Titled land, concession land, and the derecho — the undivided share that has no equivalent in North America and catches more foreign buyers than anything else in the registry.
Foreigners have the same right to own titled property in Costa Rica as citizens do. There is no restriction, no minimum investment, and no residency requirement. That part is simple, and it is true.
What is not simple is that "property" here covers three quite different things, and the listing photograph looks the same in all three cases. Before you make an offer, you need to know which one you are being shown.
Titled property, which is what you want
Titled property — propiedad titulada — is registered in the Registro Nacional under a unique folio real number. It has surveyed boundaries recorded on a plano catastrado, it can be sold, mortgaged and inherited freely, and the registry will tell you who owns it and what is registered against it. This is fee simple in everything but name, and it is what the overwhelming majority of properties we sell are.
The folio real is the single most important document in a Costa Rican purchase. It names the owner, the registered area, the fiscal value, and — critically — every mortgage, lien, easement and annotation attached to the property. It is public. Any attorney can pull it in minutes. A seller who is reluctant to give you the number is telling you something.
The derecho, which is where people get hurt
Here is the structure that has no clean North American equivalent, and the one we spend the most time explaining.
A derecho is a registered share in a property, not a piece of it. Costa Rican law calls the arrangement copropiedad en pro indiviso — co-ownership in undivided shares, governed by the Civil Code — and the key word is undivided. If you buy a 25% derecho in a ten-hectare farm, you do not own two and a half hectares. You own a quarter of the whole thing, abstractly, alongside everyone else, and no line on any map says which quarter. The registry records your share; it does not record a boundary, because there is not one. These holdings usually arise from inheritance — a family splits land among four children without formally subdividing it — or from a seller carving up a large parcel without going through the segregation process the municipality would require.
What makes a derecho genuinely dangerous for a foreign buyer is the combination of two facts. First, a co-owner may sell, gift or bequeath their share without needing anyone else's consent — which is exactly why derechos end up on the open market, marketed with a photograph of "the lot". Second, buying that share buys you no exclusive right to occupy or build on any particular part of the land unless the co-owners have separately agreed to it in writing. You inherit the co-ownership, and everything that comes with it: shared liability for taxes and upkeep, no ability to develop or fence "your" portion unilaterally, serious difficulty using the property as loan security, and the standing possibility that any co-owner can force a judicial partition and put the whole property in front of a judge. Converting a derecho into your own titled parcel means a formal subdivision or a condominium regime — a new survey, municipal approval, and in practice the cooperation of the other owners. It is not a formality, it is a project, and it can fail.
Derechos are not fraud and they are not always the wrong answer. Families hold them sensibly for generations. But if a price looks unusually good for the location, this is the first thing to check, and the check takes one look at the folio real. Ask whether you are buying a property or a share in one, and get the answer in writing before you pay a deposit.
Concession property, on the beach
The first 200 metres inland from the mean high tide line is not private property anywhere in Costa Rica. Under the Maritime Terrestrial Zone law (Ley 6043) the first 50 metres is public zone — no development, no private occupation, ever — and the next 150 metres is the restricted zone, where the municipality can grant a concession: a long-term, renewable right to use the land, not ownership of it.
Foreign buyers face a real restriction here that does not exist inland. A foreigner who has not been a legal resident of Costa Rica for at least five years cannot hold more than 49% of a concession. The majority has to sit with a qualifying party. Structures exist to work within this, and they are legitimate, but a listing that describes beachfront concession land as though it were titled and unrestricted is either careless or worse.
Personal name or corporation
Most property here is held either personally or through a Costa Rican company — a Sociedad Anónima (S.A.) or, more usually for a holding structure, a Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada (S.R.L.). Corporate holding used to be near-automatic advice. It is less obviously right than it was, because the annual compliance is real: the legal entity tax every January, an annual beneficial-owner filing to the Central Bank (the RTBF, which must identify every natural person holding 15% or more and is required even of a company that does nothing but hold a house), a resident agent, and accounting. A company that misses its RTBF filing cannot obtain the certificates it needs to register documents — which means it cannot easily sell.
There are still good reasons to use one: succession planning that avoids Costa Rican probate, shared ownership between partners or family, and liability separation on a rental. There are also buyers for whom personal name is simpler and cheaper. It is a question with a real answer for your circumstances, and it should be asked before closing, not after, because changing it later is a transfer and gets taxed like one.
Written September 2026. Laws and thresholds change; this is orientation, not legal advice, and your attorney confirms how any of it applies to a specific property before you sign.
If you are looking at something and are not sure which of these you are being offered, send us the folio real number and we will tell you what it says.
Continue reading
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