Mercado Libre Global Selling: selling in Latin America without a local company
I sell on Mercado Libre from Argentina, bring goods in from China and run my own warehouse in Buenos Aires. Everything written here has been tested on my own shipments, not retold from someone else’s guides.
The standard route onto Mercado Libre looks heavy. Open a company in Argentina or Brazil, get a local tax number, find a resident representative, clear the goods, register with the authorities and only then trade. Six months and several thousand dollars before the first sale.
There is a second route that Russian-speaking sellers barely know about. Mercado Libre has a programme for foreign sellers, Global Selling. Your company is abroad, your goods are abroad, and your listings hang on several Latin American marketplaces at once. A buyer in Mexico opens their usual site and finds your product in the ordinary results.
First, something important the guides stay silent about. The buyer seesthat the product is foreign: such listings carry the tag GLOBAL. They understand the parcel takes noticeably longer than usual and that on delivery they will most likely be charged duty. That hits conversion immediately, and it has to go into the calculation from the very start.
Let us go through the facts. Where you can come in from, what you need for it, how much the platform takes, how the logistics work and when the scheme does not work. All the figures are taken from Mercado Libre’s official pages and checked in August 2026.
How Global Selling differs from the ordinary route
An ordinary seller in Argentina means a local company with a CUIT, a local bank account, local customs clearance and local filings. You play by the country’s rules.
Global Selling is a separate dashboard. One account gives you a storefront in several countries at once, the money arrives in dollars, and depending on the option the platform can take on customs and shipping. You need no company in Latin America at all.
Now the scale, which is the point of the whole exercise. Mercado Libre operates in 18 countries of the region. It has 65m buyers and 12m sellers, turnover of 25.5bn dollars, 538 visits and 29 orders a second. It is Amazon and eBay for the whole of Latin America rolled into one, and there is no notable alternative in the region.
Where you can come in from. Three jurisdictions
The company must be registered in one of three countries.
US · China · Hong Kong
And here is the key thing almost everybody gets wrong. Your citizenship and country of residence do not matter. You do not have to be American, you do not have to be a US resident, you do not have to live there. Only the company’s country of registration matters. A Russian or Kazakh passport in the owner’s hands is no obstacle to the programme.
Why this matters. Opening a US LLC remotely takes a few weeks and a predictable budget. Opening a company in Brazil with a resident representative and a CNPJ takes 6–10 weeks, a different order of expense and constant local upkeep. Global Selling lets you test demand before you get into the second story.
What you need to register
The set of papers for the US route is this.
1. A company, an LLC or a Corporation.
2. EIN, the company’s federal tax number.
3. A US address.
4. The owner’s passport.
5. Form W-8, confirmation for the tax authority that the beneficiary is not a US tax resident.
Plus a bank account or a Payoneer account for the payouts. No local director, no consular power of attorney, no travel. The whole process is remote.
Where you can sell, and why the country lists differ
The general Global Selling dashboard opens up five marketplaces.
🇲🇽 Mexico · 🇧🇷 Brazil · 🇨🇱 Chile · 🇨🇴 Colombia · 🇦🇷 Argentina
Separately, Mercado Libre has the Chinese channel of the same programme, with its own portal, support and materials for sellers from China. There it declares six countries. Added to those five is 🇺🇾 Uruguay, but only with the own-shipping option.
So if you have seen six countries in one place and five in another, both figures are right. They simply refer to different entry points into the programme.
Logistics. Four options, and three of them are called Full
First, about the confusion in the names, it breaks half the calculations people make. Mercado Libre uses the word Full for three different warehouses in three parts of the world. A warehouse inside the buyer’s country, a warehouse in Texas and a warehouse in China. Their terms, available countries and company requirements all differ. We go through each below.
1. Mercado Envíos Full, a warehouse inside the buyer’s country. You ship a batch in advance, the platform stores the goods, packs them in its own boxes, delivers within a day or two and handles buyers itself after the sale. The listing gets a badge and rises noticeably in the results. Cross-border sellers have access to it in Mexico and Chile. The company’s country of registration plays no part; US, Chinese and Hong Kong companies can equally bring goods into this warehouse.
2. Your own shipping, Direct-to-Consumer. The goods are with you. An order comes in, you print the ready label from the dashboard and within 3 working days you hand it to the platform’s partner carrier. From there it carries the goods to the buyer. It works in every country in the programme, entry is the simplest, but delivery takes a long time.
