Costa Rica · Tax regime
Costa Rican Territorial Tax System
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Last verified July 2026
Territorial under Ley 7092 art. 1. Costa Rica was fully removed from the EU's lists on 18 February 2025. Note that many tax-firm posts date this to February 2024, which is wrong.
Costa Rica offers territorial taxation without Panama's history of EU blacklisting. Panama went to Annex II in Feb 2022, to Annex I in Feb 2023, back to Annex II in Oct 2023, and was removed entirely only on 18 February 2025. For a family that wants a territorial base and clean EU banking, that clean record is the whole argument.
Qualifying routes
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Tax residency
generally more than 183 days in a tax year
The facts
- Total landed cost
- no direct cost. CCSS affiliation is the recurring charge.
- Route type
- Tax regime, not a visa
- Timeline
- 1–6 months (getting a residency certificate requires substantiation)
- Physical presence
- 183+ days
- Family
- Individual
- Permanent residency
- Not applicable
- Citizenship
- Not applicable
- Language test
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- 183+ days of presencetax registration and CCSS affiliationa genuine foreign-source characterisation of income
What can go wrong
- Ley 10.381 imposes 15% on the foreign passive income of non-qualified entities inside multinational groups. Under Art. 2 quater, the rule applies only when two or more legal entities are involved, so individuals are not caught. But if your foreign income runs through a Costa Rican company that sits inside a group structure, model this carefully.
- The impuesto solidario on luxury homes above roughly CRC 143 million is not technically a wealth tax, but it works like one for a family buying a trophy property.
- CCSS affiliation is compulsory for residents. In practice it is assessed on declared worldwide income, an odd fit for a territorial tax system, and it catches people by surprise.
- Territoriality is narrower in practice than in theory. Income earned through your own labour while you are physically in Costa Rica counts as Costa Rican-source, regardless of who pays it or where.
- Costa Rica has been a CRS participant since 2018.