Property (Land & House Taxes):

If your corporation owns property be advice that you are required to declare the property value every 5 years with the Local Municipality. If you live in Costa Rica, you can do it on your own or get help to comply with it. Property taxes must be paid quarterly or yearly if you wish to pay it in advance. The amount is based on 0.25% of the declared value which includes property and if you have a house on it the value of the house base on the building permit declared value (additional charges on green areas, parks, garbage collection and street lights apply). Remember that the Municipality DO NOT send you bill; it is your responsibility to find out in January of every year how much you have to pay.

If you’re not sure if it’s been done or not within the past 5 years we can call the municipality for you to verify. On the other hand if you have built recently or within the past 5 years, most likely you’re up to date with this requirement. However it doesn’t hurt to check.

The local Municipality is the local government in charge of collecting the property taxes. Lack of compliance, proper or accurate information may lead the Municipality to inspect and appraise the current value of the property resulting at times in a non desirable tax increase. If your property it’s been recently transferred and registered in the National Registry, just taking a copy of the deed and the survey to the Municipality in most cases its acceptable.