Employer of Record in Costa Rica: 19 Providers Compared (2026)

Employing someone in Costa Rica: key facts

Employment rules sit in the Código de Trabajo, social charges go through the CCSS, and minimum wages are fixed by annual decree; figures are national and checked 2026-10-05.

Minimum wage

There is no single national minimum. The private-sector minimum is set by occupation category and education level in an annual decree (Consejo Nacional de Salarios, then an MTSS decree, effective 1 January).

All in force from 2026-01-01 (MTSS, checked 2026-10-05). The Bachiller and Licenciado minimums apply to workers hired in a role that requires a recognised university degree; if the tasks fall in a higher occupational category, that category’s wage applies. The MTSS release confirms the +1.63% increase (Decreto 45303-MTSS) and CRC 10,650.86 more a month for Bachiller; the 2026 amounts come from a secondary table (siemprealdia.co, checked 2026-10-05) because the decree text was not reachable.

Employer contributions

Employer social charges are collected through the CCSS. The nine lines below sum to 25.83% of gross salary in 2026, and no salary ceiling was found in the sources reviewed.

Sources: Alegra for the line split, KPMG for IVM, Ley 7983 for FCL, checked 2026-10-05. The CCSS’s own table did not open, so the split rests on these sources.

• Payroll guides quote a headline of 26.83% by adding a referential 1.00% for INS occupational-risk insurance. That premium is a separate INS policy priced by the employer’s activity, and no confirmed rate for office or IT work was found, so our cost figures leave it out.
• IVM rises in three-year steps: 5.25% (2020-2022), 5.42% (2023-2025), 5.58% (2026-2028) and 5.75% from 2029-01-01 (KPMG, checked 2026-10-05).

Working hours and overtime

• Ordinary day shift: 8 hours a day and 48 hours a week; night shift 6 hours a day; mixed shift 7 hours a day (arts. 136, 138).
• Overtime is paid at +50% over the ordinary wage (art. 139); ordinary plus overtime hours may not exceed 12 a day (art. 140).
• Work on a mandatory-pay holiday is paid double; overtime on it triple.

Source: MTSS Código de Trabajo, holiday pay from an MTSS notice, checked 2026-10-05.

Annual leave and public holidays

• Minimum two weeks of paid vacation per 50 weeks of continuous service for the same employer (art. 153); the employer sets the date within 15 weeks after the 50 weeks (art. 155).
• Vacation is paid out in cash only on termination, for occasional or piece work, or in justified cases (art. 156).
• 12 official holidays in 2026. Nine are of mandatory pay: 1 Jan, 2 Apr (Holy Thursday), 3 Apr (Good Friday), 11 Apr, 1 May, 25 Jul, 15 Aug, 15 Sep and 25 Dec. Three are of non-mandatory pay: 2 Aug, 31 Aug and 1 Dec. Mandatory-pay holidays are paid double if worked, and no employee can be forced to work one.

Source: MTSS Código de Trabajo; holidays from AG Legal, checked 2026-10-05.

Probation

• The Código has no formal statutory probation clause.
• In practice the first three months work as one: notice and severance only start after three months of continuous work (arts. 28-29), so an indefinite contract can be ended in that window without preaviso or cesantía. Accrued vacation and proportional aguinaldo are still payable.

Source: MTSS Código de Trabajo, checked 2026-10-05. This reading is inferred from the text of arts. 28-29; no case-law check was done.

Notice and severance

Dismissal without just cause under an indefinite contract requires written notice, which can be replaced by paying the salary for the notice period (art. 28).

• Cesantía (art. 29, as amended by Ley 7983): 7 days of salary at 3-6 months and 14 days at 6-12 months; then per year worked from 19.5 days (year 1) up to 22 days (years 7-9), easing to 20 days from year 13; capped at the last 8 years of service, on the average salary of the last six months (art. 30).

Source: MTSS Código de Trabajo and the TSE compilation, checked 2026-10-05.

13th salary and bonuses

• Aguinaldo is mandatory: one month of salary a year, calculated on the average of ordinary and extraordinary salary earned from 1 December to 30 November and paid within the first 20 days of December (Ley 2412 arts. 1, 2, 4).
• Proportional if under a year, with at least one month of service (art. 3). Not counted toward CCSS contributions (art. 7) and exempt from income tax (art. 9).

Source: Ley 2412, checked 2026-10-05.

Mandatory benefits

• CCSS health and pension cover for every employee through the contributions above.
• Occupational-risk insurance is compulsory for all employers and workers (arts. 193, 201); the duty stays with the employer even when workers are under intermediaries, and an uninsured employer answers for the medical, rehabilitation and cash benefits. The premium is priced by economic activity and claims record.
• Maternity leave: one month before and three months after birth at full salary, split 50/50 between the CCSS and the employer (art. 95).
• LPT funds and aguinaldo, as above.

Source: MTSS Código de Trabajo, checked 2026-10-05. Paternity leave and sick pay were not researched for this page.

Work permits

• Foreigners need a migration status that expressly authorises paid work.
• There is no single work visa: routes include temporary residence tied to an employer, role or specialisation, and a company-registration route with the immigration authority (DGME) for multinationals.
• Whether an EOR can act as sponsor is not stated in the sources reviewed.

