ILO Convention 190 in Costa Rica: What Changes for Employers

ILO Convention 190 in Costa Rica: What Changes for Employers Starting October 2, 2026

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ILO Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the world of work takes full legal effect in Costa Rica on October 2, 2026. This is not just one more policy to file away: the Convention requires every employer — public or private — to show it actively manages the risk of violence and harassment, not merely that it reacts once something has happened. In practice, this means the Sexual Harassment policy your company should already have (under Law No. 7,476) needs to be updated to the Convention’s broader scope, and that a second document is needed to cover what that law never addressed: workplace harassment and violence in general. This guide explains what the Convention requires, why it calls for two policies rather than one, and how AG Legal can build them for your company.

What ILO Convention 190 Is

The Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190) was adopted in June 2019 at the International Labour Conference in Geneva, with 439 votes in favor, 7 against, and 30 abstentions (Costa Rica’s employer representation at the ILO was among the votes against). It is the first international treaty to recognize every person’s right to a world of work free from violence and harassment, including violence and harassment based on gender.

The Convention defines violence and harassment as any behavior, practice, or threat — whether a single incident or repeated — that causes or is likely to cause physical, psychological, sexual, or economic harm. This broad definition is intentional: it doesn’t require that harm has already occurred, and it covers conduct that Costa Rican internal policies often missed, such as sustained psychological mistreatment, economic violence, or harassment through digital work channels.

Timeline in Costa Rica: From Ratification to Full Effect

Costa Rica approved ratification of Convention 190 through Law No. 10,749 and deposited the instrument of ratification with the ILO on October 2, 2025. Under Article 14 of the Convention itself, it enters into force for each country 12 months after that deposit. That period runs out on October 2, 2026, the date on which the Convention becomes fully effective and enforceable in the country.

Costa Rica joins a growing list of countries in the region that have ratified the Convention, against the backdrop of a complementary legislative bill (bill file 25,138) aimed at promoting healthy work environments — one the ILO itself has flagged as an opportunity to build a tripartite roadmap (government, employers, workers) for implementation.

Who Does the Convention Protect?

One feature HR departments and management should pay close attention to is that the Convention does not protect only active employees under a current contract. Its personal scope includes:

• Employees, regardless of contract type
• Trainees and interns — in Costa Rican practice, this corresponds to technical high-school students completing supervised work placements as a graduation requirement: the 5th-year internship (pasantía) and the 6th-year professional practicum. The Convention protects them the same as any other worker, even though they aren’t paid a salary
• Volunteers
• Job seekers and applicants for a position
• Workers whose employment relationship has already ended
• Individuals exercising the authority, duties, or responsibilities of an employer (middle managers, supervisors, executives)

It applies to both the public and private sectors, and to both formal and informal employment relationships.

Where and When Does It Apply?

The Convention drops the idea that violence and harassment only happen “inside the office.” Its coverage expressly includes:

• The workplace itself
• Business travel and work-related trips
• The commute between home and the workplace
• Work-related social activities, training, and events
• Remote work (teletrabajo) and electronic communications tied to the employment relationship
• Public spaces, when the incident is work-related
• In some cases, the worker’s own home

For a typical Costa Rican company, this means a team WhatsApp chat, a year-end party, a corporate trip, or a remote-work video call falls squarely within the Convention’s scope, just as an incident at the office would. One very concrete and increasingly common example: memes or edited stickers featuring a coworker’s face, shared in the company group chat, can constitute harassment or violence if they’re humiliating, sexualized, or create a hostile environment — even when the sender claims it was “just a joke” with no intent to harm. This type of conduct, typical of digital work communications, is exactly the kind of situation a company’s internal policy needs to address expressly.

Catalog: What Counts as Workplace Harassment and Violence at Work

One of the most practical changes Convention 190 brings is that case law alone is no longer the reference point for what counts as workplace harassment: there is now a mandatory legal framework that substantially broadens which conduct is covered. Below is a reference catalog — not exhaustive — organized into two groups.

What Costa Rican case law already recognized as mobbing (before the Convention)

• Assigning impossible workloads, or stripping a worker of their duties without justification (the “empty chair syndrome”)
• Shouting, public humiliation, or ongoing ridicule from supervisors or coworkers
• Deliberate social isolation within the workplace
• Conduct that can run in any hierarchical direction: top-down (supervisor to employee), horizontal (between peers), or bottom-up (subordinates toward a superior)

This case-law catalog, together with the applicable investigation procedure, is covered in more depth in Workplace Harassment and Sexual Harassment in Costa Rica.

