⏱️  Reading time: 9 minutes    📅  Updated: Aug 2026    🏷️  Demographics · Province of Buenos Aires · Birth rate

The Province of Buenos Aires is going through the most profound demographic transformation in its recent history: births fell by about 30% between 2019 and 2023, and the trend not only did not reverse, but deepened during 2024 and 2025. The phenomenon, far from being an isolated data, reflects a generalized decline in the birth rate throughout Argentina, with a direct impact on education, the health system and the pension system.

According to information collected by the Strategic Data Observatory from official records, the Province went from 227,596 live births in 2019 to 162,380 in 2023, a reduction of 28.7% in just four years. The decline reached 126 of the 135 municipalities of Buenos Aires, in a context in which the provincial population had grown 12.2% between the 2010 and 2022 censuses. That is to say: there are more and more Buenos Aires residents, but fewer and fewer children are born.

🖼️  Government House of the Province of Buenos Aires, La Plata (Wikimedia Commons)  (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Data after 2023 confirm that the decline did not stop. According to the Provincial Registry of Persons, 130,900 births were recorded in its delegations during 2024 and 123,971 in 2025, an additional decrease of 5.3% in just one year. Another source, the Buenos Aires Registry of Persons with series since 2020, shows an even steeper drop if the peak recorded during the pandemic is taken as a starting point: from 186,588 births in 2020 to 120,138 in 2025, a drop of 55% in five years.

The difference between the two series responds to different survey methodologies, but the direction of the phenomenon is identical in all available sources: the Province of Buenos Aires, the most populous district in the country, has far fewer births today than five years ago.

*The values marked with an asterisk correspond to the series of the Strategic Data Observatory / Provincial Registry of Persons; the figures without an asterisk correspond to the series of the Buenos Aires Registry of Persons based on 2020. Both series show a sustained downward trend.

The correlation of this drop is equally eloquent at the other end of the demographic pyramid: during 2025, around 133,900 deaths were registered in the Province, a figure that has remained relatively stable in recent years. As a result, the natural balance of Buenos Aires – the difference between births and deaths – became negative, with a net loss of close to 13,800 people in 2025, something that was not recorded with this magnitude in recent decades.

The decline in the birth rate does not affect all municipalities equally. Between 2019 and 2023, only nine of the 135 Buenos Aires districts – Pila, San Cayetano, Las Flores, Alberti, Tapalqué, Adolfo Gonzales Chaves, Carmen de Areco, Cañuelas and Lezama – registered more births than four years earlier, in general districts of low population density where few absolute variations generate large percentage oscillations.

In the most populated municipalities, the drop is sharp. La Matanza, the district with the most inhabitants in the Province, went from 22,513 births in 2019 to 15,905 in 2023 (-29.4%). In La Plata, the provincial capital, live births fell from 11,339 to 7,627, a reduction of 32.7%, equivalent to 3,712 fewer births per year.

In Coronel Rosales, the most extreme case among the large parties, the crude birth rate fell to just 5 births per thousand inhabitants, well below the provincial average.

🖼️  Hospital Rivadavia, Buenos Aires (Wikimedia Commons)  (CC BY 2.5 AR)

The Buenos Aires collapse is the most visible expression of a phenomenon that crosses the entire country. According to the Vital Statistics report of the Directorate of Health Statistics and Information (DEIS), under the Ministry of Health of the Nation, in 2024 413,135 live births were registered in Argentina, compared to the 777,012 counted in 2014: a drop of 46.8% in a decade, the steepest of the entire available historical series.

Translated into everyday life, the change is drastic. Ten years ago, some 2,128 babies were born in the country per day – one every 45 seconds; in 2024 that figure dropped to 1,131 per day, one every 80 seconds. The reduction also narrowed the gap between births and deaths in an unprecedented way: in 2014 births almost doubled deaths (777,012 against 325,539); In 2024, with 376,405 deaths, the difference was reduced to just 36,730 people, about 10% of the total number of births.

The City of Buenos Aires and the Province of Buenos Aires are, according to the same report, the only two districts in the country where deaths already exceed births, a threshold that anticipates an eventual decline in the total population if the trend continues and is not compensated by immigration.

