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Content current as of August 4, 2026, and based on the enrolled text of Act 153-2026. This page is for general informational purposes only, does not constitute legal or tax advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Consult qualified Puerto Rico counsel before acting on any of it.

The short answer

On July 30, 2026, the Governor of Puerto Rico signed Act 153-2026 into law. It amends 44 articles of the Puerto Rico Trust Act (Law 219-2012) and, for the first time, writes the revocable trust into Puerto Rico’s general trust law. It takes effect January 30, 2027.

Before Act 153-2026, a Puerto Rico trust could not be revoked. The only exception was for Act 60 Individual Resident Investor decree holders, who have been able to create revocable trusts since 2014 under the Incentives Code. After January 30, 2027, that exception becomes the rule: any settlor may create a revocable trust, and silence in the deed generally means revocable.

Act 153-2026 contains no transition provision for trusts that already exist. That silence is the reason the six months between signing and effectiveness matter: they are a planning window, not a waiting room.

Act 153-2026 at a glance

Law	Act 153-2026 (originating as Senate Bill 773, P. del S. 773)
What it amends	44 articles of Law 219-2012, the Puerto Rico Trust Act
Signed	July 30, 2026
Effective	January 30, 2027
Headline change	The revocable trust is expressly recognized, and the statutory presumption flips from irrevocable to revocable
Transition rule for existing trusts	None. The Act is silent.
Other significant changes	Co-trustee liability becomes joint (mancomunada) as the general rule; the Office of Notarial Inspection may issue Registry certifications, including negative certifications, without a court order

The new default: silence means revocable

Under amended Article 1, a Puerto Rico trust may be revocable or irrevocable as the constitutive deed expressly provides. If the deed contains no express declaration of irrevocability, the trust is presumed revocable, unless its own clauses clearly show a contrary intent. Amended Article 8 reinforces this from the drafting side: the deed must contain an express statement of whether the trust is revocable or irrevocable, and where revocability is provided, it must set out the method for revoking or amending it and for adding or withdrawing assets.

This is the inverse of the rule Puerto Rico has lived with since 2012. The practical consequence for drafters is immediate: after January 30, 2027, irrevocability must be stated, not assumed.

Before and after Act 153-2026

Question	Law 219-2012 (through Jan 29, 2027)	Act 153-2026 (from Jan 30, 2027)
Can an ordinary settlor create a revocable trust?	No — only Act 60 IRI decree holders could	Yes — any settlor may
What if the deed says nothing?	Irrevocable	Presumed revocable, unless the clauses clearly show contrary intent
Who is owed fiduciary duties while the settlor lives?	The beneficiaries	In a revocable trust, the settlor exclusively, unless the deed says otherwise
Can the settlor’s creditors reach trust assets?	Generally no, once validly transferred	Yes, for as long as the power to revoke or withdraw survives
Co-trustee liability	Solidary as the general rule	Joint (mancomunada) as the general rule; solidary only for intentional, concerted breach

What the settlor keeps, creditors can reach

This is the single most misunderstood consequence of the reform, and Act 153-2026 states it plainly. Under amended Article 2, in a revocable trust the assets or rights that remain subject to the settlor’s power of revocation or withdrawal may be reached by the settlor’s creditors to the same extent as if the trust did not exist. Amended Article 11 makes the same point for real property: recording the property in the trust’s name does not, by itself, stop creditors from reaching it while the power to revoke survives.

Extinguishing that power — by express waiver, by incapacity, or at death — ends this special reach-through rule. It does not, by itself, produce asset protection. Whether assets are protected after that point still turns on the structure, the rights the settlor actually retained, and the timing and purpose of the transfers.

A revocable trust is a management and succession tool, not an asset shield. Clients whose planning goals depend on creditor protection should expect to keep using an irrevocable structure and to say so expressly in the deed.

Forced heirship still applies

A revocable trust is not a workaround for the legítima. Amended Article 10 keeps the prohibition on any trust — revocable or irrevocable — that encumbers the forced share of forced heirs.

Article 10 also preserves a protective exception that the Senate version of the bill would have removed. A trust may be constituted over the forced portion in favor of descendants or forced heirs where they are minors or incapacitated and are named the sole beneficiaries of both income and principal. Such a trust ends on the minor’s emancipation, on the cessation of the incapacity, or at the forced heir’s death. Puerto Rico’s forced-heirship rules otherwise continue to constrain trust planning exactly as before.

Who the trustee answers to

While the settlor holds legal capacity and the power to revoke, the trustee’s duties in a revocable trust run exclusively to the settlor unless the deed provides otherwise (amended Articles 3 and 4). Beneficiaries hold expectant interests rather than enforceable rights until the trust becomes irrevocable — on an effective conversion, on death, or on a judicially decreed incapacity.