3. The Texas warehouse, US FC. Mercado Libre’s official warehouse in the US, in the town of China Grove. You ship goods in bulk, and after an order the platform carries, clears and delivers them itself. Open to companies from the US, mainland China and Hong Kong. The last mile takes 3–5 days, starting capacity is 1,000 units, and the fee in most categories is lower than on Full in Mexico. The limits: weight up to 25.3 kg, side up to 120 cm, sum of sides up to 260 cm. The seller supplies their own return address, a warehouse in the US or in Mexico. The listing shows a separate USA FULL badge.
4. CHINA FULL, also known as semi-managed (半托管). Mercado Libre has its own warehouse in China, in Dongguan, Guangdong province. You deliver the goods within China, and the platform takes on everything else. Storage, picking, packing, international carriage, customs clearance and delivery to the door. It works for all five markets, including Brazil, where ordinary Full is not available to foreigners.
The main difference with CHINA FULL. The scheme is available only to companies with a mainland China or Hong Kong licence, a US company will not get in here. Entry is by invitation. In exchange you get a zero storage charge with stock turning over in 30 days, a discount on the fee up to 50%, the green FULL badge with priority in search, and payouts once a week instead of two on a balance from 500 dollars. You set the price as Net Proceeds: you state what you want to receive, and the system works out the shelf price itself, which removes the currency risk.
The seller requirements for CHINA FULL are strict. Experience in cross-border trade, goods lighter than 1,500 g and cheaper than 40 dollars, a ready range of 100 items in fashion and 300 in other categories, a member of staff in China to handle the warehouse, English in the team. Sole traders are not accepted, no deposit is required, and applications are reviewed in 7–10 working days. On the turnover bar the platform’s documents disagree. The English version demands more than $3m of sales a year, while the Chinese FAQ recommends $300k per store. Check with your manager.
| Country | Full in the country | Own shipping | The Texas warehouse | CHINA FULL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇲🇽 Mexico | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| 🇨🇱 Chile | yes | yes | declared | yes |
| 🇦🇷 Argentina | — | yes | declared | yes |
| 🇧🇷 Brazil | — | yes | — | yes |
| 🇨🇴 Colombia | — | yes | — | yes |
| 🇺🇾 Uruguay | — | yes | — | — |
The word “declared” for Texas means this. In the Chinese portal’s general scheme the warehouse is marked for Chile and Argentina, but the platform’s detailed description of the project is still entirely about Mexico, the US–Mexico route. Before doing the maths, check with your manager whether the route to your country works.
The main conclusion from the table. Coming in with a US company means Brazil is own-shipping only for you, which is slow. A fast route into the Brazilian market exists, but it goes through a Chinese or Hong Kong company. That is the least obvious consequence of the whole structure, and not a line about it is written in the English-language dashboard.
The duty on the buyer. The actual percentages
For the Texas route Mercado Libre publishes the rates directly. The import charge is paid by the buyer, is included in the shelf price and is not shown as a separate line.
| Product price | Import charge for the buyer |
|---|---|
| up to $50 | no |
| from $50 to $117 | 17% of the price |
| over $117 | 19% of the price |
Duties and taxes are calculated on the sale price, and Mercado Libre handles them on your behalf. The practical meaning is simple. The 50-dollar threshold is a cliff. At 49 dollars the buyer sees no surcharge; at 55 the product already costs them 17% more. If your price hovers around fifty, stay under the threshold.
A word on prohibitions. Each destination country has its own list of goods prohibited from import, and the partner carriers have their own size and weight limits. Check this before buying a batch.
Fees by country
Listing goods is free and open-ended; the fee is charged only after a sale and depends on country and category. You can upload the catalogue by Excel file or through the API.
There are two listing types, Clásica and Premium. Premium costs more but includes interest-free instalments for the buyer. In Latin America that carries weight, some people simply will not buy without cuotas.
| Country | Clásica fee | Premium fee | Min. price, own shipping | Min. price, Full |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇧🇷 Brazil | 12,5% | 16,5% | 3 $ | — |
| 🇲🇽 Mexico | by category | by category | 3 $ | 4 $ |
| 🇨🇱 Chile | by category | by category | 3 $ | 4 $ |
| 🇨🇴 Colombia | by category | by category | 3 $ | — |
| 🇦🇷 Argentina | not announced | not announced | 13 $ | — |
For Brazil Mercado Libre publishes the percentage directly. For Mexico, Chile and Colombia it says “depends on the category”, and you see the exact figure when you publish the product. For Argentina the fees stand as TBD at the time of writing, meaning they have not been announced. We will not plug in a figure that is not on the platform’s site. There is as yet nothing to base Argentine economics on in this programme.