The DEIS itself clarifies that it does not have studies that conclusively explain the reasons for the fall, but different specialists in obstetrics, demography and reproductive health consulted by national media agree on a combination of structural factors:

•     Postponement of motherhood: the average age of seeking the first child is now close to 34 years, compared to the 20-24 years that prevailed a decade ago.

•     Greater female autonomy: the growing participation of women in higher education and in the labor market is directly associated with the decision to have fewer children or to postpone it.

•     Cost of living and access to housing: Parenting involves growing economic challenges—housing, health, education—that lead to a preference for smaller families.

•     Access to reproductive health: the greater availability of contraceptive methods and comprehensive sex education has steadily reduced adolescent pregnancy.

•     Cultural changes: the social mandate that associated adulthood with motherhood or paternity has been weakened, and childless households and individual life projects are on the rise.

The phenomenon, moreover, is not exclusively Argentine: the fall in the birth rate is observed in most of the developed world and in a large part of Latin America, although the speed of the process in Argentina – and in particular in the Province of Buenos Aires – is especially pronounced in the regional comparison.

The most immediate impact is already being observed in the education system. While births fell 28.7% between 2019 and 2023 in the Province, total educational enrollment went from 5,138,086 students in 2020 to 5,052,747 in 2024, a still moderate reduction of 1.7% that anticipates a greater impact in the coming years, as the youngest litters reach school age.

Projections based on data from the National Population Directorate anticipate that, by 2030, the primary level could suffer a 27% drop in enrollment at the national level, with the Province of Buenos Aires losing more than 510,000 students in absolute terms, the largest contraction in the country due to its population weight.

In the medium and long term, specialists agree that the phenomenon will also reconfigure the labor market and the pension system: fewer births today imply, in the coming decades, fewer active workers compared to a population of older adults that, at the same time, grows due to the increase in life expectancy.

🖼️  Clinica y Maternidad Suizo Argentina, Buenos Aires (Wikimedia Commons)  (public domain/CC)

❓  How much did births fall in the Province of Buenos Aires between 2019 and 2025?

According to the Strategic Data Observatory and the Provincial Registry of Persons, births fell by about 30% between 2019 and 2023 (from 227,596 to 162,380), and the trend continued in 2024 and 2025, with 130,900 and 123,971 births respectively in the latter series.

❓  Which municipalities in Buenos Aires had the largest drop in births?

Coronel Rosales (-53.3%) and General Viamonte (-54.4%) lead the decline between 2019 and 2023, followed by Morón (-41.3%), Tres de Febrero (-36.1%) and Quilmes (-35%).

❓  How many births were there in all of Argentina in 2024?

413,135 live births, according to the DEIS of the Ministry of Health of the Nation, 46.8% less than the 777,012 registered in 2014.

❓  Why is the birth rate falling in Argentina?

Specialists point to a combination of postponing motherhood, greater female autonomy, economic and housing difficulties, better access to reproductive health and cultural changes around the life project.

The Province of Buenos Aires, which concentrates about 40% of the country's population, functions as an advanced mirror of what is already happening at the national level. With two districts – CABA and the Province itself – where deaths exceed births, and with an overall fertility rate that is well below the population replacement level (2.1 children per woman), Argentina is facing a demographic transformation that, according to the specialists consulted, is just beginning to manifest its full effects on education.  health and social welfare.

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Halfway through his third year in office, President Javier Milei faces a scenario crossed by contradictory signals. While the ruling party manages to unblock key votes in Congress and consolidates its capacity for parliamentary negotiation, polls describe a sustained deterioration of the presidential image and a social mood increasingly hit by economic pessimism. The analyses published by Perfil and La Nación coincide in the same diagnosis: the attrition is advancing, although it has not yet found an electoral alternative to capitalize on it.

📌 X-RAY IN NUMBERS

Sources: Giacobbe & Asociados, Monitor UBA, Pulso Research, Opinaia, CB Global Data and BAE Negocios. The ranges reflect methodological differences between consulting firms.

Public opinion data released in recent weeks show an economic picture that is perceived harshly. According to Giacobbe & Associates, 58% of the population maintains that the general economic situation worsens, a diagnosis that the UBA Monitor raises to 59%. Along the same lines, the Confidence in Government Index prepared by the Torcuato Di Tella University registered a monthly drop of 6.5% in July, with a cumulative decline of 21.5% since the end of 2025, according to the analysis published by La Nación.

