QCOSTARICA – The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo (ICT) – Costa Rican Tourism board – sent a document to Casa Presidencial, a complaint to the delay in the regulation of the Law to attract digital nomads (Ley para Atraer Trabajadores y Prestadores Remotos de Servicios de Carácter Internacional) to Costa Rica.
The ICT board of directors considered that this is an unjustified setback and described as “absolutely inadmissible” the requirements that were contemplated in the draft of the document that has not yet been published.
The executive director of the Cámara Nacional de Turismo (Canatur) – National Chamber of Tourism, Shirley Calvo, said that there are no clear explanations as to why no progress has been made with the regulations.
On the other hand, the ICT board of directors indicated that “demanding documents with a disproportionate and unjustified formalism definitely makes the application of the law null and void.”
Previously, the head of the ICT pressured the Dirección General y Migración y Extranjería (DGME) and the Promotora de Comercio Exterior (PROCOMER) – Costa Rica’s immigration service and foreign trade promoter – to issue the regulations of the Laws to attract digital nomads and film investments.
Since December, businessmen in the tourism sector have urged the government of Carlos Alvarado to promptly issue the regulations to the law to encourage the arrival of digital nomads for up to one year, extendable for another. The publication was supposed to be scheduled for later that month.
Without the regulations, the implementation of this legislation, which provides the country with an emerging market of visitors made up of professionals who use new telecommunications technologies to work from anywhere, is blocked.
It is estimated that each digital nomad who sets up “office” in Costa Rica can inject about US$24,000 (¢15 million colones) per semester into the economy, according Canatur.