The hidden fee that kills cheap products
Besides the percentage of the sale there is a fixed per-unit fee, charged on inexpensive items.
| Country | Per-unit fee | Applies to goods cheaper than |
|---|---|---|
| 🇲🇽 Mexico | 33 MXN | 299 MXN |
| 🇧🇷 Brazil | 9,6 BRL | 79 BRL |
| 🇨🇱 Chile | 1,650 CLP | 15,650 CLP |
| 🇨🇴 Colombia | 7,200 COP | 60,000 COP |
| 🇦🇷 Argentina | not announced | — |
The conclusion in one line. Shipping cheap small items this way makes no sense. On a three-dollar product the fixed fee plus the percentage plus cross-border shipping eat everything. Global Selling lives on goods with a high price relative to weight and volume.
What shipping costs
Part of the shipping cost is paid by the seller. The final amount depends on three things: your reputation, the origin-destination pair and the logistics option you choose. The platform has its own Revenue Calculator. It works out shipping and fees for specific conditions, and it is worth using before you buy.
How the money arrives
The buyer pays in their own currency, and you receive dollars. Swings in the peso and the real are not your concern. That is one of the scheme’s strongest points; a local seller in Argentina lives with the exchange rate constantly.
The payout goes out by international transfer every two weeks to a bank account or to Payoneer. The minimum transfer amount is 500 dollars. If you do not reach it within the period, the money waits for the next payout.
For small turnover that means you will see the first money not two weeks after launch, but once five hundred dollars have accumulated.
What storage at a Full warehouse costs
Storage is free at first, then charged monthly per unit. The larger the product, the faster the bill grows.
| Product size | up to 4 months | 4–6 months | 6–12 months | more than a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small (a tablet) | 0 $ | 0,77 $ | 2,43 $ | 4,14 $ |
| Medium (a coffee maker) | 0 $ | 1,16 $ | 3,75 $ | 5,63 $ |
| Large (a microwave) | 0 $ | 1,65 $ | 5,52 $ | 9,16 $ |
| Very large or heavy | 0 $ | 3,64 $ | 12,08 $ | 25,32 $ |
The figures are per unit per month. The meaning is simple. Fail to sell within six months and the warehouse starts eating you. On bulky goods that becomes painful fast.
A discrepancy in the documents. The text on Mercado Libre’s site says storage charges begin after 60 days. But in the rate table the first two steps, up to two months and two to four, are set at zero. We give the table, but before shipping a batch check the terms in your own dashboard. On paper the platform does not add up here.
Taking goods back out of the warehouse also costs money. From 8.27 dollars for a small volume, up to 2 054 for a volume over 50 m³. Disposal is cheaper, from 38 cents. With a failed batch you will not only fail to sell it, you will pay extra to get it out of there.
A word on Mexico. There a daily storage charge applies, from $0.0006 to $0.0276 per unit per day depending on size.
The clock that starts ticking on day one in the warehouse
Storage charges are not the whole story. The Full warehouse runs an automatic script for stalled stock, and it starts much earlier than paid storage.
30 days without sales. The product becomes a candidate for the stale-stock promotion. Participation is still voluntary and is switched on manually.
60 days without sales. Product automatically goes into a clearance sale at a forced discount. You can opt out or order removal, but by default the discount is applied for you.
90 days without sales. The platform offers to remove the remaining stock before a cut-off date, otherwise it goes to disposal.
Seven days before any such promotion begins you get an email. The point is that the warehouse does not merely get more expensive, it starts selling your goods at its own price. It has to go into your unit economics from the start.
There is a flip side too. The product sells well and the allotted capacity runs out. Extra capacity for a month is bought right in the dashboard. As a guide: 18 cents per unit for goods that fit a standard tray, and 1.3 dollars for oversized goods. Cancelling a purchase costs 20% of the amount, and the current month’s capacity cannot be cancelled at all.
Mexico. The RFC and the 36% rate for non-compliance
This is easy to miss and expensive to get wrong. Mercado Libre has launched tax-number verification for cross-border sellers working with the Mexican warehouse. What is required of you is RFC, the Mexican tax number, confirmed by the document CSF, the Constancia de Situación Fiscal. Plus signed consent from the number’s holder for your store to use it.
The cost of the mistake. Fail the verification, or give the wrong email address rather than the one the CSF was issued to, and the withholding rate on the store rises to 36%. This is not a platform fee but a tax on top. So before starting the verification, first make sure the linked RFC matches, and update it in the dashboard if necessary, without beginning the procedure.
You can update or submit the RFC via a direct link, global-selling.mercadolibre.com/kyc. Opens on a desktop computer.
