Country deep dive
Costa Rica's e-invoicing regime traces back to a 2007 first regulation and a 2013 voluntary pilot, became mandatory for healthcare and other professional sectors in early 2018, and completed a general, ID-digit-staggered rollout under Resolution DGT-R-012-2018 by 1 November 2018. Since then, Hacienda has kept evolving the system: XML schema v4.4 became mandatory in September 2025, the TRIBU-CR platform replaced ATV in October 2025, and a further ID-format cutover is expected in November 2026.
Signed 19 February 2018 and published in La Gaceta N° 53 (Alcance Digital N° 60) on 20 March 2018, Resolution DGT-R-012-2018 ("Obligatoriedad General para el Uso de los Comprobantes Electrónicos") extended Costa Rica's existing e-invoicing requirement -- already mandatory for healthcare and other professional-service sectors since January-May 2018 under earlier, sector-specific resolutions -- to essentially all remaining tax-obligated taxpayers, staggered by the last digit of the taxpayer's ID number. Simplified-Regime (Régimen Simplificado) contributors and certain government/non-profit entities were excluded. Non-compliance was tied to Article 83 of the Código de Normas y Procedimientos Tributarios.
From 1 September 2018, under DGT-R-012-2018's staggered schedule, taxpayers whose ID number ends in 1, 2, or 3 became legally required to issue electronic Comprobantes -- the first wave of the general mandate, following healthcare providers and other professional-service sectors who had already been mandated earlier that year. Two further waves followed on 1 October (ID ending 4, 5, or 6) and 1 November 2018 (ID ending 0, 7, 8, or 9), completing the rollout.
From 1 November 2018, the final wave of DGT-R-012-2018's schedule brought in every remaining tax-obligated taxpayer whose ID ends in 0, 7, 8, or 9, completing the general mandate that had begun with healthcare and professional services in early 2018 and continued through the September and October waves. Régimen Simplificado contributors and a short list of public-sector/non-profit bodies (for non-commercial activity only) remained excluded. This is the flagship milestone: from this date, electronic invoicing became the default legal requirement for essentially all VAT-registered businesses in Costa Rica, with no revenue threshold.
Following Decree N° 44739-H (8 November 2024) and Resolutions MH-DGT-RES-0027-2024 and MH-DGT-RES-0001-2025, Hacienda opened voluntary adoption of Comprobantes Electrónicos schema version 4.4 on 1 April 2025, ran a coexistence window in which both v4.3 and v4.4 were valid, and made v4.4 mandatory from 1 September 2025. The new version adds payment-method codes (including SINPE Móvil and digital platforms), expanded fields for non-domiciled taxpayers, alcoholic-beverage fiscal-registry integration, more granular tax breakdowns, and enhanced exoneration/exemption documentation.
At 9:00 a.m. on Monday, 6 October 2025, Costa Rica's Ministerio de Hacienda activated TRIBU-CR (Sistema Integrado de Administración Tributaria), its new integrated tax platform, retiring the old free ATV invoicing tool the previous evening and launching a new free e-invoicing tool, TICO FACTURA, at the same time. The migration moved over 883 million records in the days beforehand. TRIBU-CR's launch was Phase 1 of a planned 9-phase, 28-module rollout, with full completion targeted for 2027 -- so this is the start of a multi-year platform transition, not a one-off cutover.
Presented 23 July 2026 by President Laura Fernández, Finance Minister Rodrigo Chaves, and Vice Minister Víctor Julio Carvajal, a 24-measure tax-enforcement package directly targets fraudulent electronic invoicing -- "false e-invoice" networks used to under-report tax -- proposing new legal authority for Hacienda to administratively suspend a firm's e-invoicing rights rather than relying on a lengthy judicial process. The same announcement disclosed the first 10 criminal complaints filed that week against fraudulent-invoice networks, out of more than 400 ongoing investigations, with one disclosed case involving over ₡41 million in improperly reduced tax. This is enforcement infrastructure layered on top of the existing mandate, not a new population being brought into e-invoicing for the first time.
