CAE Explained: Understanding Chile's Annual Equivalent Cost Rate

CAE (Costo Anual Equivalente) is Chile's standardized measure of the total annualized cost of consumer credit, mandated under Chilean consumer-financial-protection law and enforced by SERNAC (Servicio Nacional del Consumidor) alongside the Comisión para el Mercado Financiero (CMF). It plays the same role as TAE in Spain or CAT in Mexico. Note that Chile's CAE is a different metric from Colombia's Tasa EA, despite the similar-sounding name — the two are calculated under separate regulatory frameworks and should not be confused.

CAE bundles interest and all mandatory fees into a single annualized percentage, giving Chilean borrowers a common yardstick across banks, "casas comerciales" (department-store credit), and fintech microlenders. Chilean consumer-credit law requires this figure to be prominently disclosed in advertising and pre-contractual documents, not buried in fine print.

For short-duration fintech microloans specifically, CAE figures are annualized from a much shorter effective rate, producing large percentage figures even when the actual peso cost of a short loan is modest — the same annualization pattern seen across every market this site covers, from Spain's TAE to Peru's TCEA.

SERNAC maintains a public comparator specifically for consumer-financial-product costs, reflecting Chile's comparatively consumer-facing regulatory culture, and actively investigates and sanctions misleading CAE advertising — an enforcement posture that is somewhat more visible to ordinary consumers than in some neighboring markets.

As elsewhere, the more decision-relevant number for a Chilean borrower is the total CLP repayable for the specific loan amount and term needed, used alongside the CAE percentage rather than as a substitute for it.