Requirements engineering practices have been identified as a key issue that affects the success rate of projects in most software organizations. The software engineering community has studied the requirements engineering practices of medium and large-sized organizations extensively, and has produced interesting and suitable solutions. However, several software engineering researchers have shown that most current requirements engineering practices are unsuitable for small and very small software companies. They have also highlighted that there is a lack of knowledge about the requirements engineering practices in these types of companies. This article presents the results of a diagnostic study the authors are performing in very small software companies in Chile. The study tries to identify the state of the practice in this niche and also the potential limitations to adopt appropriate requirements engineering practices in Chilean very small software enterprises. © 2010 IEEE.