Source: AG Legal, a Costa Rican law firm whose sister company sells EOR services, so treat it as commentary; checked 2026-10-05.

Currency and payroll

• Currency is the Costa Rican colón (CRC). Reference rate on 2026-10-05: 1 USD = 462.08 CRC (Banco General, BCCR reference).
• The parties fix the pay period; it may not exceed one fortnight for manual workers and one month for intellectual workers (art. 168).

Source: MTSS Código de Trabajo, checked 2026-10-05.

Is Employer of Record legal in Costa Rica?

Grey area. Costa Rica has no EOR-specific law, licence or registration. The Código de Trabajo only knows the patrono (employer) and the intermediario (art. 3), and the Ministry of Labour’s legal department has itself called intermediation, subcontracting and outsourcing a “zona gris” without a framework that clearly allocates responsibility between a staffing provider and the client (MTSS opinion DAJ-AE-237-13, checked 2026-10-05). The rules that matter:

• Arts. 2 and 18: the patrono is anyone who employs services under an express or implied contract, and an employment contract is presumed between the person who works and the person who receives the services. The reality of the relationship, not the label, decides.
• Art. 3: an intermediary contracts others’ services for a patrono, and the parties are jointly liable (“solidariamente”) for the Code, its regulations and social-security provisions. Those who undertake work under contract with their own capital are patronos, not intermediaries.
• Sala Segunda test, quoted in the MTSS opinion: subordination is decisive. Indicators include one sole client, who gives instructions, who sets place and schedule, who provides tools, who pays social charges and who pays the worker. Where subordination runs to the beneficiary, that party is treated as employer for all legal effects.

Source for the articles: MTSS Código de Trabajo, checked 2026-10-05. The opinion dates from 2013 and later case law was not reviewed; no ruling or circular naming an Employer of Record was found.

What this means for a client:

• Recharacterisation as direct employer. If you assign tasks, set hours, supply tools and integrate the person into your team, a labour court can treat you as the real employer under arts. 2, 3 and 18, with the EOR’s role reduced to intermediary.
• Joint liability under art. 3 for what the EOR fails to pay or register: minimum wages, aguinaldo, vacation, cesantía, CCSS charges and the occupational-risk policy.
• Uninsured accident: the duty to insure occupational risk stays with the employer even where workers are under intermediaries (arts. 193, 201).
• Pending bill 23.920 (Solidaridad Laboral en casos de Subcontratación o Tercerización de Servicios, 2023) would add a paragraph to art. 3 and a new art. 3 bis making contracting and subcontracted companies jointly liable for wages, aguinaldo, CCSS, IMAS, FODESAF and more (crhoy.com, checked 2026-10-05). Its current status was not confirmed, so treat it as a proposal.
• Immigration: employers, intermediaries and contractors may not use a foreign worker whose status does not authorise the job (AG Legal, checked 2026-10-05).

Who actually employs your hire in Costa Rica

The table shows what each provider’s own Costa Rica-facing page says. The Registro Nacional (rnpdigital.com) needs a login to search companies (checked 2026-10-05) and no open mirror turned up, so no row below is registry-confirmed.

Seventeen of 19 providers do not say who employs your hire in Costa Rica, and for the other two the only evidence is the vendor’s own wording. That matters because the employer is the party registered with the CCSS and insured for occupational risk. Before signing, ask: which legal entity will employ my hire, what is its cédula jurídica, and is it registered with the CCSS and insured for occupational risk for my hire’s activity?

How to choose an EOR in Costa Rica

Do you need the entity question settled first? Only Remote and Rivermate speak to it for Costa Rica, and neither names the entity. If it is a precondition, start there and ask for the name in writing; for everyone else, treat it as open.

Is the hire a foreign national? No page we read confirms that an EOR can sponsor a work permit in Costa Rica. Remote and Playroll both add about three extra days for a right-to-work assessment for non-nationals. Get the provider’s position on sponsorship in writing before you promise a start date.

How fast do you need the hire to start? Published figures: Deel says as little as 2 days, Playroll 1-5 days, Rivermate 1-2 weeks for local employees. Remote and Playroll both cut payroll off on the 10th of the month.

Price or completeness of data? Published prices span $99 to $699 per month, but most are global list rates. Only Skuad ($249 promotion, regular $349), Deel and G-P show a figure on a Costa Rica-specific page. Skuad and Boundless belong to the same group (Boundless now trades as Payoneer Workforce Management), so compare them once, not twice.

What it costs to employ someone in Costa Rica through an EOR

The EOR is the employer of record and runs CCSS registration and payroll, so the statutory charges below apply to the hire’s salary however the EOR bills you. The two examples are an ordinary private-sector employee in IT or office work, paid 12 monthly salaries by a large-payroll EOR entity, converted at 1 USD = 462.08 CRC (Banco General, BCCR reference, checked 2026-10-05).

Source: Alegra for the rate split, KPMG for IVM, checked 2026-10-05. Both salaries are far above the Bachiller Universitario minimum of CRC 7,968,936.84 a year. INA at 1.50% applies because the EOR has five or more workers.

