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Input VAT in Costa Rica: when you lose it and how to avoid that

There is a list in the law of purchases that give no credit however good the invoice is — meals, hotels, travel, vehicles. And three ways to lose it by carelessness.

8 min readTicuenta
In one sentence: to credit the VAT on a purchase you need three things: that the purchase gives the right, that you have an electronic invoice, and that you accepted it. Fail one and the tax you paid turns into a cost.

Purchases that give no credit, even with the invoice

Article 19 of the VAT Act carries a concrete list. These purchases give no right to input credit, unless you habitually deal in selling or renting them, or their amount is a deductible cost or expense for income tax:

WhatDetail
Jewellery and precious metalsJewels, precious stones, pearls and objects of gold or platinum
Food, drink and tobaccoThe team lunch invoice belongs here
EntertainmentRecreational services
Travel, hotels and mealsTransport, accommodation and catering services
VehiclesThose without special-equipment plates, and their leasing. Here there is credit, but only for 50 % of the VAT paid
That 50 % on vehicles is what most people get wrong. It is neither “no credit” nor “full credit”: the law grants fifty per cent of the tax paid. Crediting 100 % is declaring too little.

Three ways to lose it by carelessness

  • Not having an electronic invoice

    No electronic document, no credit. And documents that do not meet the requirements are not valid to support it, unless they are corrected before any audit action starts. After that, no.

  • Not accepting the purchase in time

    The most silent leak. Without the acceptance message, documents “cannot be used to support input tax credits or deductible expenses”. How the recipient message works.

  • Letting the window to apply it pass

    The right is exercised in the return for the period in which it arises, or in later ones, while it has not prescribed. And if you end up with a balance in your favour, it carries forward: it is not lost by not using it this month.

When your activity is partly exempt

If you sell both taxable and exempt, the credit is not full: it is applied in the proportion that corresponds. That is where a service bought from abroad stops being cash-neutral and starts costing you something real.

The big exception is export, which is exempt and keeps the full credit. How that works.

If you rent out short-term

Your activity is fully taxable at 13 %, so your credit is full. Two that are worth claiming and often are not: the VAT Airbnb charges on its service fee, and the VAT on the Booking commission you self-assessed. Both are credits in the same return. The full picture.

From Ticuenta

The purchases waiting for an answer, in one list

The credit that gets lost is almost always the one nobody accepted. Ticuenta shows what is unanswered and sends the acceptance, so it does not go for lack of a click.

See how it works

About this article. The list of purchases without credit and the 50 % on vehicles are article 19 of the VAT Act; the requirement of the acceptance message, the Electronic Documents Regulation; the window to apply the credit and the carry forward of a favourable balance, the VAT Act and its regulation.

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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