The presidential image reflects the same downward movement, although with nuances according to the consultancy. Pulso Research placed the negative evaluation of the administration at 54.8% compared to a 37.2% positive image – the lowest record in its historical series – according to the review of five public opinion studies published by Perfil between March and July. Other surveys, such as that of Opinaia, show a somewhat less adverse picture: 46% approval, with a slight recovery compared to the floor recorded in June.

Beyond the management numbers, the social mood continues to be the most eloquent indicator. A study by consultant Hugo Haime, cited by La Nación, found that 42% of Argentines declare themselves sad and discouraged, 34% express anger and only 20% are happy and hopeful with the direction of the country.

The podium of concerns was also rearranged. According to the Synopsis survey taken up by La Nación, corruption leads the ranking with 33.4% of the mentions, followed by unemployment (28%), education (10.5%) and insecurity (9.2%); inflation, on the other hand, fell to fifth place with just 8.4%, despite being one of the few fronts where the government exhibits concrete results. Other measurements, such as that of Opinaia, place unemployment in first place with 63% of mentions and poverty in second place with 59%.

While the social mood deteriorates, Congress became the stage where the ruling party manages to show concrete results. The approval of the labor reform in the Senate – with 42 votes in favor, 28 against and two abstentions – was described as the greatest legislative victory of the administration, the product of the negotiation led by Senator Patricia Bullrich. To this milestone was added the sanction of the lowering of the age of imputability, another of the historical flags of the libertarian space.

With only 95 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 21 of the 72 in the Senate, La Libertad Avanza does not have its own majority and depends on agreements with dialogue blocs to unblock each vote. For the second half of the year, the political table defined as priorities the reform of the Central Bank's Organic Charter – which would prohibit the financing of the Treasury via monetary issuance – the expansion of the Fiscal Innocence Law and, as an objective of greater strategic weight, the elimination of the PASO for the presidential elections of 2027.

Not all initiatives have the same fate. The "Inviolability of Private Property" bill, linked to the foreignization of land, reached the Chamber of Deputies with half the approval of the Senate but cut from its most controversial chapters, after a CB Global Data survey revealed that 77% of those consulted support limiting the purchase of land by foreigners. The discussion even led to a mobilization in front of Congress, a precedent that the ruling party evaluates as a sensitive social limit.

The Perfil report, which compares five consulting firms between March and July, identifies March as the turning point: it was then that, for the first time since the beginning of the administration, a survey by Pulso Research showed that more respondents blamed the current government (46.9%) than the previous administration (41.6%) for the economic situation. The media also highlights that the labor reform, despite its parliamentary success, failed to establish itself as a political triumph and was read by a large part of society as a measure favorable to employers.

From La Nación, two opinion columns describe similar nuances with different readings. In "Milei, in the face of the danger of 'toxic rigidity'", the analysis connects Manuel Adorni's departure from the government with the persistence of attrition, despite the drop in inflation. On the other hand, the column "Milei and the polls: not good, but not so bad either" qualifies the diagnosis by recalling that, according to a comparative study, the government's current approval is higher than that shown by his two immediate predecessors at the same height of his administration.

The data most cited by analysts is, however, a paradox. According to Giacobbe & Associates, for every percentage point that social tolerance for the adjustment recedes, the intention to vote for La Libertad Avanza falls by around 0.9 points, an almost mathematical correlation between economics and politics. Other measurements deepen this discomfort: a study by CB Global Data found that 54.5% of those consulted prefer a change of government compared to 33.4% who support continuity, while a survey by BAE Negocios raised that figure to 61.9%.

Despite this deterioration, no opposition space has so far managed to capitalize on the discontent. Mayol himself warned that the electorate that moves away from the ruling party does not migrate to the Kirchnerist options, which leaves open one of the central questions for 2027. In this context, the ruling party retains some of the best-valued figures on the political chessboard: Patricia Bullrich leads the ranking of positive image in the Opinaia measurement, followed by Milei himself and Vice President Victoria Villarruel.