Not in the table:

• INS occupational-risk premium. It is priced per economic activity and no confirmed rate for office or IT work was found. Payroll guides use a referential 1.00%, which would add CRC 231,040 and CRC 462,080 respectively.
• Paid vacation sits inside gross salary, so it is not added.
• Cesantía is a contingent cost on dismissal and is not accrued here.

The contribution rate moved little over the period: only IVM changed (5.25% in 2021-2022, 5.42% in 2023-2025, 5.58% in 2026), taking the nine-line total on the same salary from 25.50% to 25.83%. That is a rise of 0.33 points, so there is no history chart. The earlier years assume the other eight lines were unchanged; only the IVM steps were verified for 2021-2025.

The EOR’s own fee comes on top. Published prices run from $99 to $699 per employee per month: Native Teams $99 (global list; its Costa Rica page is a PEO page), Boundless, RemoFirst and Remote People from $199, Skuad $249 on its Costa Rica page (promotion, regular $349), Playroll from $399, Multiplier from $459 on annual contracts, Borderless AI $579, Deel, G-P and Atlas from $599, Remote and Oyster $699. Rivermate gives a $319-$639 range, Rippling quotes on request, and Pebl, Safeguard Global, Papaya Global and Justworks publish nothing we could confirm. Most of these are global list prices, not Costa Rica rates.

Hidden costs: none of the 19 providers publishes a setup fee, deposit, minimum term or termination fee for Costa Rica. Where the field is blank, treat it as unpublished, not zero.

When you don’t need an EOR

• A genuinely independent contractor. Art. 18 presumes an employment contract with whoever receives the services, and the Sala Segunda indicators quoted by the MTSS (one sole client, who instructs, who sets place and schedule, who provides tools, who pays) point to employment. A person who serves several clients and sets their own hours is a different case; see contractor misclassification for the general risk.
• Your own Costa Rican employer. If you employ directly you are the patrono under art. 2, with no intermediary between you and the worker, and you register with the CCSS and insure occupational risk yourself (arts. 193, 201). The art. 3 joint-liability analysis applies to intermediaries. Our data holds no setup cost or timeline for this route.
• A PEO. Native Teams’ only Costa Rica page describes a PEO in which “the employment will be shared jointly” between Native Teams and you, which is co-employment rather than EOR. See EOR vs PEO, the PEO glossary entry and co-employment.

What changed in 2026

• 2026-01-01: IVM employer contribution rises from 5.42% to 5.58%, taking the nine-line total to 25.83% (26.83% with the referential INS 1.00%). Valid through 2028-12-31 (KPMG, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2026-01-01: private-sector minimum wages rise 1.63% across all categories (Decreto Ejecutivo 45303-MTSS); Bachiller Universitario reaches CRC 664,078.07 a month (MTSS, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2026-08-24: not in force. The Legislative Assembly returned the “4x3” exceptional-schedule bill (expediente 24.290, 12-hour days, 4 days on and 3 off) to an earlier text; on 2026-08-28 deputies excluded public-sector workers. Ordinary hours remain 8 a day and 48 a week (Infobae, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2026-08-31: 31 August (Ley 10050) falls on a weekday for the first time, a Monday in 2026; non-mandatory pay (Observador, checked 2026-10-05).
• 2029-01-01 (scheduled): the last IVM step, employer 5.75% (Delfino, checked 2026-10-05).

Numbers vendors haven’t updated

• Minimum wage. Remote’s Costa Rica page gives CRC 487,335 a month for “non-skilled workers” from January 2026, up to CRC 796,921 for graduates. The lowest 2026 category is CRC 373,092.30 (Ocupación No Calificada), and CRC 487,335 matches none of the six categories we found. Atlas, Playroll and Boundless quote about CRC 373,092 for that category, in line with the MTSS figures. Borderless AI still shows 2024 rates (CRC 353,074 to CRC 516,779).
• Working week. Deel’s page lists a standard 40-hour Monday to Friday week. The statutory ordinary day shift is 48 hours a week (Código de Trabajo art. 136).
• Public holidays. Remote and Playroll write 9, G-P 11 and RemoFirst 15. The 2026 count is 12 official holidays, 9 of mandatory pay and 3 of non-mandatory pay (AG Legal, checked 2026-10-05).
• Employer cost. Deel’s calculator shows an “Estimated Employer Cost” of 27.64%; the payroll-guide headline is 26.83%, which includes a referential 1.00% for INS (EY, checked 2026-10-05). We could not reconcile the two.

How we built this page

Facts were collected and checked on 2026-10-05 against government and statutory texts (the Código de Trabajo, MTSS decrees and opinions, Ley 2412) and, for the CCSS split, payroll guides and big-firm tax alerts, because the CCSS table did not open. Provider entity claims come from each provider’s own Costa Rica-facing page; the Registro Nacional could not be searched without a login, so none is registry-verified, and several pages were read from archived copies. Providers that say they own their Costa Rican operation come first, then the rest by published Costa Rica price and completeness of data. Nobody pays for placement on this page.