Buying and Selling Property in Costa Rica

Headline rates. The transfer tax is split between buyer and seller, who are jointly liable for all of it. Capital gains carry a primary-residence exemption and an optional flat method for assets held before 2019. Exemptions, alternative methods, and who pays what are set out in Costs at closing and Taxes by role.

How the market is set up

Costa Rica's property market works differently from the United States, Canada, or most of Europe. These are the structural facts a buyer is working within.

The result is that a buyer's protection depends on which checks are actually ordered and by whom. Independent verification, meaning a check from a party with no commission and no stake in the sale, is described in Section 12.

Who is involved

Buyer and seller

The seller must be the registered owner (or act through a valid power of attorney). If the owner is a company, the person signing must have authority recorded in the company's registry entry.

Notary (notario público)

A Costa Rican lawyer authorized as a notary prepares and signs the public deed, records it, and files the registry presentation. Either side may choose the notary, and by custom the buyer usually does. One notary can serve both sides, which is a common arrangement. Each side may also retain its own lawyer.

Real estate agent or broker

Not required for a sale. Agents are not subject to mandatory national licensing as of mid-2026. Commissions commonly range from 3% to 10%, are negotiated, and are normally paid by the seller unless the parties agree to share. An agent may represent both sides in one sale, called dual agency.

Registro Nacional

The national registry. It holds the property record (folio real), the survey plan (plano catastrado), and company records. A deed does not transfer title against third parties until it is recorded here.

Municipality

Collects the property tax, issues land-use and construction documentation, and holds the property's tax account.

Water and association entities

Depending on the area, water service is provided by AyA, a municipal service, or a community water association (ASADA). Condominiums and gated communities have an administrator and a fee structure under their own rules.

Buying, step by step

1. Identify the property and the owner. Obtain the folio real number and the survey plan number. These identify the property in the registry independent of any street address.
2. Review the registry record. A registry search shows the registered owner, liens, mortgages, annotations, easements, and boundary data. It reflects only what has been recorded as of the date pulled. Annotations, including preventive annotations (anotaciones preventivas) tied to a court or administrative claim, can appear in the record without being a mortgage, and they can hold up a transfer.⁹
3. Check the owner's capacity. For individuals, identity and marital status. For companies, current status, legal representative, and tax standing, including the annual corporate tax under Law 9428.
4. Confirm municipal tax status. Unpaid property tax follows the property.³ Municipalities issue tax-status certificates.
5. Confirm physical and legal conditions. Survey plan versus the ground, access and easements, water and utility availability, river or spring setbacks,⁶ and whether buildings are permitted. In a condominium or association, request the accountant's fee statement and the governing documents.⁸
6. Sign a purchase agreement. Often called a promesa de compraventa or option contract. It sets price, deposit, closing date, conditions, and who pays which costs. A deposit is commonly held by the notary, a lawyer, or an escrow arrangement. Terms vary by contract.
7. Prepare the deed. The notary drafts the public deed, calculates taxes and fees, and updates the registry search close to signing.
8. Sign the deed and pay at closing. Both parties sign before the notary. Price, transfer tax, notary fees, and any withholding are settled according to the agreement and the law.
9. Record the deed. The notary presents it to the Registro Nacional. The registry will not record without proof the transfer tax was paid or an exemption applies.²
10. Update the municipal account. Register the new owner for tax billing, water, electricity, and association fees.

Selling, step by step

1. Confirm ownership and clear the record. Resolve liens, outdated annotations, name discrepancies, and unpaid taxes before listing. If the owner is a company, confirm it is active and current on corporate tax.
2. Choose a listing arrangement. An open listing lets several agents market the property. An exclusive listing gives one agent the right to sell for a fixed period, commonly three to six months. There is no national MLS.
3. Set price and commission in writing with any agent.
4. Obtain documents. Registry certificate, survey plan, municipal tax-status certificate, water and utility paid-up statements, and for condominiums the accountant's statement showing fees are current.⁸
5. Sign the purchase agreement and receive the deposit under its terms.
6. Calculate taxes. Seller-side items include half of the transfer tax, capital gains tax unless exempt, and any outstanding property tax. See Section 6.
7. Sign the deed before the notary.
8. File the capital gains declaration where it applies (Form D-162), and if the seller is a non-resident, confirm how the buyer's withholding is handled.⁴
9. Close out accounts for utilities and association fees.

Costs at closing

Amounts depend on the deed value and the contract. This table shows which cost exists, who is responsible by default, and the basis.

