OBJECTIVES:  Within the social protection in health framework, effective use of healthcare is a crucial indicator of universal coverage. The objective of this study was to assess differences in effective use of short-term (any self-reported health problem or accident 3 months prior to survey) healthcare between international migrants and the local Chilean population. METHODS: Exploratory secondary analysis of nationally representative, anonymous Chilean survey CASEN 2013 (n=218 491 participants belonging to 66 725 households). We divided the sample into self-reported immigrants (n=3555) and Chilean-born (n=212 346). We did not include in the analysis those who preferred not to report their migration status (missing values n=2590). We estimated self-reported short-term (i) healthcare need, (ii) healthcare use, and (iii) received treatment; for both populations. Analysis was conducted in STATA 13. RESULTS:  8.5% of immigrants report not having any health insurance in Chile (versus 2.5% of the Chilean-born). Of these, most are male or between 0-14 years-old. Regarding short-term healthcare, 12.2% of immigrants reported having any health problem/accident in past 3 months (versus 19.7% in Chilean-born). Of these, 91.1% asked for a healthcare (versus 92.9% in Chilean-born) and 13.5% received treatment (versus 11.9% in Chilean-born). However, of those immigrants who requested healthcare, 23.7% did not receive any attention (versus 3.7% in the Chilean-born), most of them not entitled to any healthcare provision in the country. CONCLUSIONS:  Our analysis suggests significant differences in effective use of healthcare for short-term health problems/accidents in international migrants compared to the Chilean-born, particularly among immigrants without healthcare provision. This unique evidence supports of the need promoting social protection of health for all population in Chile, including foreigners in need for healthcare.