Estate Planning in Costa Rica: Guide for Foreign Owners

Estate Planning in Costa Rica: The Complete 2026 Guide for Foreign Owners

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Estate planning in Costa Rica runs on civil-law rules that surprise most foreign owners twice: there is no automatic “right of survivorship” on jointly titled property the way there is in the United States, Canada, or the UK, and your freedom to write a will is limited by a mandatory duty to secure support for certain family members — a limited, support-based form of forced heirship. This guide covers both, and lays out exactly which tools — a will, a trust, a share transfer, or a usufruct arrangement — actually move an asset to your heirs.

On this page:

1. Why “Right of Survivorship” Doesn’t Exist Here
2. Forced Heirship in Costa Rica: A Support-Based Limit on Your Will
3. The Five Tools Behind Estate Planning in Costa Rica
4. The Fideicomiso in Detail
5. Nuda Propiedad: Transferring Title While Keeping Usufruct
6. Fideicomiso vs. Direct Ownership vs. Shares vs. Usufruct
7. Where a Costa Rica Will Still Fits
8. Probate and Intestate Succession
9. Blended Families, Second Marriages, and Unmarried Partners
10. Real Estate, Residency, and Your Estate Plan
11. Crypto-Funded Purchases and Compliance
12. What Estate Planning in Costa Rica Costs
13. Taxes and Estate Planning in Costa Rica
14. Estate Planning in Costa Rica, Step by Step
15. Common Mistakes Foreign Owners Make
16. U.S. Embassy and FCDO Guidance
17. Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why “Right of Survivorship” Doesn’t Exist Here

Buyers coming from the United States, Canada, or the UK often assume that titling a property jointly (“joint tenants with right of survivorship”) lets it pass automatically to the surviving co-owner, with no court process at all. Costa Rica’s civil-law system has no equivalent mechanism for standard property deeds — there is no automatic transfer on death, full stop. Whatever the deed says, the asset still has to move through one of the structures below to actually change hands. This single difference is why so many foreign-owned properties here end up stuck: the owners assumed survivorship would handle it, and nothing was ever put in place to do that job.

2. Forced Heirship in Costa Rica: A Support-Based Limit on Your Will

Here’s the part most guides oversimplify: Costa Rica does limit what you can do in a will, but not by reserving a fixed percentage of your estate the way some civil-law countries do. Under Article 595 of the Civil Code, you can dispose of your assets freely — on one condition: you have to leave enough set aside to secure alimentos (ongoing support) for your minor children until they reach legal age, for a child of any age who has a disability that prevents them from supporting themselves, and for a spouse or parents who need it. If your will doesn’t account for this, the named heir only receives whatever is left after an expert sets aside a sufficient amount to cover that support — and if your children, parents, or spouse already have sufficient means of their own, you aren’t obligated to leave them anything at all. It’s a support obligation, not an automatic reserved share, and that distinction changes how a will should actually be drafted.

You can read the rule yourself in Article 595 of the Código Civil on SINALEVI. A University of Costa Rica study traces how the 1886 Civil Code replaced the older fixed shares of the 1841 code with this support-based approach to testamentary freedom.

When someone dies without any will at all, Article 572 of the Civil Code (full text on SINALEVI; see also this CIJUL research report on the order of succession) sets the order of heirs. Each order inherits only if no one from the previous order exists:

Order	Who inherits	How it works
1	Children, parents, and a spouse or recognized civil-union partner	Inherit together, in equal parts
2	Grandparents and other ascendants	Only if no one in order 1 exists
3	Siblings	Only if no one in orders 1–2 exists
4	Nieces and nephews	Inherit by representation of their parent
5	Aunts and uncles	Only if no one in orders 1–4 exists
6	Junta de Educación where the assets are located	Only if no relatives can be located; the Cruz Roja Costarricense is the final backstop, added by a January 2025 reform

This is also one of the main reasons a fideicomiso is attractive for foreign owners: assets properly transferred into a trust during your lifetime are, in practice, treated differently from assets still sitting in your personal estate at death, which is why trusts and wills are usually planned together rather than as alternatives to each other.