Taxes by role

Transfer tax

Law 6999 sets the transfer tax at 1.5% of the value in the deed. The tax arises when the deed is executed, is due within three months of the deed date, and is owed in equal parts by buyer and seller, who are jointly liable.² The tax authority may adjust the value if it considers the declared price too low. The registry will not record the deed without proof of payment or of an exemption.

Property tax (impuesto sobre bienes inmuebles)

Law 7509 sets a rate of 0.25% of the value registered with the municipality, which is the figure the tax is charged on. Owners must declare a value at least every five years, but a declared value becomes the registered value only where the municipality does not object to it. Where it objects, the previous registered value continues to apply until the change is final, and where an owner does not declare at all, the municipality may value the property itself. The current owner is jointly liable for prior unpaid periods and may seek reimbursement from the prior owner. Arrears are secured by a preferential legal mortgage, and the claim prescribes after three years. An individual's sole property valued below 45 base salaries is exempt.³

Capital gains tax (Law 9635)

• Rate: 15% of the net gain, for gain accrued since July 1, 2019.⁴
• Older assets: for property acquired before July 1, 2019, the seller may instead elect 2.25% of the sale price.
• Exemption: a primary residence, as defined in the law and regulations.
• Filing: Form D-162.
• Non-resident seller: the buyer withholds 2.5% and remits it on Form 129 through the TRIBU-CR system within 15 days after the end of the month of the transaction.

Luxury home tax (Law 8683)

Applies to residential properties above a value threshold, set at ₡143 million for 2026. It is declared and paid by the owner each year, with a filing window from January 1 to 15 on Form D-174. A buyer should confirm whether the property is subject to it.⁵

Companies

A property held through a Costa Rican company is subject to the company's own obligations, including the annual corporate tax under Law 9428 and registry beneficial-ownership reporting. Selling the shares of a company instead of the property changes which taxes and records apply. A buyer of a company inherits its liabilities.

Ways to hold title

Legal limits on land

Maritime zone (Law 6043)

The maritime-terrestrial zone extends 200 meters from the high-tide line. The first 50 meters are public and cannot be privately held. The remaining 150 meters are restricted and can be used only under a municipal concession. Foreigners with fewer than five years of residency are barred from holding concessions, as are companies with majority foreign ownership.⁷

River, stream, and spring setbacks (Forestry Law 7575, art. 33)

• 10 meters of protection along rivers and streams in urban areas, 15 meters in rural areas.
• 50 meters where the ground is broken (slope above 40%).
• A 100-meter radius around permanent springs.
• INVU sets the exact alignment parcel by parcel, and the setback restricts where building is allowed.⁶

Registry annotations and document fraud

• Annotations are not mortgages. A claim filed during a court or administrative proceeding can be annotated against a property. It may not look like a lien but can affect whether a transfer can be recorded.⁹
• Forged deeds and powers of attorney have been used to transfer properties out of the name of absent owners. A buyer should confirm that whoever signs for the owner holds a valid, recorded authority and that the registry record matches the documents presented.⁹
• Registry alert service. The Registro Nacional offers a paid alert service (Alerta Registral) that emails an owner when a document is filed against a registered property. The alert follows the filing and does not prevent it.⁹

Water, access, and building

Water availability, legal access (an easement or a public road), and a municipal construction permit are each separate documents. A property can be properly titled and still lack any of them.

After closing

• Confirm the deed shows as recorded in the Registro Nacional and obtain an updated registry certificate.
• Transfer the property tax account, water, electricity, and association billing.
• Keep the deed, registry certificate, and proof of tax payments.
• Property tax: calendar the five-year declaration update.³
• Luxury home tax, if applicable: calendar the January filing.⁵
• Company-held property: keep corporate tax and registry filings current.

Living here, practical systems

None of this is part of a title search, and none of it appears in a listing. It is the set of practical questions that decide what living at an address is actually like, and most of them have answers that are stable enough to write down once. Anything that moves with a tariff, a rate or a season is flagged as something to confirm rather than stated as a figure. Travel times and congestion are deliberately absent here: they are specific to a corridor, and THE REPORT states them for the zone a property sits in rather than for the country.

Mobile service

Three carriers operate nationally: Kölbi, the state-run ICE brand, Liberty, and Claro. All three sell prepaid SIMs that a visitor can register with a passport alone, so no residency is needed for the service most arriving buyers want. Kölbi markets a tourist-branded product, but the other two carriers' standard prepaid plans are equally open to visitors and are simply not named for them. The better-value postpaid contract plans are a different matter: across all three carriers they require legal residency, meaning a DIMEX or cédula, and a credit check. Confirm current plans and registration requirements with the carrier, since offerings change.

