Hi Stephen,
Great question. The law is designed to ensure foreigners don’t take jobs from Costa Ricans. But there are grey areas as I’ll explain in a moment, as well as situations where there is the law on the books and what actually happens on the ground. I can’t advise anybody to ignore the law but I can tell you what I’ve discovered in my travels and conversations with business owners.
Let’s use the example of a restaurant. As the owner legally your role would be as a supervisor. You could decide what’s on the menu, when you open, who to hire, how much food to order, etc. And you’d be responsible for the accounting and ensuring workers are registered with the govt. But legally you shouldn’t be working in the kitchen, taking orders, doing dishes, or cleaning up. You’d be directing employees doing all those things. Okay, so that’s the law.
But if you visit Costa Rica you’ll quickly see plenty of restaurants where the expat owner is the chef/cook, maybe the spouse is a server or host. Or it could be a B&B where the expat couple who owns it really have no employees and they’re doing all the work. So what’s the deal? Well, the authorities aren’t really gunning to crack down on this sort of thing, as long as it’s a relatively small operation or you aren’t actively hiring foreigners instead of Costa Ricans. If you had a big resort or large restaurant, better follow the letter of the law.
.
