Costa Rica is known for many different reasons, most of them positive, but when it comes to having to deal with government institutions anyone will tell you bureaucracy is crazy and they will make you jump through 100 hoops, 90% of them unnecessary.

Costa Rica is the country with the worse average in Latin America when It comes to the number of processes that are required to start a construction project.

On average Costa Rica requires 17 permits from different institutions, while in the rest of Latin America’s average is 15.7 and 12 in the countries that are part of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

35% of business owners consider that municipalities are a big part of the problem, followed by the environmental requirements with 27%.

It takes approximately 135 days to get through all the process of obtaining the permits, and currently this represents 5% of the cost of the project.

The above situation affects the development of the country.

Among the solutions that have been suggested by the Construction Chamber to make improvements in this area are the implementation of digital platforms and the revision of systems that are now very obsolete.

“It is fundamental that the country understands the cost the process to obtain construction permits has for foreign investment  the economy and society. Because of the great number of institutions involved in the process we want to take actions to redirect and eliminate  as many of the flaws and processes, many times very senseless”, commented Olman Vargas, executive director of the Federate College of Engineers and Architects.

“At this time there are more than 24 institutions involved in the process of getting the permits to develop different types of projects and those institutions generate more than 63 types of processes. However, we have to add the 82 municipalities, which means there are more than 100 institutions involved”, explained Vargas.