3. The Five Tools Behind Estate Planning in Costa Rica

Five structures handle almost every Costa Rican estate plan, and each has a different relationship to forced heirship, probate, and cost:

• Open will (testamento abierto) — drafted by an attorney, signed before a Costa Rican notary with witnesses, and registered with the National Archive. It doesn’t avoid probate, but it controls the freely disposable portion of the estate and names your executor. A foreign will isn’t automatically honored here — giving it effect over Costa Rican assets requires a judicial process called exequatur under the Código Procesal Civil, which is exactly the delay a Costa Rican will is meant to avoid.
• Living trust (fideicomiso) — assets transferred to a trustee bypass the probate process entirely for those assets, while adding a layer of privacy and asset protection that personal-name title doesn’t offer.
• Sociedad Anónima share transfer — shares of the company holding the property can be assigned or transferred before death, sidestepping the standard real estate transfer process, though this needs careful corporate and tax structuring to hold up.
• Nuda propiedad with usufructo (bare legal title) — you transfer legal ownership to your heirs now while keeping the right to live in or rent the property for the rest of your life.
• The albacea (executor) — inventories the estate, pays outstanding debts, and coordinates distribution, under the supervision of a notary (notarial succession) or a judge (judicial succession) depending on how contested the estate is.

Personal-name ownership with no additional structure is the simplest to set up, but it’s also the option most fully exposed to both forced heirship and the standard probate process, with none of the five tools above softening either one.

4. The Fideicomiso in Detail

A fideicomiso is a contractual trust governed by Costa Rica’s Código de Comercio (Article 633 and following). Three parties are involved: the fideicomitente (you, as the person transferring the asset), the fiduciario (a trustee — typically a bank’s trust subsidiary or a specialized fiduciary company), and the fideicomisario (the beneficiary, who can be you during your lifetime and your heirs afterward).

Once an asset — real estate, corporate shares, or other property — is properly transferred into the trust, the fiduciario holds legal title according to the trust deed’s instructions. On your death, the asset passes to the named beneficiaries according to those instructions, without opening a Costa Rican probate case for that asset. This is the core reason fideicomisos are used so heavily in estate planning for foreign owners here, alongside their common use in maritime-zone concession properties and as an escrow mechanism during a purchase itself.

A trust is not free to set up or maintain — there’s a setup fee and ongoing trustee fees — and you do give up direct personal title while the asset is held in trust. For a single modest property, that trade-off may not be worth it; for a primary residence, a portfolio of properties, or a complex family situation, it usually is.

If you decide a trust fits your plan, you don’t have to look for a fiduciary elsewhere. AG Trust is the fiduciary arm of the AG Legal group, and its services include estate planning trusts built to pass assets to your beneficiaries according to your instructions, alongside administrative and real estate trusts and escrow services. Because the same team that designs your plan also works with the trust, the legal structure, the will, and the trust deed are drafted to fit together from the start.

5. Nuda Propiedad: Transferring Title While Keeping Usufruct

A less commonly discussed but well-established tool is splitting a property into nuda propiedad (bare legal title) and usufructo (the right to use, occupy, or rent it). You transfer the bare title to your chosen heirs now — so there’s nothing left to pass through probate for that asset later — while keeping the usufruct for yourself, which lets you continue living in the property or collecting its rental income for the rest of your life.

This works well for a primary residence you want to hand down with certainty while you’re still alive to confirm everything was done correctly, but it’s a present, irrevocable transfer of the underlying title — so it only fits situations where you’re genuinely comfortable giving that up now in exchange for the usufruct. It’s worth comparing directly against a fideicomiso, which achieves a similar probate-avoidance result without transferring title during your lifetime, before deciding which fits your situation.

6. Fideicomiso vs. Direct Ownership vs. Shares vs. Usufruct

Dimension	Direct (Personal Name)	Costa Rican Company	Fideicomiso (Trust)	Nuda Propiedad + Usufruct
Avoids Costa Rican probate	No	No — shares still pass through succession	Yes, for trust-held assets	Yes, for the title already transferred
Subject to the alimony/support obligation	Yes, directly	Yes, at the share level	Limited — governed by trust terms instead	Limited — title has already moved
You keep use of the asset	Yes	Yes, through the company	Only if trust terms allow it	Yes — that’s the usufruct
Setup cost	Lowest	Moderate (incorporation + annual filings)	Highest (deed + ongoing trustee fees)	Moderate (deed + registration)
Best suited for	Single, low-complexity holdings	Multiple assets, liability separation, residency qualification	Primary residences, concession/maritime-zone property, complex family situations	A primary residence you want to hand down with certainty while still using it

Tax treatment — property transfer tax, municipal property tax, and capital gains — is largely similar across these structures; the real differences are control, cost, and what happens to the asset the day you die.

7. Where a Costa Rica Will Still Fits

Even with a trust in place, a Costa Rican will still matters for anything held outside the trust, for naming an executor, and for directing the freely disposable portion of your estate. If you already have a will from your home country, don’t assume it covers you here: under Costa Rica’s Código Procesal Civil, a foreign succession only takes effect over assets located in Costa Rica after the interested party obtains the exequatur and petitions the local court to formally summon anyone who could be harmed by the foreign distribution — if no one objects, or objections are dismissed, the court approves it; if someone successfully objects, the foreign disposition only stands to the extent it doesn’t conflict with the Costa Rican court’s ruling. That’s a real process with a real timeline, which is exactly why most owners are better served by a dedicated local will instead of relying on this route. We cover the exact drafting requirements, the formats Costa Rica recognizes, required documents, typical costs, and exactly how a local will interacts with one from your home country in our dedicated guide to Costa Rica wills for foreign property owners.

8. Probate and Intestate Succession

Every Costa Rican estate — with or without a will — passes through a proceso sucesorio for any assets not already held in a trust or already retitled through a usufruct split. An uncontested estate with a valid will and cooperative heirs can usually move through a faster notarial succession (sucesorio notarial); a contested or complex estate goes through the fully judicial process instead, under a judge’s supervision rather than a notary’s. Heirs living abroad still need to be properly identified and represented either way, which is where most of the real delay comes from. Our full breakdown of timelines, required documents, and how heirs outside Costa Rica participate is in our guide to probate in Costa Rica.

9. Blended Families, Second Marriages, and Unmarried Partners

Estate planning in Costa Rica gets more delicate when your family doesn’t fit the standard picture, because the intestate rules above are blunt. Children, parents, and a spouse or recognized civil-union partner share the same first class, so a second spouse can end up sharing the estate with children from a first marriage. The Civil Code doesn’t distinguish between children born inside or outside marriage: they inherit in equal parts.

• Separated spouses. A spouse who is legally separated by their own fault has no inheritance rights, and a spouse separated in fact cannot inherit the assets you acquired during the separation.
• Marital property (gananciales). A surviving spouse who already holds a share of marital property receives only what is needed to complete a share equal to what they would get without it.
• Unmarried partners. A partner counts as an heir only if the union is recognized, which requires that both partners were legally free to marry. If you were still legally married to someone else, a long-term partner does not inherit automatically.

This is where a plan earns its cost. A will lets you direct the freely disposable part of your estate to a partner or to children from a prior relationship, within the alimony duty described in section 2, and where the structure allows it, a trust can set who benefits during your partner’s lifetime and who receives the assets afterward. Update the plan after any marriage, divorce, or separation. Our guide to probate in Costa Rica goes deeper into how these rules play out once a succession is open.

10. Real Estate, Residency, and Your Estate Plan

For most foreign residents, real estate is the largest asset in a Costa Rican estate, and how it’s titled is the single biggest lever in your plan. It also connects to residency: property purchased in your personal name can qualify as the underlying investment for investor residency, while property held through a fideicomiso or company needs the right documentation for immigration authorities to credit it the same way. Our real estate law practice page covers due diligence and title structures in more depth, and if you’re also incorporating a Costa Rican company as part of the plan, our guide to companies in Costa Rica walks through S.A. vs. S.R.L. and ongoing compliance. If you haven’t purchased yet, our guide to buying land in Costa Rica covers the due diligence that makes titling decisions easier later, and our article on common investing mistakes in Costa Rica covers structuring errors that often surface as estate problems years later. Title disputes are also worth planning around before they become an estate problem — see our pillar on land disputes in Costa Rica.

