Costa Rica Just Rewrote the Rules on Car Imports — Here's What It Actually Means for You If you've been weighing whether to ship your own car down to Costa Rica or buy one already here, the math just

If you've been weighing whether to ship your own car down to Costa Rica or buy one already here, the math just changed. In August 2026, Costa Rica's Ministerio de Hacienda (the tax authority) put into effect Decreto Ejecutivo N.° 45920, under Ley N.° 10390, and it closes the exact loophole a lot of import plans used to lean on.

Here's the plain-English version, and why it matters more to expats than almost anyone else.

What changed

For years, Hacienda valued imported vehicles using a reference price list it maintained internally — and in practice, a lot of declared values landed below real market value. That list is now gone.

Under the new rule, customs takes the higher of two numbers: the commercial invoice price you actually paid, or the value Hacienda's own database has on file for an identical or comparable vehicle. Used vehicles get a depreciation allowance, but it's capped — a maximum of 15 years for cars and 10 years for motorcycles, after which the vehicle is valued as if it hadn't depreciated further. In other words: you no longer get to quietly declare a lower number and hope nobody checks. Hacienda already has the number, and it will use whichever one is bigger.

What you'll actually owe

The taxable base isn't just the vehicle price anymore, either. It now has to include the invoice price plus freight, insurance, handling, commissions, and packaging — basically everything it cost to get the car here. That expanded base then gets stacked with:

DAI (import tariff): 1%–15%, depending on engine size

ISC (selective consumption tax): 0%–35%, depending on engine size

IVA (VAT): 13%

Ley 6946: an additional 1%

Put together by engine displacement, the effective tax burden on a used import runs roughly:

Engine size

Approx. total tax

Up to 1,000 cc ~15%

1,001–1,500 cc ~26%

1,501–2,000 cc ~40%

2,001–2,500 cc ~47%

2,501–3,000 cc ~60%

Over 3,000 cc ~65%

So on a mid-size SUV with a 2.5L engine, you're not looking at a nice round "import fee" — you're looking at nearly half the vehicle's value again, on top of what you already paid for it.

The part most people miss

Two details in the decree matter even more than the tax table:

One car per year, no exceptions for individuals. If you're not registered as a formal importer, Hacienda caps you at a single vehicle import per year. Want to bring in a second one? You now have to register as a taxpayer to do it.

A four-year window to come back and check. Hacienda can revisit any declared value for up to four years after the fact. If they decide it was understated, you're not just paying the difference — the penalty runs 50% to 150% of the taxes that were avoided, and in serious cases it can escalate to criminal tax evasion charges. That's a long time to have an open question mark sitting on your import paperwork.

Why this makes buying national the smarter move — not just the easier one

None of this applies to a used car that's already titled and circulating in Costa Rica.

Here is why:

The import tax was already paid — once, by someone else, a long time ago. When you buy a national used car, you're not importing anything. There's no DAI, no ISC, no IVA-on-CIF, no freight-and-insurance math, no depreciation ceiling to argue about. You pay the vehicle's price and the traspaso (title transfer). That's it.

No four-year audit sitting over your head. A national used car isn't a fresh customs declaration Hacienda can reopen. Its import history is done, closed, and behind it.

The price is the price. Import a car yourself and your final cost depends on an exchange rate, a freight quote, an insurance quote, and now a valuation database you don't control. Buy national and the number on the table is the number you pay — no surprises three months later when the ship finally clears customs.

You get real history, not a guess. A well-sourced national used car comes with a maintenance trail, a Dekra inspection record, and — if you're buying through a service like ours — a full mechanical, electrical, and legal review before you ever see the keys. An imported car is, at best, an educated guess about what you're getting until it's sitting in your driveway.

The warranty situation is better, not worse. Because the vehicle's already proven itself on Costa Rican roads, sellers and dealers can back it with real warranty terms. A car you imported yourself is on its own the moment it clears aduanas.

The bottom line

Costa Rica didn't just tighten a loophole — it made self-importing a used car meaningfully more expensive, more unpredictable, and more exposed to a multi-year audit risk than it was a year ago. Meanwhile, buying a car that's already national has never carried less of that risk, because none of it applies.

If you're an expat trying to decide whether shipping a car down is worth it, run the real numbers first — invoice price, freight, insurance, the tax table above, and the fact that Hacienda now checks your math against its own for four years afterward. Then compare that to a clean, inspected, already-titled car you can drive away in this week.

For most people, that comparison isn't close anymore.

This article is general informational content based on Decreto Ejecutivo N.° 45920 and Ley N.° 10390, and is not customs, tax, or legal advice. Rates and rules can change — for an import decision specific to your situation, confirm current figures directly with the Ministerio de Hacienda or a licensed customs broker (agente aduanero).

Looking for a car that's already done the hard part? CarHuntersCR finds, inspects, and hands you a fully-vetted national used car — no import math, no customs risk, no guessing. WhatsApp us and let's talk about what you actually need.