The fee a notary quotes on a house sale in Costa Rica is a legal minimum, not an opening position to negotiate down. A 2022 decree tried to make notarial fees optional, and a court annulled it in February 2024. For a buyer working out what a closing will actually cost, that fixed scale is a more useful fact than any single rounded percentage.

The transfer tax is fixed at 1.5 percent

Costa Rica’s transfer tax, the impuesto de traspaso, is 1.5 percent of the transaction (Law 6999). It is calculated on the real sale price or the property’s registered value, whichever is higher. A sale price quietly set below the registered value therefore does not lower the bill. Buyer and seller are joint and equal contributors under the law, though on this coast the buyer usually pays the full amount as a condition of the deal. The notary handling the closing withholds the tax. It has to be remitted with a sworn declaration of value within 15 business days of signing the transfer deed.

The notary fee follows a fixed scale, not a quote

Notarial fees for a property sale are not a number a buyer and notary agree on freely. A minimum has applied since 1 February 2019 (Decree 41457-JP, article 74). It is 2 percent on the first 11,000,000 colones of the transaction and 1.5 percent on the part between 11,000,000 and 16,500,000 colones. Between 16,500,000 and 33,000,000 colones the rate is 1.25 percent; above that, 1 percent. No sale pays less than 60,500 colones.

A 13 percent value-added tax applies on top of the fee itself, and a quote should say whether the figure given already includes it. The Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas, the bar association that sets the scale, publishes a free calculator that runs these figures automatically. A buyer can use it to check a notary’s quote against the decree before signing anything.

Why the minimum stopped being optional, briefly

The 2019 scale was the first full rewrite since 2015. It replaced an older decree that had called for the tiers to be adjusted every two years; they were not. In 2022 a separate executive decree (43704-JP) tried to turn the 2019 minimums into reference figures a notary was free to discount. It also removed the disciplinary sanctions for charging less.

The Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo y Civil de Hacienda annulled that decree on 16 February 2024 (resolution 2024-958). Its reasoning was that setting professional fees is the bar association’s own authority, and that the executive branch’s decree had exceeded its regulatory power. A notary who quotes less than the article 74 scale for a property sale is again exposed to discipline. It can run from a written warning to suspension.

A further appeal or a new schedule from the bar association could move the numbers again. A current, written quote is worth more than a remembered percentage.

What else belongs in the estimate

Registration stamps and the Registro Nacional’s own filing charges add a further cost on top of the tax and the notary’s fee. Their exact components and current rates were not consistent across the sources checked for this piece, so no figure is given here rather than an invented one. Of the three lines in a closing, only the tax and the notary’s fee can be quoted precisely in advance. The stamps depend on details the notary confirms directly with the registry. That is why a notary handling a closing on this coast should itemise all three in writing before an offer is signed.

The municipal paperwork has a published price. The Municipalidad de Talamanca, which governs the canton from Cahuita to the Panamanian border, issues a certificación de estar al día (a certificate that taxes, fees and services owed to it are paid). According to the municipality’s own published answers to frequent questions, it is requested at the municipal service counter, costs 1,000 colones in municipal stamps, and is issued only when the account is current.

The figures above move with each decree and ruling, and a Costa Rican lawyer should confirm the current ones before a buyer signs.