What Convention 190 Adds or Expressly Broadens

• Physical violence: any assault or threat of bodily assault connected to the workplace
• Psychological violence: beyond systematic mobbing, this includes threats, intimidation, sufficiently serious isolated humiliation, and degrading treatment
• Economic violence: for example, conditioning benefits, commissions, or salary payment as a form of pressure or retaliation
• Gender-based violence and harassment, including but not limited to sexual harassment under Law 7,476
• Violence from third parties: clients, vendors, contractors, users, or visitors — not only between coworkers or within the internal hierarchy
• Conduct via remote work and digital channels: group chats, video calls, offensive memes or stickers, after-hours messages with intimidating intent
• Conduct occurring during business travel, social activities, training, and the commute between home and the workplace
• Threats and conduct directed at applicants, former employees, interns, or volunteers, not only active staff under a current contract
• A single sufficiently serious incident can be enough in certain cases, with no need for repetition — unlike the traditional mobbing standard, which usually requires a pattern

What Changes for Companies

Costa Rica already had rules on sexual harassment, discrimination, and the protection of fundamental rights. What Convention 190 introduces is a broader, more integrated, and above all more preventive approach. The core shift can be summed up like this: the expectation is no longer just reacting properly to a complaint — the organization must now demonstrate it has taken reasonable measures to prevent violence and harassment from happening in the first place.

1. Broader Protection

As detailed above, the Convention’s personal and material scope is much wider than what current internal policies usually cover. Companies need to check whether their regulations and protocols account for applicants, former employees, volunteers, and interns, and whether they cover remote work and digital communications.

2. Greater Emphasis on Prevention

Having a complaint-investigation procedure is no longer enough. The Convention expects an organization to be able to answer “yes” to questions such as:

• Have we identified the factors that could favor violence or harassment in our operations?
• Do our leaders and middle managers know how to spot conflict early?
• Do we train our people on this regularly?
• Do we have early-intervention mechanisms before a situation escalates into a formal complaint?
• Do we periodically assess whether our preventive measures actually work?

Prevention stops being an optional best practice and becomes an essential part of the company’s labor risk management.

3. Stronger Internal Procedures

Complaint and investigation mechanisms need to be reviewed to guarantee core principles: confidentiality, impartiality, due process, and protection against retaliation. Convention 190 requires these principles to exist in writing and on a preventive basis; how to actually conduct an investigation once a complaint exists — investigating committee, formal charges, hearings, proceedings before the MTSS, and eventual litigation — is a separate topic we cover in depth in Workplace Harassment and Sexual Harassment in Costa Rica: Legal Guide and Risks for Employers.

Psychosocial Risks and Occupational Safety and Health

One of Convention 190’s most important contributions is that it takes violence and harassment out of a purely disciplinary framework and folds them into occupational safety and health (OSH) management, at the same level as any other occupational risk. In practice, that means identifying organizational factors that can increase risk, such as:

• How work is organized (workloads, shifts, hierarchies)
• Authoritarian or negligent leadership styles
• Unmanaged interpersonal conflict
• Exposure to violence from third parties outside the direct employment relationship

In practice, this brings prevention of violence and harassment to the same standard of diligence already expected, for example, in ergonomics or occupational-accident prevention: risk identification, mitigation measures, and periodic evaluation.

Violence and Harassment from Third Parties

The Convention recognizes that violence and harassment don’t always come from coworkers or supervisors. Clients, vendors, contractors, users, or visitors can generate these situations too, and the company is responsible for managing that risk as well.

This is especially relevant for sectors with direct public-facing roles: retail, healthcare, education, transportation, security, and any activity with high interaction with third parties. These companies should consider specific protocols — training staff to handle difficult situations, accessible reporting channels, and physical protection measures where appropriate — to manage this type of risk separately.

