Corporations that are currently considered “inactive” (which don’t have economic activity) but have assets registered such as houses and cars, must register as contributors of the Corporate Tax as it is established in the Law 9428 of Legal Entities. In order to comply with this obligation, the form “Declaración de Modificación de Datos” (Declaration of Data Modification) also known as form D-14...

The Costa Rican Public Services Regulatory Authority (Aresep) this week imposed the first sanction on an Uber driver for illegally providing transportation services. The penalty amounts to ¢2,017,000 (about US$3,500). Both the car owner and the driver are responsible for what is deemed the illegal provision of transportation, because, said the regulatory agency, Uber is not just a technology...

“Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a headcloth.” John 11:43 This bible passage is where the Ley Lázaro (Lazarus Law) gets its name. Lazarus Law, officially Law 9485 Reform of Corporate Taxes, was published in the official paper La Gaceta on October 19 to modify an articl...

In a video recently uploaded to Facebook, cult leader, Eligio “Nature Boy” Bishop, who has garnered a following of over 42,000 people on Facebook, claims his group of mostly black followers were racially discriminated against by Spirit Airlines who refused to deport the five U.S. citizens last Thursday, October 26, due to their body odor. According to Bishop, things got really real for the cult...

The third quarterly business survey, "Pulso Empresarial," published by the Costa Rican Union of Chambers and Associations of the Private Business Sector (UCCAEP), found that opening a business in Costa Rica through the formal routes is becoming more difficult for entrepreneurs. When asked, "How difficult is it to start a new business in Costa Rica?", 75 percent of those consulted said that it w...

  A ruling earlier this year by an appeals court in San José, Costa Rica ruled that random searches of vehicles without good reason by police oversteps their powers and infringes on people's rights. The Costa Rican Public Security Ministry regularly sets up check-points near airports, ports, borders and on main highways to search at random vehicles passing by and in this way dissuade an...

The Costa Rican man who has been held in detention since his arrest in early February following the gruesome murder of five university students in January in the northern Costa Rican city of Liberia, capital of Guanacaste will attend a preliminary hearing Thursday, said the Public Security Ministry. The hearing, which was originally scheduled in Liberia for October 6, was postponed due to the n...

Costa Rica's Constitutional Court in a landmark ruling in September ordered the Ministry of Public Education (MEP) to hire an additional teacher to assist a student who has Down syndrome to allow their effective participation an integration into a regular classroom. The case was brought by the student's family after the ministry rejected their request for a classroom aide for their child after ...

For those that have companies or workers here in Costa Rica, this information is important, October 12th is a holiday in Costa Rica when the country celebrates “El Día de las Culturas”, Cultures Day also known as Columbus Day in the United States. This holiday, however, has certain particularities, for instance, when the 12th falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, as is the case thi...

President of the Criminal Cassation Board and Coordinator of the Gender Commission, Costa Rican Judge Doris Arias Madrigal participated last week in the launch of the social medica campaign "Métele un gol al machismo," promoted by the Justice and Gender Foundation of the United Nations Latin American Institute for Crime Prevention and Treatment of Offenders. The campaign translates to "Score a ...

Couples who are lined up to receive in vitro fertilization treatments are unhappy about delays in provision of the service by Costa Rica's public health system. They have requested a meeting with Executive President of the Costa Rican Social Security Agency (CCSS) Fernando Llorca to express their concerns over the delays, given that the country has a commitment under international human rights ...

After filing complaints to no avail with the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works (MOPT) about the dangers of crocodile viewing on a heavily transited bridge along the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, environmental activist and lawyer Walter Brenes appealed to the country's Supreme Court on the issue earlier this year. This week, the country's high court issued a ruling saying the ministry h...

Former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Óscar Arias Sánchez must appear for a preliminary hearing for apparent malfeasance, or breach of public trust, regarding the open-pit mining case of Crucitas in northern Costa Rica near the Nicaraguan border. The area was to be mined by Canadian transnational Infinito Gold who intended to exploit gold valued more than 800 million doll...

Costa Rica's Administrative Court last week threw out a case filed by the San José Municipality, the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce (UCCAEP), the Chamber of Construction, the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce, and others against the Costa Rican National Groundwater, Irrigation and Drainage Service (SENARA), according to a report in the daily Costa Rican Elpais.cr. The plaintiffs challenged a 201...

