Chile renews its trust in SICPA’s track and trace system to combat illicit trade of tobacco and secure fiscal revenue

Chile’s Internal Revenue Authority (Servicio de Impuestos Internos, SII) awarded the contract to fight illicit trade of cigarettes in Chile to SICPA for another five years, starting from 2024. The solution, called Sistema de Trazabilidad Fiscal (SITRAF), is a track and trace system based on the SICPATRACE^® technology of SICPA. It has already proven its benefits since its first implementation in 2019. SITRAF is recognized by international institutions as a solid measure to control the production of genuine tobacco products and secure tax revenue.

SICPA started implementing and operating the SITRAF system in Chile in 2019 on domestic and imported cigarettes. SITRAF helped curb illicit trade of tobacco products, while based on public data of revenue collection, the incremental revenue collected since its implementation can be estimated at more than 532 million US dollars, corresponding to an increase of 16.4 percent between years 2019 and 2022.

SITRAF system includes a direct marking on locally produced cigarette packs for Chilean market and digital stamps for imported cigarette packs. Locally produced cigarette packs for exports are counted and registered in the system. Information captured in the SITRAF system is reported automatically to the SII database system. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have highlighted the benefits of SICPA’s SITRAF system used in Chile for increasing domestic revenue mobilization and strengthening tax administration. In particular, the IMF emphasized that “reducing the large tax gap and illicit trade requires strengthened tax administration measures, such as the implementation of the SITRAF track and trace system”.