11. Crypto-Funded Purchases and Compliance

A growing number of buyers fund Costa Rican property partly or fully with cryptocurrency. It can be done correctly, but it sits under real scrutiny from Costa Rican authorities and international anti-money-laundering frameworks — and that scrutiny doesn’t end at closing. Clean documentation of the original source of funds is exactly what your heirs or trustee will need later to transfer the asset without compliance questions. We cover the specific red flags and correct structuring in our article on money laundering risk in crypto real estate transactions.

12. What Estate Planning in Costa Rica Costs

Costs vary by complexity, but as a general reference: a straightforward Costa Rican will typically runs in the low hundreds of dollars in notarial fees; setting up a fideicomiso involves a one-time deed/setup cost plus an annual trustee fee that scales with the value and complexity of the assets held; a nuda propiedad/usufructo split adds the cost of the deed and its registration; and incorporating a Costa Rican company adds its own incorporation and annual compliance costs on top of whatever structure holds its shares.

If your property falls into the higher-value bracket, factor in Costa Rica’s annual luxury home tax (Impuesto Solidario) as an ongoing carrying cost of whichever structure you choose — it applies based on the property’s registered value regardless of whether it’s held personally, through a company, or in a trust. We cover the current thresholds and how it’s calculated in our guide to the Costa Rica luxury home tax. The right starting point is understanding your specific assets and goals first — a plan built around your actual situation is cheaper in the long run than paying twice to fix one that wasn’t.

13. Taxes and Estate Planning in Costa Rica

Costa Rica does not levy a general inheritance or estate tax, which is a real advantage over many home countries. That doesn’t make a succession free: when title moves to your heirs, transfer and registration charges apply, and the property’s annual carrying costs, including the luxury home tax for high-value homes, continue with whoever owns it next. Our wills guide breaks down the current transfer charges.

The bigger tax exposure often sits at home. Some countries tax their citizens or residents on worldwide assets at death. The United States, for example, applies federal estate tax to the worldwide estate of its citizens and residents above an exemption threshold. Placing Costa Rican assets in a fideicomiso or a company can also trigger home-country reporting requirements. That is why a Costa Rican plan should be coordinated with your tax advisor abroad instead of built in isolation.

14. Estate Planning in Costa Rica, Step by Step

1. Inventory your Costa Rican assets — real estate, corporate shares, bank accounts, vehicles — and note exactly how each is currently titled. The answer often differs from what owners assume once they check the registered deed or share ledger, and you can look up property title through the public registry at the Registro Nacional.
2. Identify who you’re required to support under the alimony obligation — a spouse, minor or dependent children, and parents who need it — so the plan is built around what Costa Rican law actually requires rather than around habits from your home country.
3. Decide which assets benefit from a fideicomiso or usufruct split versus which are fine held directly or through a company, weighing setup cost and loss of direct control against how badly you want to avoid probate for that specific asset.
4. Execute a Costa Rican will covering the freely disposable portion of your estate and naming an executor (albacea) familiar with local procedure, even if most of your assets end up structured through a trust.
5. Document the source of funds for any asset bought with crypto or international transfers, so the paper trail is clean when your heirs or trustee need it.
6. Review the plan after any major change — a new property purchase, a shift in residency status, a marriage, or a change in family circumstances — since a plan built around one snapshot of your life rarely still fits a few years later.

15. Common Mistakes Foreign Owners Make

• Assuming a will from home automatically covers Costa Rican assets, or that joint title creates automatic survivorship.
• Writing a will that tries to cut off a spouse or child entirely, not realizing Costa Rica’s forced heirship rule still requires their alimony to be secured first.
• Treating a fideicomiso and a will as interchangeable, when a sound plan usually needs both for different assets.
• Buying property with crypto without keeping the documentation that proves the legitimate source of funds.
• Never revisiting the plan after a second property purchase or a change in residency status.

16. U.S. Embassy and FCDO Guidance

AG Legal appears on the U.S. Embassy San José’s List of Attorneys for the Consular District of San José, and in the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office’s “Find a Lawyer” directory for Costa Rica. Inclusion on either list does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by either government — it reflects that our firm meets the criteria both governments require for legal referral listings. Both governments also publish their own guidance confirming why a local plan matters: the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Manual sets out how consular officers handle the estates of American citizens who die abroad, and the UK government publishes parallel guidance for British nationals.

