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Gambling License Costa Rica

Gambling license Costa Rica

It is legal to conduct this businesses activity in Costa Rica and you only need:

  • A Costa Rican corporation or company registered in Costa Rica.
  • Registration with the tax authorities.
  • A land use permit.
  • A permit from Ministry of Health.
  • A commercial license, Data processing license

In practice, you do not require a license for Internet gambling, but you do require a commercial license.

Costa Rica has legislation to restrict land based gambling, but according to the legal system, those laws are not interpreted as extending to Internet gambling.

ETC will register the corporation and obtain the permits required from all governmental institutions.

Once this is done we obtain the Commercial License in the name of the corporation so the client is sure that his company will have no impediments to develop the intended objective.

To this end, most corporations registered in Costa Rica, obtain a license.

In order to create a corporation in Costa Rica that will allow for licensing, it must deal in network administration or internet administration. All internet addresses from Costa Rica must be blocked from the server, since it is Costa Rica’s strict policy that none of their citizens participate in online gambling. One must also create an offshore merchant account to deal with the transactions.

The requirements to obtain this license are:

  • Office lease contract.
  • Health permit.
  • Workers insurance policy.
  • A Costa Rican registered corporation.

Due to the absence of legislation and oversight for online gambling, companies based in or registered through Costa Rica are not subject to monitoring or other regulations that many offshore companies are. This also means that since there isn’t a body to govern gambling, companies are self-regulated and not required to pay betting or gambling tax.

Costa Rican taxation for Limitada (Ltda.) or Sociedad Anomina (AG) companies:

  • Exempt Companies (companies that only do business outside Costa Rica) are not taxed
  • However, Costa Rica does have a provision for deduction of tax at source on dividends remitted out of Costa Rica: 15% in the case of registered shares and 5% in the case of bearer shares. As Costa Rica has no DTA (double taxation agreement) with other countries, the tax at source cannot be tax deducted, yet counts as an expense.

Gambling License Costa Rica- Gambling Costa Rica: Costa Rican company structures

The Limitada (Ltda.) is a company with limited liability.

A Ltda. is founded by means of a founding treaty recorded by a notary public, with at least two founding partners, entry into the register of companies and publication in the local official journal. The share capital is divided into company shares whereby the extent of the voting rights of each of the partners reflects the size of his share in the company (contribution made).

In contrast to the Costa Rican public company, a control body does not have to be established for this type of company. 

The Costa Rican public company called Sociedad Anomina (the common abbreviation used is S.A.) is founded with registered shares. Company shareholders are recorded by name whether they hold one, several or all shares and thus the “Anonima” addendum should not be understood to indicate total anonymity.

As with the Ltda., an S.A. is founded by means of a founding treaty recorded by a notary public, with a minimum of two founding partners, entry into the register of companies and publication in the local official Journal.

Shares can be issued, including preference shares, in accordance with the requirements of the company. The S.A. is the most common form of company, as it corresponds to the wide range of company founding requirements of small or private enterprises to large companies. 

A public company is managed by an executive board or a board of directors. This panel consists of at least three members: a president, a secretary and a treasurer. Both shareholders and persons outside the company may be members of the board. The elected board members are entered into the register of companies. In addition, a control body is established in the form of a (fiscal) auditor, usually this is also the company lawyer. 

An interesting aspect of the public company: it can continue to exist with just one remaining partner.