What the dashboard gives you beyond a storefront
A built-in translator. Correspondence with buyers before and after a sale, as well as dispute handling, goes through automatic translation between English, Spanish and Portuguese. Spanish is not required — but you must answer quickly; the platform recommends staying within 24 hours, and response speed affects reputation.
Seller reputation. The thermometer works the same as it does for locals: good reputation lifts a listing in the results and gives up to 60% savings on shipping. This is not cosmetic, it is money.
Mercado Ads. In-platform pay-per-click advertising, with the budget changeable at any time.
Training. The programme has its own Learning Center with courses and breakdowns — free, in English.
Why the Chinese channel is worth reading even if you come in from the US
Mercado Libre has a separate presence for sellers from China: its own portal, webinars, seller stories, category breakdowns, a “seller university”, official broadcasts and Chinese-speaking account managers. Half the specifics in this article — the Dongguan warehouse, the import-charge percentages, the packaging requirements, the stale-stock script — come from exactly there: none of it exists in the English-language dashboard.
Since August 2026 the platform has run a separate support programme for warehouse sellers in Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Argentina: a personal manager, promotion slots, monthly capacity increases at an inventory-quality index of 50 or more, performance reviews and priority handling of disputes.
The conclusion is simple: Chinese sellers enter Latin America in an organised way, with the platform’s own support and with logistics you will not have with a US company. They are who you will mainly be competing against — and knowing their terms is useful even if you come in by a different route.
Where this scheme breaks down
The GLOBAL tag and the duty on the buyer. The most underrated point. Your product is flagged as foreign in the results, the buyer sees a longer delivery time and understands that on receipt they will most likely be charged duty. Next to you sits a local seller with no tag, two-day delivery and no customs surcharges. At an equal price the choice is obviously not in your favour — so the difference has to be beaten either on price or with a product locals simply do not have.
Delivery speed. Without Full the parcel takes a long time, and delivery time is one of the ranking factors. A local seller with stock in a warehouse in the country will, all else being equal, sit above you.
Brazil is closed to fast logistics unless you are coming from China. A warehouse inside the country is available to cross-border sellers only in Mexico and Chile. The only fast route into Brazil goes through the Dongguan warehouse, and only companies from mainland China and Hong Kong are let in there.
The Mexican RFC. Fail to confirm the tax number and the withholding rate on your store goes to 36%. It is a separate procedure with the CSF document and a signed consent, and it is easier to fail than it looks.
Argentina is in limbo. The fees are not announced, and the minimum product price is 13 dollars against 3 in the other countries. You cannot build a business plan for Argentina through Global Selling right now.
You still have to open and maintain the company. A US LLC means annual filings, the tax authority and bank compliance. Cheaper than the Brazilian structure, but not free.
Returns. A return from Latin America back to the US is a logistical and financial pain of its own, and almost nobody builds it into the calculation at the start.
The payout threshold. 500 dollars. At the start, with small turnover, the money sits there.
Global Selling or a local company
Let us compare what matters.
| Global Selling | A local company | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to launch | weeks | 2–3 months and more |
| A company in Latin America | not needed | required |
| Revenue currency | dollars | local, with currency risk |
| A warehouse in the country | Mexico and Chile; Brazil only through a Chinese company | any, including your own |
| How it looks to the buyer | the GLOBAL tag, longer delivery, duty possible on receipt | an ordinary local product |
| Delivery time to the buyer | long without Full | short |
| Customs clearance | on the platform or on you; the duty is more often paid by the buyer | entirely on you, with no surcharges for the buyer |
| Local filings | no | yes, ongoing |
| Growth ceiling | limited by logistics | not limited |
Global Selling suits you, if you already have a company in the US or Hong Kong; if you are bringing goods from China anyway; if you need to test demand before serious investment; if the product is expensive and light, so logistics does not eat the margin.
Does not suit you, if the product is cheap and bulky; if you are betting on Brazil with fast delivery; if your main market is Uruguay or Argentina; if you plan to build volume rather than test a niche.
What to do before you start
1. Work out the unit economics for both routes — through Global Selling and through a local company. The difference often turns up somewhere other than expected.
2. Check your product against the destination country’s prohibited list and against the carriers’ size limits.
3. See whether your price falls under the fixed per-unit fee — if it does, rebuild the range.
4. Decide about the warehouse. Without Full you compete on delivery time, and that is a losing position against locals.
5. Look at it through the buyer’s eyes. Next to your listing with its GLOBAL tag and duty sits a local product with no surcharges. If you have nothing to beat that with, neither price nor something distinctive about the product, the scheme will not fly.
6. If you work through Texas, check your price against the 50-dollar threshold: above it the buyer pays 17–19% on top.
7. Going into Mexico with a warehouse means sorting out the RFC and the CSF document in advance, otherwise the withholding rate becomes 36%.
