Investor's Guide

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General Instructions

1. This document is a guide containing the common and basic procedures to formally establish business enterprises in Costa Rica. Thus, the requisites, forms, terms and procedures required by the Public Administration from the business enterprises are detailed in this document, if not, contact info@tramites.go.cr

2. This guide includes, in addition, the specific procedures to establish exporting and tourism companies.  It does not however, incorporate the particular procedures to establish companies for each one of the different economic sectors, such as: hydroelectric, forestry, financial, transportation and agricultural.  The description of the procedures for these sectors is too broad therefore; it was not feasible to include them in this guide.

3. The procedures are presented graphically and logically in each one of the diagrams. In order to facilitate the process, we recommend the user begin by consulting Diagram N° 1 “How to establish a business enterprise?” and Section 2 “How to establish a business enterprise in Costa Rica?”  Both sections offer an easy, step-by-step notion of the sections to be consulted.

4. For each procedure, a complete description is presented including the requirements, terms, forms, and legal basis.

5. The forms have been translated to the English language with the objective of facilitating comprehension, however, for official purposes they must be filled out and submitted in the Spanish language.

6. The legal basis (references to laws, decrees and regulations) of the different procedures, is located at the end of each section, and can only be found in the Spanish language.  To obtain laws in addition to those that appear in the digital guide, please refer to the electronic addresses of the Judicial Power and the Attorney General of the Republic: http://www.poder-judicial.go.cr/ or www.pgr.go.cr/scij/

7. The information contained in the digital guide is updated periodically. The updates are available in the web page:  http://www.tramites.go.cr/manual/english/actualizacion

8. This guide provides information on all the existing administrative practices, even when these could result in illegal procedures.  However, this guide cannot legalize, in any way, the irregularities detected in the different procedures.  In any case, if these are not corrected, they could be subject to dispute on the part of the user or the business enterprise.

9. It is suggested the user refers to the Law on the Protection of Citizens Against the Excess of Administrative Requirements and Procedures, Law No. 8220 [in Spanish, PDF] prior to initiating any procedure in any centralized or decentralized public institution, including autonomous or semi-autonomous institutions, non-governmental public organizations, municipalities and public companies.

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