Banking as a foreigner

A non-resident can open a simplified account, the cuenta de expediente simplificado, which is the lighter product designed for customers without full local documentation. Banco Nacional's published terms define its entry tier specifically for non-resident foreigners and for nationals who are minors, and require the account to be opened in person at a branch.¹² The two state commercial banks are Banco Nacional and Banco de Costa Rica, alongside a number of private banks, each with its own requirements.

Simplified accounts carry a monthly deposit cap rather than a balance cap, and the cap is tiered. Banco Nacional publishes three tiers at the equivalent of US$1,000, US$2,000 and US$5,000 a month, with the non-resident tier at the lowest of the three and the higher tiers requiring a cédula, DIMEX or DIDI. Other banks set their own figures. Exceeding a cap can freeze the account, and full-service accounts with higher limits generally require residency.

What documents a specific branch will accept is the part that genuinely varies. Banco Nacional's own list pairs a passport with a valid residence visa rather than accepting a passport alone, and some banks additionally want evidence of a real connection to the country, such as property, commercial activity, an employment contract or family, with an apostille or notarial certification if the application is made from abroad. Confirm with the specific branch rather than relying on a general rule, and treat any published figure, including the ones above, as a starting point to verify.

On SINPE Móvil, the transfer system used for most everyday local payments: affiliation runs through a bank account held in colones and an active local mobile line, and each number can be linked to only one account. Whether a given bank will affiliate a non-resident account holder is a question for that bank, and we do not state a general rule here because the published requirements differ between them.

Driving legally, and renting a car

A reform to Article 91 of the Traffic Law, approved in April 2024 and effective on publication in La Gaceta on 7 May 2024, replaced the old three-month cap on driving with a foreign licence. A valid foreign licence is now good for exactly as long as the stay the immigration officer recorded in the passport. Since the maximum tourist stay rose to 180 days in September 2023, that is the practical ceiling for visitors from the United States, Canada and most of Europe.

The number of days granted is set by the officer at entry and is not automatically the maximum: many visitors receive 90 days or fewer. It is tied to the stamp in the passport, not to a rental agreement or to how long someone intends to stay, and that stamped date is also the deadline to exit. Driving past it on a foreign licence carries a fine, and the transit police can confiscate the vehicle's plates. Check the date actually stamped rather than assuming the maximum.

On rentals, some agencies quote in colones so the figure looks smaller than the dollar equivalent, and mandatory insurance is often left off the advertised rate until the counter. Booking in advance through an agency or aggregator rather than reserving directly tends to lock in the all-in rate with insurance included and often reduces the deposit taken at pickup. Either way, confirm the full total including required insurance before signing.

Healthcare

Two systems run in parallel. CAJA, formally the CCSS, is the public system and is mandatory for legal residents, funded by a monthly contribution calculated on declared income. It covers pre-existing conditions from the first day and provides unlimited treatment, though non-emergency and elective procedures can carry long waits. Public hospital emergency rooms treat everyone regardless of insurance or residency status.

Alongside it a private system operates its own hospitals and clinics, several of the best known clustered in or near the Central Valley, with 24-hour emergency departments and English-speaking staff, at costs well below equivalent care in the United States even paid directly. Holders of the digital nomad visa are a specific exception to CAJA: they are exempt from it and instead required to carry private international cover as a condition of the visa. Nationwide emergency response is 911, which dispatches Cruz Roja ambulances, and English-language support on that line is not guaranteed.

Home internet

The Central Valley is the best-served part of the country, with several providers overlapping: Kölbi, Liberty, Claro and Tigo. Fibre is widely available in urban and suburban sectors, with cable or DSL still common where it has not reached, and satellite service a real option anywhere still underserved. Availability and actual speed vary block to block even inside a well-served zone, so what matters is what is installable at a specific address rather than what a coverage map claims for the area. THE REPORT reports the technology actually available at the street for the zone a property sits in.

Electricity and water accounts

Electricity is supplied mainly by ICE, with CNFL as a secondary provider in parts of the Central Valley and cooperatives serving other regions. Generation is overwhelmingly renewable, which makes the grid clean without making it cheap. Water is supplied mainly by AyA, with ASADAs, community-run water associations, common outside its direct coverage.

Where a property already has active service, transferring the account into a new owner's name is generally an office visit with identification and proof of ownership, best handled immediately after closing. Where a property has never had a connection, new installation commonly takes one to three weeks, and considerably longer if the nearest infrastructure is not close. Both ICE and AyA are known for optimistic timelines that stretch, so build in a buffer rather than planning around the first estimate given.

