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Invoicing as an independent professional in Costa Rica

No company, just your own identification. What it takes to start, and a 25 % deduction that needs no receipts and that plenty of people never use.

8 min readTicuenta
The minimum to operate properly: register your activity with the tax authority, get the signing certificate and API credentials from TRIBU-CR, issue electronic invoices with VAT, file VAT every month and income tax once a year. You do not need to incorporate a company.

The steps to start

  • Register with the tax authority

    You declare your economic activity, and from that point the obligations are live. It is done with your own identification: you are the taxpayer. If you are not Costa Rican or a resident, you need a NITE first.

  • Get the signing certificate and API credentials

    They are what let you sign and transmit documents. Generated in TRIBU-CR, and personal to you. How to get them.

  • Choose what to invoice with

    The tax authority's free tool or your own software. What matters is that it uses version 4.4 and that the documents are kept.

  • Register with social security as self-employed

    This is a separate obligation from the tax one and it is not settled at the tax authority. Worth resolving from the start.

The VAT on professional services

Professional services are taxed at the general rate of 13 %. You charge it to the client, declare it month by month and pay it. Against that you can credit the VAT on purchases connected to your activity, with the usual exclusions.

If your client is abroad, it changes. Services provided by a Costa Rican taxpayer that are used outside the territory are exempt — and unlike almost every other exemption, they keep the input credit on your purchases. It is one of the most commonly missed benefits, simply because it is not claimed. How export of services works.

Income tax: the annual scale and an option worth knowing

Annual net incomeRate on the excess
Up to ₡6,244,000Not subject
₡6,244,000 to ₡8,329,00010 %
₡8,329,000 to ₡10,414,00015 %
₡10,414,000 to ₡20,872,00020 %
Over ₡20,872,00025 %
The option almost nobody uses. An independent professional can deduct real expenses, with documents, or apply a single 25 % deduction of gross income with no proof required. If your real expenses are below that 25 %, the flat deduction suits you and saves you filing receipts all year.

It is a decision to make with numbers: add up your real deductible expenses for the year and compare them with 25 % of what you invoiced. The work the no-proof option saves you counts too.

The instalments arrive in year two

Once there is a history, income tax stops being paid only in March: three advance instalments appear, due on the last business day of June, September and December. Worth budgeting for from the first year.

Three expensive mistakes at the start

  • Quoting without adding the VAT

    If you agreed ₡500,000 “clean” and never mentioned the tax, you are going to end up paying it yourself.

  • Keeping only the PDF

    The fiscal document is the XML: the printed representation does not support expenses or credits.

  • Not filing the months with no income

    The obligation to file VAT does not go away because the month was quiet.

If you are a foreigner working from Costa Rica

The common case: you live here, you bill clients abroad, and you assumed none of this applied. Three things that do:

  • You need a Costa Rican tax ID before anything else — a DIMEX if you are a resident, a NITE if not.
  • Billing abroad is exempt, not outside the system: the export invoice is still a Costa Rican electronic document.
  • You do not need a company. Registering as an individual is enough, and it has no fixed annual cost — unlike a company, which owes the corporate tax every January whether it trades or not.
From Ticuenta

Invoicing without setting up an office

Client details saved, the VAT worked out, and the XML kept. For someone who invoices a few times a month and does not want to fight with the format.

See how it works

About this article. The single 25 % deduction is in article 8, paragraph s) of the Income Tax Act. The brackets are the 2026 ones and are updated by decree each year. The exemption for services used outside the territory is in article 8.1 of the VAT Act, and its right to credit in article 30.

Verified as of 24 September 2026. Tax rules change. This is information, not tax advice.

Sources: Current legal texts (Sinalevi) Ministry of Finance

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