Today Costa Rica celebrates 205 years of independence. There are parades, lanterns and speeches about sovereignty. From Guanacaste, I want to use the date to ask an uncomfortable question: who actually decides what happens to this land?
Guanacaste did not become part of Costa Rica by accident. In 1824, the Partido de Nicoya chose to join the country. It was an act of self-determination. Two centuries later, almost everything that shapes the province’s future is decided far away, decided late, or not decided at all. Water, land use, the coastline and the value of land are all on that list.
I work every day on purchases, title studies and due diligence between Liberia and Tamarindo. What follows is not a complaint. It is a diagnosis backed by data, and at the end I say what I cannot claim.
For buyers in the U.S. and Canada: these are the four issues I check before anyone signs for property in Guanacaste.
1. We build like a boomtown and plan like a village
In 2025, Guanacaste recorded 1,430,440 m² of new construction. That is 19.1% of everything built in Costa Rica, and 2.6 times what the province built a decade earlier. Santa Cruz, only the 19th most populous canton, leads the country in residential construction.
Under what rules is all of that being built? Very few. In 2020, only 4 of Guanacaste’s 11 cantons had a zoning plan (plan regulador) in force: Liberia, Nicoya, Santa Cruz and Tilarán. Nationwide, more than half of the plans in force predated the year 2000, and most covered only part of their canton. Producing one costs hundreds of millions of colones and goes through two national agencies, SETENA and INVU, with years of paperwork.
The result is that the market zones the land by itself: lot by lot, permit by permit, first come, first served.
2. We sell homes where water is not guaranteed
A few months ago, the president of AyA, the national water utility, put it bluntly: in some areas, the systems can no longer issue new water availability letters.
In Guanacaste this was coming. In 2022, one in five water availability requests in the Chorotega region was rejected, counting both AyA and the community water boards (ASADAs). By 2024, more than 20 local water systems lacked the technical capacity to approve new connections. The big fix, the Paacume project, is scheduled for 2030. AyA’s own president warns that without orderly growth, we will be back in the same place in 10, 15 or 25 years.
Meanwhile, the country does not bill 53% of the water it produces.
This is not abstract. In my practice I have seen projects stopped by a denied water letter after the lot was already bought. The buyer paid for land and discovered they had bought a problem.
3. We tax property on fictional values
This is the point that bothers me most, because I see it in the National Registry every day.
I cross-checked three sources: the tax value recorded in the National Registry, the reference values published by the government’s valuation office (ONT) for each zone, and short-term rental income. In Cuajiniquil I found a property with a recorded tax value of ₡568 per square meter. The ONT’s median reference value for that zone is around ₡15,000. That is roughly 4%.
It is not an isolated case. It is the pattern. When the declared value is a fraction of the real one, the municipality collects property tax on a fiction. Then we complain that there are no roads, no sewers, no zoning plan and no staff to enforce the rules.
The maritime zone (zona marítimo terrestre, the public coastal strip held under concession) follows the same logic. An investigation by La Voz de Guanacaste, using 2016 data, found that Santa Cruz, with 94 km of coastline, collected ₡160 million in concession fees. Carrillo, with 52 km and a comprehensive coastal plan, collected ₡318 million. And 90% of Santa Cruz’s 129 concessions had gone more than five years without an appraisal. I would welcome updated figures that prove this picture wrong.
4. And not even investors are winning
You might think someone, at least, is winning from this disorder. The data does not say so.
Between 2020 and 2023, coastal property prices rose more than 400%, according to the National University’s tourism observatory (Obtur–UNA). A Guanacaste native who grew up in Tamarindo, Brasilito or Sámara can no longer buy or rent where they grew up.
But the business that justified much of those prices, short-term rentals, is past its peak. In the 60-month series I analyzed, every coastal market peaked in 2022 and has since fallen between 9% and 28% in revenue. The only market I analyzed that is still rising is La Fortuna, which is neither on the coast nor in Guanacaste.
When we pay more, get less, and the infrastructure cannot keep up, that is not development. It is consuming the land on credit.
A month ago I explained why banning short-term rentals would not return a single home to the long-term rental market. The answer is not prohibition. It is planning, and planning is exactly what we are not doing.
What I cannot claim
In the interest of intellectual honesty, this is what the data does not allow me to say:
- I cannot say all of Guanacaste is declared at 4% of its value. Cuajiniquil is representative of the pattern I see, but I have not surveyed every property in the province. The gap varies by zone and by how old the last declaration is.
- I do not have 2026 figures on zoning plans. The 4-of-11 figure is from 2020. Some processes may have advanced since then, which would be good news.
- The rental data are modeled estimates, not declared income. They show trends; they do not value a specific property.
- The decline since 2022 does not make Guanacaste a bad investment. It means the entry price can no longer be justified by rental income alone, and that property-by-property analysis matters more than ever.
- I do not blame a single institution. This disorder is produced by municipalities, national agencies, developers, brokers, lawyers and buyers together. I include myself.
Three things we can do now
1. Municipalities: tax reality. The ONT value platforms already exist. Using them systematically and putting the revenue into water and planning does not require a new law. It requires a decision.
2. Brokers and lawyers: stop selling what cannot be used. Before listing a property or drafting an option to purchase, confirm water availability, land-use zoning and the maritime-zone status. If any of those is missing, say so in writing.
3. Buyers: demand full due diligence before you pay. That means a water availability letter, a land-use certificate and a serious title study, before the option agreement, not after the transfer. A good deal in Guanacaste starts by confirming you can build and turn on the tap.
Independence is not something you celebrate once a year. It is something you exercise when you decide, with data and clear rules, what to do with what is yours.
Guanacaste chose once. It is time to choose again.
This article was first published in Spanish on September 15, Costa Rica’s Independence Day.
Sources
- El Financiero, “Cómo la falta de agua redefine el futuro turístico y residencial de Guanacaste,” July 23, 2026 (2025 construction from CFIA data; availability rejections per Aresep’s 2023 report; water systems without capacity per Obtur).
- El Financiero, interview with the president of AyA, June 17, 2026.
- Periódico Mensaje Guanacaste, “Liberia, Nicoya, Santa Cruz y Tilarán forman parte de los 41 cantones del país con un Plan Regulador vigente,” March 11, 2020.
- AmeliaRueda.com, “Planes reguladores en el olvido,” October 14, 2019.
- La Voz de Guanacaste, “Desorden en concesiones se traga riqueza de Santa Cruz” (2016 data).
- Observatorio del Turismo, Migraciones y Desarrollo Sostenible (Obtur–UNA), coastal price changes 2020–2023.
- Costa Rica National Registry and Oficina de Normalización Técnica (SNIT), recorded tax values and zone reference values.
- Source: AirROI (www.airroi.com). Short-term rental data aggregated at market level.
Note: this article is my own professional analysis. Rental data are modeled estimates from AirROI, provided “as is,” and do not constitute investment advice. AirROI assumes no responsibility for any claims, losses or damages arising from this analysis. This content is informational and is not a substitute for legal advice on a specific matter.