With an eye on reelection, the Casa Rosada defined three axes for the rest of the year: sanctioning as many projects as possible pending in Congress, deepening the electoral operation towards 2027 and strengthening agreements with allied provinces. The underlying challenge, according to the analyses of Perfil and La Nación, will be to sustain this double chessboard – legislative victories inside Congress and a social mood that has not yet been reversed – during the decisive months that remain until the next presidential election.

Methodological note: the figures cited come from different consulting firms (Giacobbe & Asociados, Pulso Research, Opinaia, UBA, Di Tella, Synopsis, CB Global Data, BAE Negocios, Hugo Haime), each with its own methodology and margins of error, so the percentages should be read as trends rather than as exact figures comparable to each other.

🖼️ REFERENCE IMAGE GALLERY

Absolute and verified links to real images hosted in open sources (Wikimedia Commons). Click on each link to view them in your browser.

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Summary of the positioning techniques applied and suggested for the web version of this note.

📚 SOURCES CONSULTED

Profile — Survey: five consulting firms analyze how the relationship between Milei and public opinion changed during 2026

Profile — Milei retains his competitiveness despite economic malaise and LLA raises his electoral ceiling to 55%

La Nación — Milei, facing the danger of "toxic rigidity"

La Nación — Milei and the polls: not good, but not so bad either

La Nación — Milei vs. Cristina: the international fight

Polls show Milei's wear and tear, but the ruling party resists as the first minority

Infobae — The legislative victories that Milei achieved in the first half of the year

BAE Business — More than 61.9% would vote for a change in government

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MIDIRE.AR ·  ECONOMICS AND PERSONAL FINANCE

Debt Concerns

Claims grow over credit card overdraft and financial harassment by fintechs

One in four Argentine debtors can no longer pay what they asked for. While the arrears multiplied almost five times in 18 months, complaints of harassment by collectors tripled. X-ray of a silent crisis and the rights that protect users against financial harassment.

🕒 Approximate reading time: 9 minutes

📅 Updated as of August 11, 2026

A snowball that doesn't stop growing

In the Argentina of 2026, a new social profile has been consolidated in the Central Bank's statistics: the indebted citizen. It is not a marginal or transitory phenomenon. According to the Monthly Monitor of Credit to Families, prepared by the Faculty of Business Sciences of the Universidad Austral together with the consulting firm ECO GO, one in four debtors in the country today has some degree of default, and that percentage rises to 31% when the credit comes from a fintech or a non-financial provider.

The overdraft of the credit card – that habit of paying the minimum month by month to sustain expenses that inflation no longer liquefies as it used to – has become a trap for millions of middle- and lower-middle-class families. Prepaid health insurance, private schools, vacations and daily consumption that were previously financed with fixed installments today have become balances that grow on their own, month after month, pushed by rates that far exceed inflation.

But the delinquency crisis has, in addition to its visible face in the numbers, a hidden face: the systematic harassment suffered by thousands of debtors by collection agencies, law firms and fintech applications that bought or manage their unpaid debts. Calls at all hours, messages to relatives and bosses, and even mock judicial notifications that never existed.

The deterioration in the payment capacity of Argentine households is not a perception: it is documented month by month in the BCRA's Debtors Center. The report by Universidad Austral and ECO GO, which accesses this database, shows a sustained collapse for 20 consecutive months.

In December 2024, the total default on credit to individuals represented only 3.6% of the amount granted. A year later, in December 2025, it had already climbed to 12.6%. And in June 2026, the latest data available, it reached 17.5%: almost one out of every six pesos lent in the country is now in an irregular situation. In just 18 months, the indicator multiplied by 4.9.

Source: Monthly Monitor of Credit to Families, Universidad Austral and ECO GO, based on data from the BCRA's Central Debtors Center (June 2026).

The gap between banks and fintech is one of the most eloquent pieces of data in the report: non-financial credit providers – including virtual wallets, non-bank cards and consumer finance – account for only 14.1% of the total credit granted to individuals, but they account for a delinquency rate of 31%, more than double that of the traditional financial system.