Costa Rica's National Registry is moving from the current 6-digit numeric cédula jurídica format (e.g. 3-002-662100), whose roughly one million possible combinations are close to exhausted for new company registrations, to a new alphanumeric format (e.g. 3-101-A00001) under Decreto Ejecutivo 44648-MJ. Existing companies keep their current numeric IDs. To support this, Hacienda issued a schema v4.4 technical patch (dated 22 April 2026) adjusting issuer/receiver identification fields to accept alphanumeric characters. Invoicing systems are expected to validate and issue against the new ID format in production from 1 November 2026 -- though the broader cédula rollout timeline has been described elsewhere as not yet fully finalized, so treat this specific date as an expected target rather than a locked, independently-confirmed deadline.
A compliant invoice is generated as a digitally signed XML document and submitted to DGT's Recepción de Comprobantes Electrónicos API. DGT validates the document's structure, fields, and cross-references -- typically near-instant in practice, with a contractual maximum of 3 hours -- and returns an accepted or rejected status before the document is delivered to the recipient. This is a genuine clearance model: an invoice DGT hasn't accepted has no legal effect.
Vendor marketing sometimes describes this as pure "real-time" validation -- that's usually accurate in practice, but the binding SLA in DGT's own technical resolution is a 3-hour maximum, not an instant guarantee.
A Recibo Electrónico de Pago (payment receipt) was added as a further document type with schema v4.4 -- confirm your software issues it where required rather than assuming the five core types above are the complete list.
The exact digit-by-digit layout of the 50-digit clave numérica varies slightly across secondary sources -- treat the total length (50 digits) and general contents as reliable, but don't rely on a specific position-by-position breakdown without confirming it against Hacienda's current technical annex.
The mandate has been in place in some form since 2007, reached essentially all VAT taxpayers by November 2018, and continues to evolve technically rather than expanding in scope -- the current wave of change (schema v4.4, the TRIBU-CR platform, the upcoming ID-format cutover) is about how compliant businesses transmit and format their invoices, not about who has to comply.
B2B, B2C (via Tiquete Electrónico), and B2G transactions are all covered once a taxpayer is in scope -- this isn't a B2G-only or B2B-only regime.
Any commercial or VATable income earned by these same entities still requires e-invoicing -- the exemption is activity-specific, not a blanket carve-out for the organization.
A compliant Comprobante Electrónico moves through this sequence:
Only an aceptado document is a valid tax voucher -- an invoice DGT hasn't accepted has no legal effect, and one the recipient properly rejects doesn't support their deduction.
Most businesses reading this are likely already required to issue electronic Comprobantes -- the real, current work is keeping pace with Hacienda's ongoing technical transition (schema v4.4, TRIBU-CR, the 2026 ID-format cutover), not a first-time rollout.
Costa Rica's general mandate was staggered by the last digit of your taxpayer ID between September and November 2018 -- confirm your business has been compliant since its wave, not just aware of the mandate in general.
Small taxpayers can use Hacienda's own free tool; larger or higher-volume businesses typically use a certified third-party provider integrated into their accounting system.
Schema v4.4 became mandatory 1 September 2025 -- confirm your software or provider has actually implemented the new fields (SINPE Móvil, non-domiciled taxpayer data, exoneration documentation) rather than just passing basic validation.
As a recipient of B2B invoices, you must accept, partially accept, or reject each one within 8 business days of the following month -- missing this window can create disputes over deductibility.
ATV was retired the evening before TRIBU-CR launched on 6 October 2025 -- confirm your team is working entirely in the new platform and TICO FACTURA rather than referencing outdated ATV workflows.
Newly registered companies will carry IDs like 3-101-A00001 rather than the current all-numeric format -- confirm your invoicing and counterparty-validation logic doesn't hard-code a numeric-only pattern ahead of the expected 1 November 2026 production cutover.
Costa Rica backs its e-invoicing mandate with real, article-specific penalties under the Código de Normas y Procedimientos Tributarios (CNPT) -- pegged to Costa Rica's judicially-set base salary rather than fixed colón amounts -- and DGT has demonstrated it will actually enforce them: a single 2024 sweep fined 279 businesses over ₡253 million.
Other countries in the same region, ordered by their next dated milestone. Each links to a full briefing.