Concrete Commitments Employers Take On

With the Convention’s entry into force, Costa Rican companies must meet the following practical commitments:

1. Review and update internal policies on violence and harassment to align with the new standard, ideally in consultation with employees.
2. Identify and assess the risks of violence and harassment specific to their operations and sector.
3. Implement concrete preventive measures, not only reactive mechanisms.
4. Fold violence and harassment — and the associated psychosocial risks — into occupational safety and health management.
5. Provide periodic information, training, and awareness campaigns to all staff, including those in leadership positions.
6. Maintain complaint and investigation mechanisms that guarantee confidentiality, impartiality, due process, and protection against retaliation — conducting those cases, committee included, is a matter of the investigation and defense support AG Legal offers as a separate service.
7. Document the preventive measures adopted: the ability to prove concrete actions will matter increasingly from a compliance and legal-risk-management standpoint.

How It Relates to Existing Costa Rican Law

Convention 190 does not replace Costa Rica’s existing legal framework in this area — it complements and expands it. Costa Rica has had the Sexual Harassment in Employment and Education Law (No. 7,476) for years, along with general non-discrimination rules derived from the Labor Code and the Constitution. Those rules remain fully in force.

It’s worth being practical here: Law 7,476 requires every company to have a Sexual Harassment policy, but the formal route for updating Internal Labor Regulations with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS) is, in practice, slow — drafting and approval can take months or even years. Waiting for that approval to comply with Convention 190 isn’t a realistic option for any company. The right alternative is to adopt internal policies that take effect immediately, which don’t require MTSS filing to become effective, paired with real training for HR, staff, and management. That combination — clear policies plus genuine training — is, in practice, what a labor judge looks at when deciding whether a company acted with due diligence.

One Policy or Two? Why Keeping Them Separate Is Cleaner

Given so many new obligations at once, the natural temptation is to merge everything into a single document: one “comprehensive policy” covering violence, workplace harassment, and sexual harassment in one text under one procedure. AG Legal does not recommend that route, for a very specific technical reason worth understanding before deciding.

That’s why the cleanest approach — and the most defensible one before the MTSS and a labor judge — is to maintain two specialized, coordinated documents. The exact procedural differences between the two figures — including the evidentiary standard, the ban on conciliation, and the stages of the investigation procedure — are already covered in detail in Workplace Harassment and Sexual Harassment in Costa Rica: Legal Guide and Risks for Employers. Here we focus on something different: what each document needs to contain to comply with Convention 190 from a prevention standpoint, before any complaint exists to investigate.

The bridge between the two documents is a single intake complaint channel: the same email address, the same form, the same HR contact person. That channel does an initial triage — if the reported conduct has a sexual component, it’s routed to the Law 7,476 procedure; if not, to the workplace harassment and violence protocol. That way, employees experience “one door” for filing a complaint, without the company sacrificing the specific procedural rigor each legal category requires.

What Your Company Should Update or Build Now

The Convention’s entry into force shouldn’t simply mean approving a new policy and filing it away. It’s an opportunity to review the organization’s prevention model as a whole — and, in most cases, to move from an outdated Sexual Harassment policy and no workplace harassment protocol at all, to two coordinated, current documents.

Risks of Not Preparing

Although Convention 190 doesn’t automatically create its own catalog of administrative penalties in Costa Rica, its entry into force does have practical consequences for companies that don’t prepare:

• Litigation risk: a lack of policies, training, or documented protocols can significantly weaken a company’s position in a harassment, discrimination, or wrongful termination claim related to these events — including the moral-damages claim that can accompany a poorly handled constructive dismissal (see the detail in Workplace Harassment and Sexual Harassment in Costa Rica).
• Reputational risk: poorly handled violence or harassment cases affect employer brand, talent retention, and business relationships, especially with international clients or partners that require compliance standards across their supply chains.
• Escalation risk: without early-intervention mechanisms, minor conflicts can escalate into formal complaints, disciplinary processes, or even civil liability.
• Growing regulatory pressure: with a complementary legislative bill already in progress (bill file 25,138), Costa Rica’s framework in this area is likely to keep tightening in the coming years.

Official Sources

• International Labour Organization (ILO)
• Costa Rica Ministry of Labor and Social Security
• La Gaceta — National Printing Office (Law No. 10,749, ratifying Convention 190)
• Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica

Frequently Asked Questions

When does ILO Convention 190 take effect in Costa Rica?

On October 2, 2026, twelve months after Costa Rica deposited its instrument of ratification with the ILO on October 2, 2025, under the Article 14 rule of the Convention itself.

What exactly does Convention 190 prohibit?

