Costa Rica's public procurement landscape: what to expect in 2026

The Costa Rican State buys through a single electronic platform and under a unified legal framework. For an international supplier that means two things: information is public and traceable, and the rules are the same for every institution, regardless of its size.

Investment is concentrated in a relatively small group of buyers. ICE and the power sector utilities in generation and transmission; the social security fund in healthcare; AyA and the municipal utilities in water and sanitation; MOPT and CONAVI in road infrastructure. Knowing the budget cycle of each one is worth more than tracking total State spending.

The calendar matters as much as the sector. Ordinary budgets are approved at year end and higher-value procedures tend to be published in the first months of the fiscal year, while projects financed by multilateral development banks follow their own rhythm, set by disbursements rather than by the fiscal calendar.

For a company evaluating market entry our recommendation is concrete: pick two or three target institutions, review the procedures they declared unsuccessful over recent years, and understand why they were never awarded. That is usually where you find the most useful signal about what the locally available offer is missing.