The phenomenon is not even throughout the country. La Rioja leads the ranking of non-performing loans by amount with 24.5%, followed by San Luis (22.6%) and Santa Cruz (22.2%). At the other extreme, La Pampa (9.1%) and CABA (11.9%) show the lowest levels. A fact that caught the attention of the authors of the report: three out of four new defaulters identified between 2024 and 2026 already had loans two years ago and had been paying normally. They are not people who got into too much debt: they are people who stopped being able to pay what they already owed.

Behind each number of arrears there is a person who, in addition to not being able to pay, in many cases begins to receive calls at any time, WhatsApp messages with a threatening tone and, most seriously, communications to relatives, co-workers or neighbors informing them about the debt of others.

Official data from the Directorate for the Defense of Consumer Rights of the province of Buenos Aires reflect the magnitude of the phenomenon. Claims for 'abusive practices', under the sub-ground 'harassment', went from 393 cases in 2024 to 1,064 in 2025. And between January 1 and May 31, 2026, 1,237 complaints had already accumulated: more than in the whole of the previous year, in just five months.

Ariel Aguilar, Buenos Aires' Undersecretary of Commercial Development and Investment Promotion and head of that agency, described the pattern that is repeated in most of the files: repeated calls during business and non-business hours – including weekends – WhatsApp and email messages, and harassment directed not only at the debtor but also at family members.  co-workers and neighbors, to whom personal and sensitive data are disclosed.

The cases surveyed correspond mostly to collection agencies and law firms that bought portfolios of unpaid loans from banks and financial institutions, both traditional and non-traditional. According to data from the Center for City Studies (CEC), the peak in debt sales to the secondary market coincided with the strong volatility of interest rates and the fall in real income recorded between the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026.

In the case of informal or unbanked workers, the battlefront is transferred to fintech applications such as Mercado Pago, Naranja X or Ualá. Many users discover, when it is too late, that the collection system can contact their personal contacts: the authorization to do so is usually in the Terms and Conditions that are accepted when installing the application, without the user noticing that clause.

Not all collection management is illegal: claiming a debt is a creditor's right. The problem arises when this management crosses limits that the Consumer Protection Law and the Civil and Commercial Code clearly establish. These are the most denounced practices and their legal status:

Argentine law does not exempt anyone from paying what they owe, but it does strictly regulate how that debt can be claimed. These are the central rules that protect financial users against harassment:

•     Law 24.240 on Consumer Protection, Article 8 bis — Guarantees dignified treatment and expressly prohibits extrajudicial collection from pretending to be judicial.

•     Law 24.240, Article 52 bis — Enables punitive damages: if a non-existent judicial process was simulated, the employer was contacted or a documentable moral damage was generated, a judge may impose a civil fine in favor of the consumer.

•     Civil and Commercial Code, Article 770 — Declares null and void the capitalization of interest (anatocism) before six months of arrears, a frequent practice in fintechs.

•     Communication 'A' 7146 of the BCRA — Subject to the supervision of the Central Bank and the Financial Services User Protection Regime (PUSF), with a period of 20 business days to respond to claims.

At the rate level, the Central Bank itself sets periodic ceilings for financing with cards issued by non-banking entities: through Communication 'B' 13096/2025, it established at 72.56% the reference rate for personal loans without real collateral, applicable from the January 2026 billing cycle and used as a ceiling for the cost of card revolving. Added to this are the Total Financial Cost (TFC), debt balance insurance and VAT, which in practice raise the real cost of financing the minimum payment well above that nominal figure.

Claiming against an abusive collection does not erase the debt: they are two different issues. What is required is that the collection process be carried out within the law, without intimidation or simulation of non-existent judicial instances. Consumer protection specialists recommend the following steps:

•     Document everything: screenshots of messages, record of times and number of calls, and names of people contacted without authorization.

•     File the complaint at the Consumer Protection Platform (argentina.gob.ar) or at the provincial address corresponding to the complainant's domicile.

•     If the creditor is a bank or a regulated fintech, add the claim on the Central Bank's Financial Users platform, which generates direct regulatory pressure on the entity.

•     Evaluate, with legal advice, the possibility of claiming the punitive damages provided for in article 52 bis if there was simulation of judicial proceedings, contact with the employer or documentable moral damage.