It prohibits any behavior, practice, or threat — whether a single incident or repeated — that causes or is likely to cause physical, psychological, sexual, or economic harm connected to work, including gender-based violence and harassment.

Who does Convention 190 protect?

Employees under any type of contract, apprentices, interns, volunteers, job seekers, applicants, and people whose employment relationship has already ended, in both the public and private sectors.

Is remote work covered by the Convention?

Yes. The Convention expressly covers remote work and electronic communications connected to employment, as well as travel, commutes, and work-related social activities.

What really changes for a company that already has a harassment policy?

The main shift is in approach: moving from a reactive model (investigating complaints as they come in) to a preventive one, which requires identifying risks, training continuously, intervening early, and being able to document those actions. A harassment policy that doesn’t address this likely needs updating.

Does Convention 190 replace the Sexual Harassment Law (No. 7,476)?

No. Law 7,476 remains fully in force and focuses specifically on sexual harassment. Convention 190 has a broader scope — all forms of violence and harassment — and adds a preventive risk-management requirement that complements, rather than replaces, existing law.

Is violence from a client toward an employee covered too?

Yes. The Convention recognizes that violence and harassment can come from third parties — clients, vendors, contractors, users, or visitors — and expects companies to manage that risk too, especially in public-facing sectors.

What happens if my company doesn’t update its policies before October 2, 2026?

Not preparing doesn’t automatically trigger an administrative penalty on October 3, but it does increase the company’s legal risk in any related labor litigation, weakens its position before the Ministry of Labor, and can carry reputational and talent-retention consequences.

Is it mandatory to train all staff, or just HR?

The Convention expects training and awareness efforts to reach all staff, with particular emphasis on those in leadership positions, since they’re the ones who need to identify and manage conflict early.

Is there any related bill moving through the legislature?

Yes. There’s a legislative bill (file 25,138) aimed at promoting healthy work environments, which reinforces Convention 190’s preventive logic and could translate into additional obligations for companies in the coming years.

Do I need one policy that covers everything, or two separate documents?

Two separate, coordinated documents. Merging everything into one text risks mistakenly applying conciliation — prohibited in sexual harassment cases — to a case that doesn’t allow it, and blurs the distinct evidentiary standard each category carries. The right approach is to keep the Sexual Harassment Policy (Law 7,476) updated and create a Workplace Harassment and Violence Protocol (Convention 190) as an independent document, both connected through a single intake channel with initial triage.

Why can’t conciliation apply equally to both types of case?

Because Law 7,476 expressly prohibits conciliation in sexual harassment cases, while in workplace harassment (mobbing), conciliation is a valid and common option. A single procedure for both figures risks applying the wrong route, which can trigger a procedural nullity.

Why an internal policy instead of Internal Labor Regulations filed with the MTSS?

Because the approval process for Internal Labor Regulations with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security can take months or years. Well-drafted internal policies, properly communicated and backed by documented training, take effect immediately.

Can AG Legal help my company prepare for Convention 190?

Yes. AG Legal reviews and updates existing Sexual Harassment policies to the Convention 190 standard, and drafts the new Workplace Harassment and Violence Protocol, including the coordinated complaint channel, the training plan, and the compliance documentation needed.

How AG Legal Can Help

AG Legal supports Costa Rican companies in bringing their internal violence- and harassment-prevention framework in line with ILO Convention 190, using a two coordinated documents approach rather than one merged policy. Our labor law team can help with:

• Assessing the current state of internal policies and protocols against the new standard
• Reviewing and updating the Sexual Harassment Policy (Law 7,476), broadening its coverage without altering its special procedure
• Drafting the new Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention Protocol, aligned with Convention 190
• Designing the coordinated complaint channel, with the triage rule between both procedures
• Incorporating violence and harassment into the occupational safety and health risk assessment
• Supporting documentation of the preventive measures adopted, for compliance and legal-risk-management purposes
• Training sessions for HR, management, and staff in general

If your company is already facing an open complaint or needs to conduct an investigation, that’s a separate service: see Investigation and Defense in Workplace Harassment Cases.

Recommended Reading

• Workplace Harassment and Sexual Harassment in Costa Rica: Legal Guide and Risks for Employers — procedural differences, investigation procedure, and moral-damages litigation risk
• Termination Without Employer Liability in Costa Rica

This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace individualized legal advice. Laws, guidelines, and their interpretation may change; always consult an attorney before making decisions based on this content.