• U.S. Embassy San José — Legal Assistance & List of Attorneys
• UK FCDO — Find a Lawyer in Costa Rica
• U.S. Department of State — Foreign Affairs Manual, Death Cases Abroad
• UK Government — What to Do When Someone Dies Abroad

17. Frequently Asked Questions

Does Costa Rica recognize “right of survivorship” on jointly owned property?

No. Costa Rica’s civil-law system has no equivalent to the automatic transfer common-law jurisdictions allow on jointly titled property. The asset still needs a will, trust, share transfer, or usufruct arrangement to change hands.

What is nuda propiedad and usufructo, and how is it different from a trust?

Nuda propiedad with usufructo lets you transfer bare legal title to your heirs now while keeping the right to live in or rent the property for life. Unlike a fideicomiso, it’s an irrevocable lifetime transfer of title rather than a trustee arrangement.

What does an albacea (executor) actually do?

The albacea inventories the estate, pays outstanding debts, and coordinates distribution to heirs, under the supervision of a notary in a notarial succession or a judge in a judicial one.

What is forced heirship and how does it affect my estate plan?

Costa Rica’s version isn’t a fixed reserved percentage — it’s a support obligation. You can dispose of your estate freely in a will as long as you secure alimony for a spouse, minor or dependent children, and parents who need it; if you don’t, the heir only gets what’s left after that support is set aside.

Can a fideicomiso really help me avoid probate?

For assets properly transferred into the trust during your lifetime, yes — they pass to the named beneficiaries according to the trust deed instead of through a Costa Rican probate proceeding.

Is a fideicomiso the same as a will?

No. A will directs your freely disposable estate and still goes through a recognition or probate process; a fideicomiso can transfer specific assets outside that process entirely. Most complete plans use both.

What law governs trusts in Costa Rica?

Fideicomisos are governed by Costa Rica’s Código de Comercio, starting at Article 633, which sets out who can create a trust, what can be held in one, and the trustee’s obligations.

Is there inheritance tax in Costa Rica?

Costa Rica does not currently levy a general inheritance or estate tax, though transfer formalities and your home country’s own reporting obligations can still apply.

Can I hold Costa Rican property through a trust and still qualify for investor residency?

It’s possible, but the documentation immigration authorities require differs from a straightforward personal-name purchase, so confirm this with your attorney before the structure is finalized.

What happens if I buy property with cryptocurrency and later pass away?

The property passes through the same estate tools as any other asset, but heirs will need clean documentation of the original source of funds.

How much does it cost to set up a trust or estate plan in Costa Rica?

A basic will typically costs in the low hundreds of dollars; a fideicomiso involves a setup fee plus an ongoing annual trustee fee that scales with asset value and complexity.

Can a foreign trust own my Costa Rican assets instead of a local fideicomiso?

In some cases a foreign trust can hold shares of a Costa Rican company that owns the asset, which can work for larger estates but adds cross-jurisdictional coordination.

Who can act as trustee (fiduciario) for a Costa Rican estate planning trust?

The trustee is typically a bank’s trust department or a specialized fiduciary company. AG Trust, part of the AG Legal group, provides fiduciary services in Costa Rica, including estate planning trusts, so the legal plan and the trust can be handled together.

Can my unmarried partner inherit from me in Costa Rica?

Only if the union is legally recognized, which requires that both partners were free to marry. If you were still legally married to someone else, a long-term partner does not inherit automatically, so a will is the safest way to provide for them within the alimony duty owed to dependents.

Do my heirs inherit my debts along with my Costa Rican assets?

Not with their own money. Debts are paid out of the estate itself before anything is distributed — heirs are never personally liable beyond what the estate contains. If debts exceed the assets, heirs simply don’t receive a distribution; they aren’t required to cover the shortfall personally.

What’s the first step I should take?

Start with an inventory of exactly what you own in Costa Rica and how each asset is currently titled.

This guide is for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Costa Rican succession and trust law applies differently depending on your specific assets, family situation, and residency status — consult a licensed Costa Rican attorney before acting on any of the structures described here.