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What CABYS is, and why it decides your VAT rate

The thirteen-digit code the tax authority cross-checks against the rate you put on the invoice. If they do not match it is a rejection — and a rejection spends that invoice's number.

7 min readTicuenta
In one sentence: CABYS is Costa Rica's Catalogue of Goods and Services, a thirteen-digit code identifying everything that is sold. It decides two things the tax authority checks on every document: which VAT rate applies and whether what you sell is a good or a service.

The two things CABYS decides

It is not a decorative field. Two pieces of data come out of it that are not chosen by hand anywhere:

  • 1 · The VAT rate

    Every code in the catalogue carries its corresponding rate. And the tax authority cross-checks the rate you declared against the catalogue's. It is not a suggestion: it is a validation.

  • 2 · Whether it is a good or a service

    Determined by the first digit: 0 to 4 are goods, 5 to 9 are services. There is no dropdown to pick — it comes out of the code. And the distinction is not theoretical: it is how the invoice totals and the boxes on your VAT return get split.

What happens if the code is wrong

It will be verified that the code is valid in the current catalogue published on the Central Bank website […] Otherwise the document will be rejected.

Annexes and structures v4.4, field “Product/Service Code”

It is a rejection rule, and a rejection in Costa Rican electronic invoicing burns the sequence number: that number is not corrected and not resent — you issue another document with the next number.

The most common error is not using a code that does not exist. It is using a valid code with the wrong rate. Putting 13 % on a basic-basket product, for instance. Both pieces of data are valid on their own; together they are a rejection.

Where to look a code up

The official catalogue is published by the Central Bank of Costa Rica, and it is the only source that counts: the catalogue changes, and a code that was valid two years ago may not be valid today.

Finding the right code is harder than it looks, because the catalogue describes things by their technical name and not the commercial one. Three tips that save time:

  • Search by the generic word, not your product name. “PVC pipe” finds it; “Durman 2-inch pipe” does not.
  • If you sell a service, start at 5. It saves you half the catalogue.
  • When torn between two codes, look at the rate on each. If one matches the rate you have always applied, that is usually the right one. And if neither matches, you have something to review with your accountant.
A note for anyone searching in English. The catalogue is in Spanish only, and there is no English version. Search the Spanish generic term — servicio de alojamiento, limpieza, consultoría — rather than translating your own product description.

When it should be validated: on creating the product, not on invoicing

Good invoicing software checks the CABYS code when you create the product, when there is time to fix it — not at the moment of issuing, with the customer waiting.

That has two practical consequences worth having:

  • Invoicing stops depending on the internet. If the check happened on every invoice, a dropped connection to the catalogue would stop the till.
  • The error is found once and not a hundred times. A miscoded product invoiced twenty times a month is twenty rejections, or twenty wrong returns.

If you rent out short-term

Your CABYS code is the one for short-stay accommodation, and its rate is the standard 13 %. The code goes on every stay you invoice, and it is one of the settings you configure once. What the rest of the invoice carries is in the invoice line by line.

From Ticuenta

The code checked when you create the product

Ticuenta validates CABYS against the current catalogue at the moment you set a product up, and warns you if the rate you chose does not match the catalogue's — before it costs you a number.

See how it works

About this article. The rejection rule and its wording come from the version 4.4 annex, field “Product/Service Code”; the catalogue itself is published and maintained by the Central Bank of Costa Rica.

Verified as of 24 September 2026. The catalogue changes. Confirm a code in the current version before relying on it.

Sources: Central Bank of Costa Rica Ministry of Finance

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