🇨🇷 Costa Rica · 2026 edition
Investing in San José
San José ranks 1 of 13 Latin American cities on the ProLatam Data Index with 53.8 of 100, and 2 of 13 on the ProLatam Score. Its strongest pillar is economic dynamism (76), its weakest is innovation (14). A foreign shareholder pays 40.50% in total on repatriated profit, under a territorial system.
ProLatam Data Index
53.8
Rank 1 of 13, balanced weighting
ProLatam Score
50.5
Rank 2 of 13, market-entry weighting
Strongest pillar
Economic Dynamism
76 of 100
Weakest pillar
Innovation
14 of 100
How San José scores on each pillar
Nine pillars, each normalized to 0 to 100 by a fixed published rule. A dash means the source does not cover San José, which is not the same as a zero. Coverage of the weighted index for this city is 100%.
Swipe the table sideways for the reported value, the weights and the source.
What a foreign shareholder pays in Costa Rica
Corporate income tax plus the standard non-treaty withholding on the dividend paid out of what is left, which is the figure that actually reaches an owner abroad.
Total on repatriated profit
40.50%
Corporate income tax
30.0%
Dividend withholding
15.0%
Standard non-treaty rate
Compliance hours per year
151
World Bank Paying Taxes, 2018 data
Sources: PwC, Worldwide Tax Summaries, reviewed 2026 · World Bank (discontinued series), Doing Business, Paying Taxes, 2020 edition, 2018 data
Costa Rica taxes on a territorial basis, so income sourced outside the country is generally outside the net, which matters a great deal to a holding structure. Territorial, with a carve-out for passive foreign income of non-qualified multinational entities. Free Trade Zone regime exempts income tax, VAT, import duties and withholding on payments abroad. Lowest compliance burden of the 13 cities at 151 hours a year.
Context, published but not scored
These shape a decision without belonging in the index. FDI inflows track the size of an economy rather than the appeal of a city, and a sovereign rating measures a government's ability to repay debt rather than a company's ability to operate.
GDP growth 2026
3.6%
IMF World Economic Outlook, national
FDI inflows
$5.1B
Inflows 2025 from BCCR and Procomer; ECLAC publishes no country line for Costa Rica in the 2026 edition.
Sovereign rating
BB (Stable)
Long-term foreign currency
English proficiency
546 (Moderate)
EF EPI city score, 1 to 800
Sources: International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, April 2026 · ECLAC (UN), Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean, 2026 (2025 data) · S&P Global Ratings, Sovereign credit rating, as of September 2026 · EF Education First, English Proficiency Index, 2025 (15th edition). Used with permission of International Monetary Fund, from World Economic Outlook, International Monetary Fund, April 2026; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Where Costa Rica has moved since 2021
The rule of law pillar is the only one of the nine with a series comparable across five editions, so it is the only place this profile shows a direction rather than a snapshot. Scores are national, 0 to 1, higher is better.
2021
0.677
2022
0.682
2023
0.682
2024
0.676
2025
0.676
Over the period Costa Rica held broadly steady, -0.001 points. A move under 0.005 is reported as flat rather than as a trend. Compare all 10 economies.
Source: World Justice Project, Rule of Law Index, 2025
Sectors with a documented presence
Medical Devices
Medical device exports reached USD 10.8 bn in 2025, 31% of Costa Rica’s total exports and 25% above 2024.
SourceCorporate & Shared Services
CINDE attracted 19 new FDI projects and 48 reinvestments in 2025, 79% of them inside the Greater Metropolitan Area, with 196,310 people employed by multinationals.
SourceWhere Costa Rica's inbound FDI comes from
National statistics, share of inbound foreign direct investment.
- United States54.8%
- Switzerland19.7%
- Mexico4.7%
- Colombia3.7%
- Other17.1%
BCCR and Procomer, 2025 flows.
Citing the San José figures
The composite scores, ranks, weights and methodology are published under CC BY 4.0: reuse them, including commercially, with credit and a link to https://invest.pro-latam.org. The underlying indicators belong to their publishers, who are credited and linked wherever a figure appears. They are not part of the downloads, and this licence does not cover them. Read the CC BY 4.0 licence.
Pro Latam. (2026). ProLatam Latin American City Investment Index 2026 (Version 2026.5) [Data set]. https://invest.pro-latam.orgSource: Pro Latam Investment Hub, ProLatam Data Index 2026 (https://invest.pro-latam.org). Updated 2026-09-04.
Considering San José for a market entry?
Pro Latam has been placing international companies in Latin America since 2010. The ranking is the public part of the work, and the rest is the part that depends on what you are actually trying to build.