If you have a corporation, or several, in Costa Rica, be aware that as of September 1st the government will charge the annual corporation tax. For 2017 the amount will be prorated, meaning you will only have to pay September 1st through December 31; therefore this year’s amount is less, ranging from 21,308.00 colones (close to $38.00) for an inactive corporation, to 71,026.00 colones ($125.00 a...

Courts will be back to normal functioning today, August 1, after an estimated 13 - 16,000 workers from the country's judicial branch were on strike to protest proposed changes to their retirement plans. The historic 12-day-strike organized by the different unions that represent judiciary workers throughout the country was triggered by a legislative move to make changes to the judiciary pension ...

A ruling in mid-July by Costa Rica's Supreme Court (Sala IV) ordered the country's telecommunications superintendent (Sutel)  to establish minimum connection speeds for their "fair use" policy that has recently caused mobile users to have their Internet speed. The court responded to an injunction filed against Sutel's implementation of the policy by giving the superintendent four months to set ...

Employers in Costa Rica have always been obligated to pay social security for their workers including domestic help, housekeepers or maids; however, in the past “Caja” (Costa Rica Public Health and Social Security Administration, CCSS) didn’t offer a possibility for those maids that only worked part time or by the hour, or had several employers; the only option was to report the worker with a mini...

This past July 25 the changes to the Labor Procedural Law of Costa Rica (Reforma Procesal Laboral) entered into force; this is the biggest change this law has seen since the Labor Code was published in 1943. The modification of this law involved the derogation of 16 articles, the incorporation of 89 new ones and changes to almost half the original code. If you have business in Costa Rica or...

The Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica, the country's highest court, has given the Ministry of Education four months to establish an "inclusive education system" for people with autism and other disabilities, according to a sentence issued June 17 and published today. The court accepted an appeal presented by a 14-year-old child with autism spectrum disorder against Monterrey High School (Col...

When the judiciary in Costa Rica declared national strike last Wednesday, July 19, the Supreme Court issued a very clear statement to all judicial agencies saying that they must continue to prove certain basic services, saying that "access to justice is a human right," according to a Supreme Court statement Unfortunately, this has not been the case at the country's morgue in San José. With 19 b...

Starting August 13, the drones and their pilots must have the respective license given out by the General Direction of Civil Aviation (DGAC); as of that date regulation DO-001-OPS-RPAS which was published in the official journal La Gaceta on June 8 will be officially enforced. The regulation of drones or Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) is established to guarantee the security of aerial...

A private lawsuit has been brought against the Municipality of Garabito, in Costa Rica's Central Pacific region, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT) and the Directorate General of Transit (DGT) for a perceived dangerous situation along the southern Pacific coastal highway. Walter Brenes, a lawyer with the Energy Law Firm (ELF), filed the injunction against the entities requesting ...

Costa Rican women's rights defenders are in Geneva this month to report on the situation of women, as the UN evaluates the country's commitments to eliminating discrimination against women. They have painted a grim picture in a year when femicides - or deaths of women at the hands of their male romantic partners - are on the rise, and religious fundamentalism is steadily gaining a foothold in p...

The U.S. State Department found significant improvement in Costa Rica's governmental efforts to prosecute human traffickers, protect victims and prevent this heinous crime, according to the agency's 2017 Report on Trafficking in Persons published last week. In the case of Costa Rica, the government's efforts showed notable success when compared with the 2016 study, allowing country to rise a le...

The United Nations' International Court of Justice on Monday began hearings over a maritime and land boundary dispute between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Costa Rica presented its case to the court in The Hague on Monday, while Nicaragua is set to present its case on Thursday. There are two cases -- Costa Rica vs. Nicaragua: Maritime Delimitation in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, as w...

The President of Costa Rica's Criminal Cassation Chamber Judge Doris Arias Madrigal, inaugurated Tuesday June 27  the first biregional meeting on innovations in addressing drug related offenses in which Caribbean, European and Latin American countries exchanged information and experiences. Judge Arias Madrigal stressed the importance of working on strategies for a comprehensive approach to drug...

