Argentina's sovereign rating climbed two notches into single-B territory at Fitch on Monday, the agency lifting the country from CCC+ to B- with a stable outlook. It is the highest rating Argentina has carried since 2020 and a milestone for the reform agenda that has defined Javier Milei's 17-month presidency.
Fitch credited three legislative achievements in particular: the activation of the Régimen de Incentivo a la Formalización Laboral (RIFL) under Decreto 315/2026, which replaces the standard payroll-tax regime of roughly 19.5 per cent with a 5 per cent rate for the first 48 months of qualifying new hires; the 2026 federal budget passed in late February; and amendments to the National Glaciers Law that have unlocked roughly $4 billion in stalled mining investment.
The agency's analysts also cited Argentina's renewed access to international capital markets and the rebuild of central-bank reserves, which have climbed from $11.2 billion at Milei's December 2023 inauguration to $58 billion at the most recent reading. Fitch projects 2026 GDP growth of 3.2 per cent, slightly below the 4.4 per cent recorded in 2025 but marking the first two-year expansion since 2011.
The labour-reform decree is the immediate political prize. Under RIFL, employers must register new hires through ARCA, Argentina's tax authority, between May 1, 2026 and April 30, 2027 to qualify; the discount then runs for four years from each hire's start date. Cabinet officials are aiming to convert several hundred thousand informal workers — Argentina's informal sector is estimated at 42 per cent of the labour force — into payroll employment over the qualification window.
Opposition voices remain unconvinced. Buenos Aires Province governor Axel Kicillof, in a press conference on Sunday, called the Fitch upgrade "an accounting fact, not an economic one" and pointed to first-quarter wage data showing real earnings still 7 per cent below their 2023 peak. Argentina's largest trade-union federation, the CGT, has called a national strike for May 22.
Currency-market reaction was modest but positive. The blue-chip swap rate strengthened by around 1.4 per cent in early Monday trade and Argentine sovereign dollar bonds maturing in 2035 rose roughly two cents to trade at par. Buenos Aires equities advanced 0.8 per cent.
Milei is due to meet International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva in Washington on May 22 for the formal sixth review of Argentina's $44 billion programme. The president and the IMF have so far both publicly framed the relationship as cooperative; Fitch's upgrade is likely to give Buenos Aires negotiating room on disbursement timing.