda. Mexico: S. de R.L. de C.V. Colombia: S.A.S. Chile: SpA. Argentina: S.R.L. or S.A.S. Each one needs a local tax ID (CNPJ in Brazil, RFC in Mexico) and a local bank account. A local law firm and an accountant will spare you from doing all this from Milan. The steps may sound familiar, because foreigners go through the same ones when they open a company in Italy.

How do you get paid? Payments and currency risk

Plenty of export plans come apart at the payment step. Habits differ by country: Brazilian buyers are used to Pix, the central bank’s instant-payment system, and to paying in instalments, while in Mexico many shoppers pay cash at convenience stores. Your local partner knows what buyers actually use. Ask before you build the checkout.

Then there’s currency. Picture an invoice for 1,000,000 pesos to a Mexican distributor, with the euro worth 20 pesos. You expect €50,000. The peso loses 10% of its value before the buyer pays, and what lands in your account is €45,000. The figures are invented for the example, but your margin may well be thinner than 10%.

You have four ways out. Invoice in euros or US dollars and let the buyer carry the exchange risk, though your price may then look high. Ask for payment up front on the first order. Use a letter of credit confirmed by an Italian bank. Or go to SACE, the Italian export-credit agency, which insures credit risk. Pick the cheapest cover that still lets you sleep at night, and put its cost into the price.

Who can help? ICE, SIMEST and our part

Two public bodies are worth a call. ICE promotes Italian companies abroad with trade missions, fairs and market information. SIMEST, the CDP group company for internationalisation, offers subsidised financing for export projects. Programmes open and close, so read our guide to SIMEST financing for what’s available today.

Our part is narrower. We don’t broker deals or introduce buyers, and nothing here promises that a market will work. If you want a second pair of eyes on the plan itself, meaning which country, in which order, with which numbers, that’s what our cross-border expansion service is for.

Your checklist before the first shipment

• Pick one country and write down why: a customer signal, a trade deal that applies today, a partner you’ve met.
• A local customs broker, asked which tariff applies and which registrations your product needs.
• Call two Italian companies already selling there.
• Have a local lawyer read the distributor or agent contract. Short term, limited exclusivity, a review date.
• The invoice currency and the payment method chosen, with the cost of cover priced into the offer.
• SIMEST and ICE checked for support before you spend, not after.
• A six-month test with a stop rule written down in advance: which result makes you continue, and which makes you stop?

This article is general information, not legal, tax or customs advice. Trade agreements and local rules change: check the official sources and ask a local professional before you ship or sign.