Costa Rica is a country located in Central America that is ranked as one of the most visited international destinations. Costa Rica is also an attractive country for investment and offers great potential for the establishment of important multinational companies, thanks to the outstanding academic level of its population, as well as the high standard of modern services and social and political stability.

To obtain gambling authorisation a company must have a physical presence in Costa Rica. Online gambling is not regulated in Costa Rica and therefore no gambling licenses are issued. The government of Costa Rica tolerates companies providing online gambling services as long as these companies do not offer services to local residents and transactions aren’t processed by local banks. 

Since there is no specific gambling license, a company can apply for a “data processing license” and carry out online gambling operations under this license. Companies are therefore exempted from taxation on online gambling, however, they may still be subject to the tax rates applied to “data processing license” holders. Yet despite this, these rates are quite low for the gambling industry. In general, there is no tax payable on any revenue generated outside Costa Rica. Moreover, since there is no gaming license there is no supervising authority. This means that the operators are not subject to the specific gambling requirements and restrictions (except for anti-money laundering regulations) as opposed to the companies who are operating under the gambling licenses. This makes Costa Rica an advantageous location to establish an online gaming business.