The Act carries this through the rest of the statute. The trustee’s powers of disposition are exercised subject to the settlor’s instructions (Article 23). A trustee who reasonably relies on the settlor’s instructions is not liable to that settlor under the prudent investor rule (Article 47). And the settlor may replace the trustee or appoint new trustees at any time, with the same formalities used for the trust instrument (Article 19).

Reserved powers, and how a revocable trust is actually revoked

Amended Article 15 lets the settlor reserve broad powers: to revoke the trust in whole or in part, to amend it, to withdraw assets from the trust estate, to direct the fiduciary, and to replace fiduciaries — generally without beneficiary consent.

Two drafting points follow directly from the statute:

• If the deed prescribes a method for exercising a reserved power, that method is exclusive. Where no method is stated, any act that evidences the settlor’s intent by a preponderance of the evidence will do — a far less predictable outcome. Define the method.
• Revocation is effected by public deed. Under amended Article 61, express revocation by the settlor through a public deed terminates a revocable trust while the settlor retains capacity and the power to revoke, with no beneficiary consent required.

Withdrawals of assets must use the same type of instrument as the contribution, with the same formalities. Real property contributed by public deed must be withdrawn by public deed. And under amended Article 9, withdrawing all of the trust assets extinguishes the trust by operation of law, unless the deed provides otherwise.

Registration: ten days, and it is constitutive

Amended Article 5 tightens the Registry rules, and the deadline is short. For revocable trusts, every amendment or revocation must be notified and recorded in the Registry of Trusts within ten (10) days of execution. Recording is constitutive: the amendment or revocation produces effects against third parties only from the moment it is recorded. Where real property is involved, recording in the Property Registry is also required.

Article 5 also expands the Registry’s practical usefulness. The Director of the Office of Notarial Inspection is now authorized to issue certifications of the Registry’s records — including negative certifications — to any interested party or their counsel, on payment of the applicable fees and without a court order. For anyone who has had to prove the existence or non-existence of a Puerto Rico trust to a bank, a title insurer, or a counterparty, this is a meaningful improvement.

Spouses and community property

Where a revocable trust is constituted by more than one settlor and the assets belong to the conjugal partnership (Sociedad Legal de Gananciales), either spouse may exercise the power of revocation, while an amendment requires both to concur. Where the property is separate, or is contributed in identified shares, each settlor’s authority is limited to the portion attributable to that settlor’s contribution.

How long a revocable trust lasts

A revocable trust subsists until the settlor’s death, or until the settlor loses legal capacity over their property and person by judicial decree, unless the constitutive deed provides otherwise (amended Article 6). At that point the trust becomes irrevocable and the beneficiaries’ interests consolidate. Irrevocable trusts remain subject to the statutory duration limits, including the ninety-year outer limit.

Because several of the Act’s default rules tie the transition of control to a judicial determination of incapacity, a trust instrument should define incapacity on its own terms and set out a workable procedure for determining it, coordinated with any durable power of attorney. Left to the default, the family may find that control transfers only after a court proceeding — which is usually the opposite of what a client wanted from an incapacity plan.

Co-trustee liability is now joint, not solidary

Amended Article 46 makes mancomunada (joint) liability the general rule among co-trustees: each answers for the portion of the loss attributable to its own acts or omissions. A co-trustee who did not participate in the breach is exempt on showing that it acted with the diligence required to prevent the breach or mitigate its effects. Solidary liability survives where it is shown by a preponderance of the evidence that the fiduciaries acted intentionally and in concert in the breach.

This is welcome for professionals and family members serving alongside institutional trustees, who previously carried full exposure for a co-trustee’s conduct. It also narrows beneficiaries’ remedies, and beneficiaries and their counsel should read it with that in mind. See fiduciary duties of Puerto Rico trustees for the broader framework.

What to do between now and January 30, 2027

For anyone with Puerto Rico assets or Puerto Rico residency, the to-do list is concrete.

• New plans: a revocable trust can now reduce avoidable court involvement, provide continuity during incapacity, and add flexibility to succession planning — without the Act 60 decree that used to be the price of admission.
• Existing instruments: review them precisely because the Act is silent about them. The new presumption should not be assumed to recharacterize deeds executed under the prior law, but no one should have to find out the hard way.
• Asset-protection structures: any trust whose goals depend on irrevocability should say so expressly. That is a starting point, not a conclusion — retained rights, distributions, and actual administration weigh just as heavily.
• Incapacity: define it in the instrument and give it a workable procedure, coordinated with a durable power of attorney, rather than relying on the statutory default of a judicial decree.
• Mainland trusts: if you moved to Puerto Rico with a mainland revocable living trust, the analysis changes under the new framework. See moving a mainland trust to Puerto Rico.
• Execution and funding: a trust that is signed but never funded does none of this. Plan the retitling alongside the drafting.