•     Check if there was capitalization of interest before the six months of arrears: this practice is null and void according to Article 770 of the Civil and Commercial Code and can be challenged.

While the arrears multiply, no political force has yet managed to clearly interpret this new social subject that is the indebted Argentine. It is, to a large extent, the same electorate that supported the austerity of Javier Milei's government and that today lives with the deterioration of its own standard of living, without any leader offering a diagnosis or a concrete answer to the problem of over-indebtedness.

In Córdoba, the claim even reached the unions: the Union of Educators of the Province of Córdoba (UEPC) and public employee unions requested refinancing lines from the provincial bank Bancor to stop the automatic debits that liquefied the salary accounts of its members. It is a sign that the phenomenon no longer only affects the informal sectors, but also registered workers with fixed incomes.

The national government, for its part, maintains that the over-indebtedness of families is 'a problem between private companies'. Meanwhile, a bill to reform the Central Bank's Organic Charter is advancing that would cut some of its powers of intervention on the allocation of credit, at a time when delinquencies accumulate 20 consecutive months of growth.

The combination of high financing rates, revenues that do not keep pace with accumulated inflation, and a collection industry that in many cases operates outside the law creates a picture that the researchers themselves describe as a 'social drama' rather than a simple financial fact. The challenge, for the political system and for the control bodies, is twofold: to contain the growth of delinquencies without leaving credit unprotected, and at the same time to ensure that claiming a debt does not become a form of daily violence against those who can no longer pay it.

Verified images available on Wikimedia Commons to accompany the publication (use under Creative Commons license, with attribution):

🖼️ Headquarters of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic, San Nicolás, CABA (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)

❓ Is it legal for a fintech to call my boss or a family member to claim a debt from me?

No. Contacting the employer, relatives or neighbors to inform them about a personal debt violates Article 8 bis of Law 24,240 on Consumer Defense, which guarantees dignified treatment. It is an abusive practice that can be reported to the Consumer Defense and, if the creditor is a regulated entity, also to the BCRA.

❓ Can I claim compensation if I was harassed for a debt?

Yes. Article 52 bis of Law 24,240 enables punitive damages: if a non-existent judicial process was simulated, the employer was contacted or a documentable moral damage was generated, a judge can impose a civil fine in favor of the consumer.

❓ Does reporting a collector's harassment erase or cancel the debt?

No. They are two independent issues: the complaint for harassment seeks that the collection process respects the law, while the debt itself remains in force and must be negotiated or refinanced separately with the creditor.

❓ Where is harassment from a collection agency reported in Argentina?

It can be started online at argentina.gob.ar or at the Consumer Protection Directorate of each province. If the creditor is a bank or a regulated fintech, it is advisable to add the claim on the Financial Users platform of the Central Bank (BCRA), which has a period of 20 business days to respond.

❓ Why is delinquency higher in fintechs than in banks?

According to the report by Universidad Austral and ECO GO, the irregularity of non-bank credit reached 31% in June 2026, more than double the 15.2% of the traditional financial system. Specialists associate it with a profile of users with less access to bank credit, higher rates and less repayment capacity in the face of the fall in real income.

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Card overdraft and fintech harassment: delinquency grows in Argentina

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The arrears multiplied by 5 in 18 months and complaints of harassment by collectors tripled. Data, legal framework and how to claim in Argentina.

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🗓️ August 10, 2026 ⏱️ 3 min 🏷️ read Transportation · Airports · Concessions

🏛️ BIDDING FOR AIR INFRASTRUCTURE

The Government analyzes the extension of the concession of air terminals in the midst of crossings for investments and profitability with the business sector

The Executive is negotiating with Aeropuertos Argentina, of the Eurnekian group, the future of the country's 35 terminals. While the company demands to extend the contract until 2056, the State demands verifiable investments and warns that it will not raise airport taxes.

✍️ Economy Editorial   Team |   📍 Buenos Aires, Argentina

📊 NEGOTIATION IN NUMBERS

The national government and Aeropuertos Argentina, the company of the Corporación América group linked to Eduardo Eurnekian, are holding open a key negotiation for the future of the country's air infrastructure. The file involves the concession of 35 air terminals and, as confirmed by official sources, the declared objective of the Executive is to close a new agreement before the end of 2026.