A water availability letter, the carta de disponibilidad de agua, is a separate matter from service to an existing house, and a lot without one cannot obtain a construction permit. See Legal limits on land.

Weather and seasons

The country runs on two seasons rather than four: a dry season roughly December through April, and a rainy season, locally invierno, roughly May through November. In the Central Valley the rainy-season pattern is typically dry, sunny mornings with showers arriving in the afternoon and clearing by evening, rather than all-day rain. Seasonal forecasts shift through the year and vary between the Central Valley's own microclimates, so the national outlook for a given year is worth checking against the specific sector rather than assumed to repeat.

Mail and packages

Correos de Costa Rica is the national postal service. Domestic delivery in urban areas is reasonably dependable, while international mail can be slow and unpredictable, commonly weeks and occasionally not at all. Many residents therefore use a PO box, an apartado postal, or a mail-forwarding address abroad. Every package entering the country has to clear customs and may incur import duties regardless of declared value or shipping method. Private couriers are faster and more trackable at higher cost, and are subject to the same customs process.

What was changing

• Resident withholding on sales. Resolution MH-DGT-RES-0039-2025 introduced a 2% withholding on resident sellers. It was repealed by Resolution 0051-2025 effective October 6, 2025, and the registry had suspended its application by circular DGL-007-2025. In flux⁴
• Setback provisions. Article 33 bis of Law 10210, a related setback provision, was partly annulled in December 2025. The Forestry Law figures above remain the baseline. In flux⁶
• Agent regulation. No mandatory national licensing existed as of mid-2026. In flux
• Thresholds. The luxury home tax threshold is reset annually.

What THE REPORT verifies

Glossary

Abogado y notario

A lawyer who is also authorized as a notary public.

Escritura pública

The public deed that documents the sale.

Folio real

The registry number identifying a property record.

Plano catastrado

The registered survey plan that defines a parcel's boundaries.

Registro Nacional

The national registry of property, companies, and related records.

Impuesto de traspaso

Transfer tax.

Bienes inmuebles

Real property. Also the name of the municipal property tax.

Zona marítimo terrestre

The beachfront zone governed by Law 6043.

Concesión

A municipal grant of the right to use restricted beachfront land.

ASADA

A community water administration association.

INVU

The national housing and urbanism institute, which certifies setback alignments.

Promesa de compraventa

A purchase agreement or option contract signed before the deed.

Sources

Statutes are published in the Procuraduría General de la República legal database (SCIJ, pgrweb.go.cr). Search by law number. Tax guidance is published by the Ministerio de Hacienda (hacienda.go.cr). Verify against the current text before relying on any figure.

1. Registry recording of deeds: Registro Nacional (rnpdigital.com) and the Código Civil provisions on recording.
2. Ley 6999, Impuesto de Traspaso de Bienes Inmuebles, arts. 4, 6, 7, 8, and 15.
3. Ley 7509, Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles, and its reforms, together with its Reglamento (Decreto 27601-H), which defines valor registrado as the value recorded with the municipal tax administration and charged the tax, and valor declarado as the value the owner reports.
4. Ley 9635, Fortalecimiento de las Finanzas Públicas (capital gains on real estate); Ministerio de Hacienda forms D-162 and 129 via TRIBU-CR; Resolutions MH-DGT-RES-0039-2025 and 0051-2025; Registro Nacional circular DGL-007-2025; KPMG tax alert, December 2025.
5. Ley 8683, Impuesto Solidario para el Fortalecimiento de Programas de Vivienda; Ministerio de Hacienda, Form D-174 and 2026 threshold.
6. Ley Forestal 7575, art. 33; Ley 10210, art. 33 bis, and the December 2025 Sala Constitucional ruling; INVU alignment certification.
7. Ley 6043, Zona Marítimo Terrestre.
8. Ley 7933, Ley Reguladora de la Propiedad en Condominio.
9. Registro Nacional records and annotation practice (rnpdigital.com); Alerta Registral service, as described by costaricalaw.com (law firm publication). Confirm current terms and fees with the Registro Nacional.
10. ECIJA, "Buyer Beware: What You Need to Know Before Buying Property in Costa Rica" (ecija.com).
11. "Real Estate Agent Regulation," costaricalaw.com (describes the proposed Regulation of Real Estate Contracts and Real Estate Agents bill; undated). Confirm status with the Asamblea Legislativa.
12. Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, Términos y condiciones Cuenta Expediente Simplificado (bncr.fi.cr), which defines the account tiers, the monthly deposit limits and the identification accepted for each. Limits and accepted documents differ between banks and are revised, so confirm with the branch.