One of the main complaints of Costa Ricans and foreigners alike is how slow the Costa Rica government is when it comes to the execution of public works; hopefully this will improve soon as Congress has taken steps that will allow the State to build more efficiently and faster. The Executive Branch has presented a proposal to modify Articles 18,25,30,32 and 57 of the Expropriation Law, which wo...

Community-minded citizens in Heredia, Costa Rica are concerned about continued attempts by a coalition of business owners, local governments, and others to roll back protections of Costa Rica's water resources, said Conceverde (which translates to the Environmental Association of North San Rafael de Heredia). Rulings over the past years by the country's high court, the Sala IV, have upheld what...

In April, a Costa Rican woman, Eugenia Cartín, said a call she had made to complain about her Internet service with Tigo had been released on social media, and had caused her immense emotional strife and also affected her professional work as a translator, according to reports in local media. During the 15-minute call, apparently Cartín used very strong language. In the aftermath of the publ...

The Costa Rican Chamber of Tourism (CANATUR, its initials in Spanish) sent out a notice to canopy tour operators in the country this week regarding an apparent expiration of the canopy patent, but the relief appears to be short-lived. For weeks, uncertainty has reigned among the industry since Canadian national, Darren Hreniuk, began attempting to charge canopy tours royalties based on a recent...

With thousands of unresolved refugee applications, and more coming in each day, the country's Ombudsman's Office urged the country to comply with deadlines established under the law for processing the cases. In May alone this year 501 people applied for refugee status in Costa Rica, according to the General Directorate of Migration, bringing the total of pending refugee applications to 3,519. ...

Costa Rica’s Attorney General's office notified the Labor Ministry that the ministry is correct in applying retirement benefits to same-sex partners in the same way they do for heterosexual partners. "The response of the Office of the Attorney General helps to determine with legal certainty and clarity the path the national pensions directorate should take for the implementation of this legal c...

A U.S. native by the last name of Baylor was refused entry into Costa Rica on June 15 for traveling with a stolen passport, reported local Channel 7 Teletica TV news. The man somehow managed to evade security checks at the country's main Juan Santamaría International Airport in Alajuela near the capital city, and entered the country anyway, said the report. Police then issued an alert, and a...

Jorge Mario Marín, legal representative of the inventor of the canopy and its patent holder in Costa Rica, responded to a recent announcement by the Costa Rican Chamber of Tourism (CANATUR) in which they said they would follow on the recent court ruling that returned the patent to its inventor. "We find it very unfortunate that the authorities of the National Chamber of Tourism (CANATUR) have i...

A decision this afternoon relating to Uber, Wednesday, June 14, by the Public Transport Council (CTP, its initials in Spanish) and the Public Services Regulatory Authority (Aresep, its initials in Spanish) has taxi drivers planning protests yet again. The authorities said they, "Have no legal competence to block the operation of private transportation ... in the country and that, therefore, the...

The International Labor Organization (ILO) places Costa Rica first in the region in reducing labor among children between 5 and 14 years. The 2016 National Household Survey shows 12 thousand fewer underage workers. Costa Rica is committed to continue working to strengthen public policy to decrease child labor and is committed to remaining a regional leader by having the lowest index (1.1 percent)...

To celebrate the recent passage of legislation in Costa Rica regulating humane treatment of animals, the national government together with the municipality of San José held a block party with live music and plenty of fun yesterday on the main Paseo Colón in the capital's downtown. Pets had swimming pools to splash in, their own playground, hydration stations, food bags and snacks, as well as de...

The British Embassy in Costa Rica has released an updated list of lawyers and law offices in Costa Rica whose staff speak English. The list includes only lawyers who are affiliated with the Costa Rican Lawyers Professional Association (Colegio de Abogados). While the list is by no means intended as a recommendation of any lawyer or law office, the professionals on the list have expressed an ...

The Costa Rican National Tourism Board, Canatur, met with canopy tour operators from throughout the country this week to discuss a recent court ruling on the patent rights over use of the canopy invention in Costa Rica. Monday, Canadian national Darren Hreniuk, who developed the canopy tour mechanics and invention in the first such tour developed in the country in Monteverde in the 1990s, recei...