Country-wide policy
The Investor, Rentista and Pensioner Incentives Expired in July 2026
Ley 9996 attached a package of tax and customs benefits to the investor, rentista and pensioner categories: a once-only duty-free household shipment, up to two vehicles free of import, tariff and value added tax, duty-free professional and scientific instruments, twenty per cent off the property transfer tax, and exemption from income tax on the sums declared to qualify. Article 12 allowed those benefits to be taken only during the law's first five years. The law was published on 14 July 2021 and took effect on publication, so the window closed on 14 July 2026. The migration categories themselves are untouched, and the directorate was still publishing the US$150,000 investment band afterwards, but nothing in the law's article 5 is open to a new applicant.
Topics it changes
- Residency through investment
- Residency on passive income
- Residency as a retiree
- Bringing your belongings
- When you become a tax resident
What it requires
- Treat the article 5 benefits as closed for any application made after the window
- If the benefits were granted inside the window, keep the goods for the full holding period and expect repayment of the exempted taxes on an earlier transfer
- Expect the migration thresholds and procedures created by the same law and its regulation to continue to be applied
At a glance
- Benefits window
- The first 5 years of the law's validity
- Status of the window
- Closed since July 2026
- How long a grant made in time lasts
- 10 years from the date granted
- Effect on the migration categories
- None - investor, rentista and pensioner remain open
What the law says
«Los inversionistas, rentistas o pensionados que opten por los beneficios otorgados en el artículo 5 de la presente ley podrán hacerlo únicamente durante los primeros cinco años a partir de su entrada en vigencia.»Our translation - not official
Investors, rentistas or pensioners who wish to take the benefits granted in article 5 of this law may do so only during the first five years from its entry into force.
The same article's second paragraph keeps the benefits for ten years for anyone who claimed inside the window.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The state printing house, which publishes La Gaceta and its Alcances. A Costa Rican instrument is law from the day it appears here, and for this project it turned out to be the only route to Costa Rican primary text that the fetcher can actually store.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Every issue is the text as enacted on that date, and nothing in it says it has since been superseded - the same trap as citing a decree's original text when a consolidated one exists, in another form. An issue also never changes, so re-reading one is pointless; what changes is that a later issue carries an amendment. And an issue is a whole-day compilation of hundreds of unrelated acts, so a citation to the issue alone identifies nothing: it must name the act and the article.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Los inversionistas, rentistas o pensionados beneficiarios que optaron por dichos beneficios durante los primeros cinco años de vigencia de la ley, los mantendrán por un plazo de diez años a partir de la fecha en que les fueron otorgados.»Our translation - not official
Investors, rentistas or pensioners who took those benefits during the first five years of the law's validity shall keep them for a period of ten years from the date on which they were granted.
Ten years from the grant, not ten years from the law. Two people who claimed in different years have different end dates.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The state printing house, which publishes La Gaceta and its Alcances. A Costa Rican instrument is law from the day it appears here, and for this project it turned out to be the only route to Costa Rican primary text that the fetcher can actually store.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Every issue is the text as enacted on that date, and nothing in it says it has since been superseded - the same trap as citing a decree's original text when a consolidated one exists, in another form. An issue also never changes, so re-reading one is pointless; what changes is that a later issue carries an amendment. And an issue is a whole-day compilation of hundreds of unrelated acts, so a citation to the issue alone identifies nothing: it must name the act and the article.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Conforme lo establecido en el párrafo primero del artículo 12 de la Ley, los inversionistas, rentistas o pensionados podrán optar por los beneficios otorgados en el artículo 5 de la Ley N»Our translation - not official
In accordance with the first paragraph of article 12 of the Law, investors, rentistas or pensioners may take the benefits granted in article 5 of Law N
Quoted as far as the superscript the gazette carries in the law's number. The regulation repeats the five-year limit and adds that beneficiaries must keep the goods for at least ten years.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The state printing house, which publishes La Gaceta and its Alcances. A Costa Rican instrument is law from the day it appears here, and for this project it turned out to be the only route to Costa Rican primary text that the fetcher can actually store.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Every issue is the text as enacted on that date, and nothing in it says it has since been superseded - the same trap as citing a decree's original text when a consolidated one exists, in another form. An issue also never changes, so re-reading one is pointless; what changes is that a later issue carries an amendment. And an issue is a whole-day compilation of hundreds of unrelated acts, so a citation to the issue alone identifies nothing: it must name the act and the article.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
We found no instrument extending the window. We looked in Ley 9996, in Decreto 43926 and on the migration directorate's published pages, and we did not search the legislative record.
Article 8 of Ley 9996 sets the US$150,000 investment band for the period established by this law, and the relationship between that phrase and the five-year limit in article 12 is not resolved on the face of the instruments. The directorate's continued publication of the figure after July 2026 is recorded as what the agency does, not as an interpretation of the law.