The discussion came to light after it transpired that a work plan of more than 600 million dollars – planned for Ezeiza, Aeroparque and other terminals in the interior – remains held up by the lack of a defined contractual horizon. Without certainty about the term of the concession, the company cannot go out to seek international financing or announce new investments.

The differences between the parties are concentrated in three central axes that so far prevent the agreement from being closed:

⏳  Term of the contract: the concessionaire intends to extend the link until 2056, with an additional option of ten years, while the Government seeks to tie it to periodic reviews.

💰  Profitability: the State requires that any extension be conditional on the effective, enforceable and verifiable compliance with the investment commitments assumed by the company.

🏗️  Financing of works: the company maintains that it needs a longer contractual horizon to access international credit and execute the modernization of the terminals.

The concession of Aeropuertos Argentina dates back to 1998 and originally expired in 2028. The extension that governs the contract today was signed in December 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, when the Executive Branch approved through Decree 1009/2020 a ten-year extension that took the term until February 2038.

That decision sought to compensate for the collapse of air traffic during the health emergency. However, according to official sources, the income from the contract fell by about 50% compared to what was projected as soon as the extension was activated, an imbalance that no tariff adjustment managed to compensate for and that today puts the link back on the table. Last year, the company and the regulator had signed a preliminary agreement that contemplated the extension until 2056, but that understanding was without effect.

The investment plan under discussion is around 600 million dollars and includes the expansion and modernization of the main terminals of the system. Among the priorities are Ezeiza and the international sector of Aeroparque Jorge Newbery – which in 2025 was close to 18 million passengers – in addition to the Mendoza airport, indicated as one of the terminals with the greatest urgency for expansion in the entire country.

While the new contractual scheme is being defined, Aeropuertos Argentina is also close to completing the investment plan of 606 million dollars that had been associated with the 2020 extension.

The contractual discussion takes place simultaneously with a significant improvement in the financial results of the concessionaire. During the first half of 2026, Aeropuertos Argentina recorded a net profit of 168,859 million pesos, 72% higher than in the same period of the previous year, and reduced its financial debt from 908,107 million to 736,984 million pesos.

This recovery in the company's profitability feeds the official demand for greater investment guarantees in exchange for any extension of the contract, in a context in which the Government seeks to prevent an extension from translating into extraordinary benefits for the company without concrete counterparts for the airport system.

As it was known, the possibility of increasing the airport taxes paid by airlines, particularly foreign airlines, was left off the negotiating table. The official argument is that an increase in these charges would reduce the country's competitiveness and could affect the number of air connections available. Nor is it considered viable, from the Executive, a reduction in costs that ends up deteriorating the quality of the service received by passengers.

Both the Government and the company agree, as it transpired, on the convenience of unlocking the contractual uncertainty as soon as possible. An extension of the uncertainty could affect the pace of investments and compromise the resources of the Fund for the Strengthening of the National Airport System (FFSNA), to which the company makes regular contributions.

At the moment, there is no closed agreement. Negotiations continue between the Ministry of Transportation, through the Regulatory Body of the National Airport System (ORSNA), and Aeropuertos Argentina, with a view to a definition before the end of the year.

Photographs and graphic material on the terminals mentioned in this note can be consulted in the following sources, available on the Internet:

✈️ Ezeiza International Airport Terminal — Aeropuertos Argentina 2000  ↗ See source

🛬 Aeroparque Jorge Newbery — Aeropuertos Argentina 2000  ↗ See source

🏢 Regulatory Body of the National Airport System (ORSNA)  ↗ See source

📰 La Nación — The government seeks to renegotiate the concession of Aeropuertos Argentina, but rejects the company ↗'s conditions See source

📰 Infobae — The Government assures that it will renegotiate the concession of the country's main airports before the end of the year  ↗ See source

📰 Infobae — More than USD 600 million in airport works slowed down by the lack of definition of the contract with the State  ↗ See source

📰 REPORTUR — Airports Argentina: Government to renegotiate concession  ↗ See source

📰 Profile  ↗ View source

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Note: document generated for informative journalistic purposes from public sources cited. Verify the validity of figures and the status of the negotiation at the time of publication.

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