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Property income or profits: which regime suits your Costa Rican rental

It is the decision that moves the most money in a short-term rental, and almost nobody makes it: they stay on the default without ever doing the arithmetic. Here is the arithmetic.

10 min readTicuenta
In one sentence: by default your rental is taxed as property income — 15 % with a blind 15 % deduction, which works out to 12.75 % of gross, every month and with no paperwork. Moving to the profits regime lets you deduct real expenses, but it requires at least one employee on the payroll, notifying the tax authority before the fiscal year starts, and staying for a minimum of five years.

The two regimes, side by side

 Property incomeProfits
How you get in It is the default for rentals You have to request authorisation
Requirement None At least one employee registered with social security
How often you file Monthly, only in months with income Annually, plus quarterly instalments
When First 15 business days of the following month Return and payment, 15 March
What you deduct A flat 15 %, no receipts and nothing else Real expenses, each with its document
What you pay 12.75 % of gross By brackets, on the profit
Bookkeeping Light Full: every expense needs support

How the property income regime works

The rate is 15 % on gross income, but first you subtract a 15 % that needs no justification. Airbnb's own tax guide for Costa Rica explains it with an example worth copying as it stands:

If the host generated US$1,000 of income during the month, the host could deduct US$150, and would pay 15 % income tax on US$850, for a total of US$127.5.

Airbnb · Tax considerations for sharing your space in Costa Rica (November 2025)

Three things follow from that, and they are the ones to remember:

  • The quick calculation is gross income × 12.75 %. On ₡1,000,000 of rent, ₡127,500.
  • You file only in the months where there was income. A month with no guests carries no return.
  • The deadline is the first 15 business days of the following month — business days, not calendar days.
The 15 % REPLACES your expenses. It does not add to them. This is the most expensive mistake in this regime and it gets made every month: also subtracting the platform commission, the cleaning or the electricity bill. That deduction is a single one and comes “with no need for receipts” precisely because it admits no others. Subtracting too much here means declaring too little.

What the profits regime asks for

The traditional regime, the one any business uses, lets you deduct what you actually spent: commissions, cleaning, utilities, repairs, depreciation of the property and the furniture. In exchange it asks for four things:

  • At least one employee registered with social security

    This is not a detail: it is the entry condition, and it carries its own cost in social charges.

  • Telling the tax authority, in advance

    Expressly, and before the fiscal year in which you want it to apply begins. Halfway through the year is too late.

  • Staying five years

    The law requires keeping the option for that long. It is not a decision you can undo if the first year goes badly.

  • Supporting everything

    Every deducted expense needs its electronic document, accepted in time. Without that support, the expense does not count.

The rates run by brackets, from 5 % up to 30 % for companies, and the bracket amounts are updated every year. That is why there is no table here: any figure we wrote would be stale by January. Confirm it in the tax authority's current publication before you run numbers.

Which one suits you

The honest rule of thumb: the flat regime wins on simplicity and the profits regime wins when your real costs clearly exceed 15 % of your income — and you were going to have an employee anyway.

Your situationUsually suits
One or two properties, no staff, you manage them yourselfProperty income
High platform commissions plus cleaning staff already on payrollProfits, run the numbers
A recently bought or renovated property, with depreciation to takeProfits, run the numbers
Seasonal rental, a few months a yearProperty income
You want to keep bookkeeping to a minimumProperty income
Make the decision with several years in front of you, not one. The commitment is five years. A single good year in the profits regime does not justify it if the following four look different, and a change made in a hurry cannot be undone.

If you are not a resident

Both regimes are open to you. What changes is the starting point: you need a NITE before you can register at all. And the employee requirement for the profits regime is a real obstacle for an owner who lives abroad and manages the property remotely — which is why most foreign owners end up on the flat regime, and that is usually the right answer.

From Ticuenta

The numbers, per property and per month

Whatever regime you are on, the report comes out added up: what you invoiced, what VAT you charged and what you can credit — ready for the filing.

See how it works

About this article. The 12.75 % comes from applying the 15 % rate to a base already reduced by the flat 15 % deduction; the example is Airbnb's own. The employee requirement, the advance notification and the five-year commitment are conditions of the profits regime, not ours. The bracket amounts change every year and are deliberately not reproduced here.

Verified as of 24 September 2026. Tax rules change. This is information, not tax advice — this particular decision is worth taking with your accountant.

Sources: Ministry of Finance Current legal texts (Sinalevi)

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