The United States trade authorities consider that public bidding processes in which state companies participate in Costa Rica constitute a barrier in bilateral economic relations.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) identified eight trade barriers, including public procurementin the National Trade Estimation Report on Foreign Trade Barriers 2026 (NTE), published on March 31.
In the document, the USTR points out that American companies have indicated that, at times, the private sector is disadvantaged in public tenders when competing with Costa Rican state companies, both in the insurance sector as well as in the information and communications technologies sector.
Furthermore, it mentions that the Public Procurement Law allows non-competitive award of contracts to public entities, provided that it is certified that this option constitutes an efficient use of public funds.
The NTE indicates that Costa Rica has binding obligations regarding public procurement under DR-Cafta and that it requested its accession to the Agreement on Public Procurement (GPA) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in September 2023.
According to data from the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR), during 2025 the awards granted to the Costa Rican Radiographic company (Racsa) totaled ¢85.2 million; the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity (ICE) totaled ¢2,596.4 million; and the National Insurance Institute (INS), ¢1,851.8 million.
Mario Hidalgo, lead partner of Taxes at Grant Thornton, pointed out that this issue became relevant, especially after the USTR report that identifies public bidding as one of the “barriers” that affect American companies in the country.
“In terms of contracting, the Executive has stressed that the General Public Contracting Law sought unify regimes and improve transparency, efficiency and alignment with the good practices of the OECD,” he noted.
In addition, The country maintains a dialogue with the United States to address concerns, without giving up the power to prioritize the public interest and the efficiency of spending, explained the specialist.
Hidalgo added that, in the internal discussion, the possibility of carrying out a review of the use of article 2 of the law, referring to inter-institutional contracting, has been raised.
This would make it possible to balance collaboration between public entities – when it is really more efficient – and prevent it from being used expansively as a mechanism to exclude the private sector from processes where effective competition would exist, he considered.
On the other hand, he explained that Costa Rica is not part of the WTO GPA, but has been an observer of the WTO Public Procurement Committee since June 2015.
Hidalgo recalled that the Ministry of Foreign Trade (Comex) officially announced that Costa Rica requested, on September 28, 2023, to begin negotiations to join the ACP.