Where this law came from

Riefkohl Law was part of this reform from the beginning. Our September 2025 column argued that Puerto Rico’s prohibition on revocable trusts had to be corrected; Senate Bill 773 was filed two weeks later, and the Senate approved it on January 27, 2026. The House then refined the bill and, at the request of its Judiciary Committee, we submitted written comments in May 2026 on Articles 10 and 46 before final passage.

The enacted text differs from the Senate version in ways that matter, and both differences track those comments. Article 10 preserves the trust over the legítima of a minor or incapacitated forced heir, which the Senate bill would have eliminated. Article 46 adopts joint rather than solidary co-trustee liability, with a diligence defense for the non-participating fiduciary.

Download the client alert. Our August 4, 2026 client alert on Act 153-2026 is available as a PDF: Puerto Rico Authorizes Revocable Trusts (PDF).

Frequently Asked Questions

Are revocable trusts legal in Puerto Rico?

Yes. Act 153-2026, signed July 30, 2026 and effective January 30, 2027, expressly recognizes the revocable trust in Puerto Rico’s general trust law. Before that date, only Act 60 Individual Resident Investor decree holders could create one, under the Incentives Code. From January 30, 2027, any settlor may.

When does Act 153-2026 take effect?

January 30, 2027. The Governor signed it on July 30, 2026.

What happens if my Puerto Rico trust deed does not say whether it is revocable?

For trusts constituted from January 30, 2027, silence means the trust is presumed revocable, unless the deed’s own clauses clearly show an intent that it be irrevocable. Under the prior rule the opposite was true. Act 153-2026 contains no transition provision for trusts executed before that date, so existing deeds should not be assumed to be recharacterized — but they should be reviewed.

Does a revocable trust protect assets from creditors in Puerto Rico?

No, not while the power to revoke survives. Under Act 153-2026, assets that remain subject to the settlor’s power of revocation or withdrawal can be reached by the settlor’s creditors as if the trust did not exist. Retitling real property into the trust does not change that. A revocable trust is a management and succession tool; asset protection generally requires an irrevocable structure.

Does a revocable trust avoid the declaratoria de herederos?

A funded trust is what avoids the court-supervised succession process, because assets titled in the trust are not part of the estate that passes through it. The trust must actually be funded — a signed but unfunded trust does not avoid anything. A pour-over will remains useful to catch assets never retitled.

Can a revocable trust override forced heirship in Puerto Rico?

No. Act 153-2026 keeps the prohibition on any trust, revocable or irrevocable, that encumbers the forced share (legítima). The one exception preserved in Article 10 allows a trust over the forced portion for descendants or forced heirs who are minors or incapacitated, where they are the sole beneficiaries of income and principal.

Who does the trustee owe duties to in a Puerto Rico revocable trust?

The settlor, exclusively, while the settlor retains legal capacity and the power to revoke, unless the trust instrument provides otherwise. Beneficiaries hold expectant interests rather than enforceable rights until the trust becomes irrevocable through conversion, death, or a judicially decreed incapacity.

How is a revocable trust revoked in Puerto Rico?

By public deed. If the trust instrument prescribes a method for revocation or amendment, that method is exclusive. Every amendment or revocation must be notified and recorded in the Registry of Trusts within ten days of execution, and it produces effects against third parties only once recorded.

What happens to a revocable trust when the settlor dies or becomes incapacitated?

It subsists until the settlor’s death, or until the settlor loses legal capacity over their property and person by judicial decree, unless the deed provides otherwise. At that point the trust becomes irrevocable and the beneficiaries’ interests consolidate. Because the statutory default keys to a judicial determination, the instrument should define incapacity and set its own workable procedure.

Can one spouse revoke a trust funded with community property?

Where a revocable trust is constituted by more than one settlor and the assets belong to the conjugal partnership, either spouse may exercise the power of revocation, but an amendment requires both to concur. Where property is separate or contributed in identified shares, each settlor’s authority is limited to their own contributed portion.

Do I need to redo my existing Puerto Rico trust because of Act 153-2026?

Not automatically. The Act carries no transition provision, and the new presumption should not be assumed to recharacterize deeds executed under the prior law. The reason to review is different: if a plan depends on irrevocability, that should now be stated expressly, and incapacity provisions drafted against the old defaults may no longer produce the intended result.

Does Act 153-2026 change anything for Act 60 decree holders?

It removes the exclusivity of their advantage. Act 60 Individual Resident Investor decree holders have been able to create revocable trusts since 2014; from January 30, 2027, everyone can. Decree holders should still review how the new default rules on creditor reach-through, fiduciary duties, and registration interact with their existing structures.