8. Build the 500-dollar payout threshold into your cash gap for the first months.
9. If you are aiming at Argentina, wait for the fees to be announced or come in through a local structure.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need to be a US citizen or resident to work through Global Selling?
No. The requirement applies to the company, not its owner: the company must be registered in the US, China or Hong Kong. The beneficiary’s citizenship and country of residence do not matter. For the US route you will need an LLC or Corporation, an EIN tax number, a US address, the owner’s passport and a W-8 form.
Does the buyer see that the goods are coming from abroad?
Yes. Global Selling listings carry the GLOBAL tag: the buyer understands the goods are foreign, sees the longer delivery time and, as a rule, pays customs duty on receipt. That noticeably affects conversion — right there in the results sits a local seller with no tag, fast delivery and no customs surcharges. You have to beat that difference either on price or with a product local sellers do not have.
Which countries can you sell into through Mercado Libre Global Selling?
The general dashboard opens up five marketplaces: Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Argentina. The programme’s Chinese channel declares six countries — Uruguay is added to those five, but only with the own-shipping option.
How much commission does Mercado Libre take from a foreign seller?
The fee depends on country and category and is charged only after a sale; listing is free. For Brazil the platform publishes the figure directly: 12.5% for an ordinary listing and 16.5% for Premium with instalments for the buyer. For Mexico, Chile and Colombia the percentage depends on the category and is visible when you publish. For Argentina the fees were not announced at the time of publication. In addition, a fixed per-unit fee is charged on inexpensive goods: 33 MXN in Mexico, 9.6 BRL in Brazil, 1,650 CLP in Chile, 7,200 COP in Colombia.
How and when does the money from sales arrive?
The buyer pays in local currency, the seller receives dollars. The payout goes out by international transfer every two weeks to a bank account or to Payoneer. The minimum transfer is 500 dollars: if less has accumulated over the period, the payout is postponed to the next one.
In which countries does the Mercado Envíos Full warehouse work for foreign sellers?
A warehouse inside the buyer’s country is available to cross-border sellers in Mexico and Chile. In Brazil, Colombia and Uruguay the only ordinary option left is your own shipping through partner carriers. Beyond that Mercado Libre has two more warehouses under the same name Full: the fulfilment centre in Texas, from which goods go primarily to Mexico, and the warehouse in Dongguan, China, which serves all five markets including Brazil.
Can a Chinese company ship goods into the Full warehouse in Mexico or Chile?
Yes. The company’s country of registration does not limit access to a warehouse inside the buyer’s country: US, Chinese and Hong Kong companies can equally ship a batch there. The difference is elsewhere — companies from mainland China and Hong Kong additionally have access to CHINA FULL with the Dongguan warehouse, which works for all five markets including Brazil, and that is not available to a US company. The Mexican warehouse separately requires a confirmed RFC tax number.
Who pays the customs duty, the seller or the buyer?
On the Texas warehouse route the import charge is paid by the buyer and is already included in the shelf price, not shown as a separate line at checkout. Mercado Libre publishes the rates directly: below 50 dollars there is no charge, from 50 to 117 dollars it is 17% of the price, above 117 dollars 19%. Duties and taxes are calculated on the sale price, and the platform handles them on the seller’s behalf.
What does storing goods at a Full warehouse cost?
The first months are free, after which a monthly charge per unit applies by size: small goods from $0.77 at 4–6 months to $4.14 after a year, very large or heavy goods from $3.64 to $25.32. Removing goods from the warehouse costs money: from $8.27 for a small volume to $2,054 for a volume over 50 m³. Disposal is cheaper than removal.
Do you need Spanish to sell through Global Selling?
Not necessarily. The dashboard has a built-in translator between English, Spanish and Portuguese: it works in correspondence with buyers before and after a sale and in dispute handling. But you must answer quickly — the platform recommends staying within 24 hours, and response speed affects seller reputation and, through it, listing positions.
Which pays off better, Global Selling or opening a company in Latin America?
It depends on the product and your goals. Global Selling starts faster, needs no company in the region and pays in dollars, but it is limited by logistics: a warehouse inside the country is available to cross-border sellers only in Mexico and Chile, and without one you lose to locals on delivery time, which affects ranking. For Brazil a fast option exists, but only through a company from mainland China or Hong Kong. A local company costs more and takes longer at the start, but removes the ceiling on growth. For testing a niche the first option is usually wiser, for volume the second.
⭐ By the way: before choosing an option, run your product through the free calculator. It shows whether any margin is left after the fee and the shipping.