Costa rica Country Commercial Guide
Learn about the market conditions, opportunities, regulations, and business conditions in costa rica, prepared by at U.S. Embassies worldwide by Commerce Department, State Department and other U.S. agencies’ professionals
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Standards for Trade
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Overview

The Costa Rican Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC) is responsible for the development and implementation of standards and regulations that local and foreign companies must follow to sell their products in the local market. These regulations are mostly related to labeling, usage instructions and open competition.  They also issue safety related regulations. 

Standards

The Costa Rican government accepts U.S. commercial and product standards.  An accreditation system has not been implemented in Costa Rica due to the lack of adequate laboratory equipment and funding.  In some cases, U.S. and domestic companies doing business in Costa Rica use the International Standards Organization (ISO) designation in their promotional campaigns.

As of March 2021, The Technical Standards Institute of Costa Rica (INTECO) who represents ISO in Costa Rica, reported that 98 companies have been granted ISO 14001 certification for environmental responsibility. Certified companies currently include banana producers, hotel operators in ecologically sensitive areas and other agribusinesses.  INTECO also reported that 316 companies have met ISO 9001 requirements of quality management, 98 are certified with ISO 18001 in information technology and 223 are certified with ISO 22000 in Food safety management systems.  Certification to ISO standards is voluntary.  The Government of Costa Rica does not require that foreign companies must be certified with ISO (9000 and 14000) standards to export to Costa Rica.  

Standards Organizations

The Instituto de Normas Tecnicas de Costa Rica (INTECO) is an independent association that was started in 1987. It is a private, non-profit body with representatives from the public and private sectors of the Costa Rican economy. 

INTECO seeks to consistently improve standards-related activities with the goal of promoting the quality of goods and services manufactured or offered for sale within the country. 

The Government of the Republic recognizes INTECO as the National Standards Body.  INTECO began quality system registration activities in 1995, under an agreement with AENOR.  In 1999, INTECO introduced environmental management system registration, also under agreement with AENOR. The product certification service is offered to INTECO’s clients independently.  

Conformity Assessment 

The Instituto de Normas Tecnicas (INTECO) is the only entity accredited in Costa Rica that can certify that companies are following standards-related requirements: 

Institute of Technological Norms of Costa Rica (INTECO) 

San Pedro, Montes de Oca, Barrio Gonzalez Flores, de Muñoz y Nanne 400 Mts. Norte, contiguo al Laboratorio de Materiales de la Universidad de Costa Rica.  

P.O. Box 10004-1000 

San Jose, Costa Rica 

Phone: (506) 2283-4522 

Fax: (506) 2283-4831 

Email: info@inteco.org 

The Costa Rican organization in charge of accreditation of entities is the Costa Rican Accreditation Entity (ECA). The ECA’s website contains a page showing the full list of Costa Rican testing organizations accredited by them.  ECA is a non-state public entity and the accreditations issued by them to have a national level. They accredit the areas of testing and calibration in laboratories, clinical laboratories, inspection bodies, certification bodies and greenhouse gas verification bodies. 

The Costa Rican Ministry of Health is responsible for the registration and authorization of import permits for food products, chemical products, cosmetics, vitamin supplements, drugs and other pharmaceutical products imported into Costa Rica. The Costa Rican Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) is responsible for the registration and authorization of import permits for fertilizers and agricultural products imported into the country.  These ministries’ addresses are: 

The Costa Rican Ministry of Science and Technology (MICIT) is the government agency that provides accreditation services to testing laboratories, calibration laboratories, inspection bodies, certification bodies and clinical laboratories, through Costa Rican Accreditation Entity (ECA), the standards certifying organization in Costa Rica.

Publication of Technical Regulations  

Official technical regulations are published in the Government of Costa Rica journal, La Gaceta.  Both proposed and final regulations are announced in this publication. U.S. companies interested in commenting on proposed regulations should have a representative in the country with the ability to keep the U.S. company informed of any new regulations proposed by the government. La Gaceta is part of the National Printing Office (Imprenta Nacional). 

Contact Information

  

U.S. Commercial Service Costa Rica  

Ricardo Cardona - Senior Commercial Specialist  

Email: Ricardo.Cardona@trade.gov 

 

USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Costa Rica 

Víctor González – Senior Agricultural Specialist;  

Email: Victor.Gonzalez@fas.usda.gov 

Use ePing to review proposed technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures. 

The ePing SPS&TBT platform (https://epingalert.org/), or “ePing”, provides access to notifications made by World Trade Organization (WTO) Members under the Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), distributed by the WTO from January 16, 1995 to present.  ePing is available to all stakeholders free of charge and does not require registration unless the user wishes to receive customized e-mail alerts.  Use it to browse notifications on past as well as new draft and updated product regulations, food safety and animal and plant health standards and regulations, find information on trade concerns discussed in the WTO SPS and TBT Committees, locate information on SPS/TBT Enquiry Points and notification authorities, and to follow and review current and past notifications concerning regulatory actions on products, packaging, labeling, food safety and animal and plant health measures in markets of interest. 

Notify U.S., operated and maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) since 2003 to distribute and provide access to notifications (and associated draft texts) made under the WTO TBT Agreement for US stakeholders, has reached its end of life. Per obligation under the TBT Agreement, each WTO Member operates a national TBT (and an SPS) Enquiry Point.  National TBT Enquiry Points are authorized to accept comments and official communications from other national TBT Enquiry Points, which are NOT part of the WTO or the WTO Secretariat.  All comment submissions from U.S. stakeholders, including businesses, trade associations, U.S domiciled standards development organizations and conformity assessment bodies, consumers, or U.S. government agencies on notifications to the WTO TBT Committee should be sent directly to the USA WTO TBT Inquiry Point.  Refer to the comment guidance at https://tsapps.nist.gov/notifyus/data/guidance/guidance.cfm for further information. This guidance is provided to assist U.S. stakeholders in the preparation and submission of comments in response to notifications of proposed foreign technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures.