Cannabis Regulation in Costa Rica: Where the Law Stands

What can you legally do with cannabis in Costa Rica in 2026, and what still isn’t allowed?

Costa Rica cannabis regulation sits on a single foundational statute, Ley N° 10.113, the “Ley del cannabis para uso medicinal y terapéutico y del cáñamo para uso alimentario e industrial.” If you are an operator, investor, or would-be licensee trying to understand what is actually permitted, the short version is this: medical and therapeutic cannabis is legal, industrial and food hemp is legal, and recreational (adult-use) cannabis is not. This post walks through the law, the executive decrees that put it into practice, the three agencies that regulate the sector, and the questions investors ask most often, with every date and decree number tied to a primary source so you can verify it yourself.

Costa Rica cannabis regulation has matured in distinct stages since 2022, moving from a headline law to detailed reglamentos and, most recently, to a technical product standard that finally opened sanitary registration for THC-containing medicines. Understanding those stages, and where each one is binding today, is the difference between a compliant business plan and an expensive misread.

Is cannabis legal in Costa Rica right now?

Yes, but only for medical and therapeutic use, plus hemp for food and industrial use. Recreational or adult-use cannabis remains illegal.

Ley N° 10.113 was signed at the Presidencia de la República on 2 March 2022 and has been in force since 9 March 2022. The law authorizes psychoactive cannabis “con fines exclusivamente medicinales y terapéuticos” (for exclusively medical and therapeutic purposes) and separately authorizes hemp (cáñamo) for food and industrial use. There is no provision anywhere in the text for uso lúdico, or recreational consumption. So while Costa Rica cannabis regulation is genuinely permissive by regional standards, it is a controlled medical-and-industrial framework, not a legalization-for-all model.

This distinction matters commercially. A business plan built around dispensary-style adult-use retail has no legal basis in Costa Rica today. A plan built around licensed cultivation, industrialization, and export of medical products, or around industrial hemp, does.

What does Ley 10.113 actually permit?

Ley 10.113 creates two separate verticals: (a) cannabis for medical and therapeutic use, and (b) hemp for food and industrial use. Each vertical has its own purpose, its own products, and its own implementing regulation.

Article 1 (the objeto of the law) sets out both aims: to “permitir el acceso y la utilización del cannabis y sus derivados exclusivamente para uso medicinal y terapéutico,” and to “autorizar la producción, industrialización y comercialización del cáñamo de uso industrial y alimentario.” In plain terms, licensed operators can cultivate and process psychoactive cannabis for regulated medicines, and can grow and commercialize low-THC hemp for foods, fibers, and industrial derivatives.

Because the two verticals answer to different rules, Costa Rica cannabis regulation is best read not as one document but as a stack of instruments enacted over three years. The table below summarizes each one and when it took effect.

The instruments that make up Costa Rica cannabis regulation

A practical note for anyone reading older summaries: do not conflate these instruments. The hemp reglamento (Decreto 43689) governs cáñamo; the general reglamento (Decreto 44695) governs the medical vertical’s licensing and traceability; and RTCR 515:2024 (Decreto 44917) governs the finished medical products themselves. They are cumulative, not substitutes.

Who regulates cannabis in Costa Rica (MAG, Salud, ICD)?

Three institutions share the work. The Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería (MAG) licenses cultivation, the Ministerio de Salud licenses industrialization and registers products, and the Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas (ICD) verifies the lawful origin of an applicant’s capital.

Getting this split right is one of the most common failure points for new entrants, so it is worth being precise. Under Ley 10.113 and its official state licensing procedures, MAG is the competent authority to grant licenses for acquiring propagative material, cultivation, production, and connected primary-production activities involving psychoactive cannabis. In other words, if you want to acquire propagative material and grow, your license comes from MAG.

The Ministerio de Salud sits on the other side of the value chain. Under Article 9 of Ley 10.113, Salud issues industrialization licenses and research permits, and it runs product sanitary registration through its Regístrelo platform. If you want to manufacture, register, or commercialize a finished medical product, you are dealing with Salud.

The ICD’s role is narrower and often misunderstood. It is a financial-integrity gatekeeper, not a product regulator. The licensing page requires that applicants “autorizar … al Instituto Costarricense sobre Drogas (ICD), para verificar el origen de sus capitales con las entidades financieras.” The ICD verifies where an applicant’s money comes from, an anti-money-laundering control, and it can issue a binding negative opinion that blocks a license. It does not, however, approve products or set cultivation rules; do not overstate its reach when structuring a project.

Agency roles at a glance

One more structural rule shapes market concentration. Only one cultivation license and one industrialization license are allowed per natural or legal person, and that cap extends across an entire “grupo de sociedades o grupo de interés económico.” You cannot legally stack multiple cultivation licenses through affiliated companies.

What is RTCR 515:2024, and how do medical products reach patients?

RTCR 515:2024 is the technical standard that finally made THC-containing medical cannabis products registrable and sellable in Costa Rica. It governs administrative provisions, sanitary registration, labeling, specifications, control, and advertising.

Enacted by Decreto Ejecutivo N° 44917 and in force since 22 June 2025, the standard’s full title is “RTCR 515:2024. Cannabis. Productos medicinales a base de cannabis. Disposiciones administrativas, registro sanitario, etiquetado, especificaciones, control y publicidad.” Its arrival is the reason Costa Rica cannabis regulation moved from “legal on paper” to “products can actually reach patients.”

Following the standard, the Ministerio de Salud announced that Costa Rica had begun accepting sanitary registrations for THC-containing medical cannabis products. Two operating rules stand out for anyone modeling a commercial route to market: these products can only be acquired in pharmacies, and only against a digital medical prescription (receta médica digital) issued through the Ministerio de Salud’s system. There is no over-the-counter channel and no dispensary channel; the pathway runs prescriber to pharmacy, with the sanitary registration valid for five years.

How does traceability work, and when is the national system due?

Ley 10.113 (Article 25) mandates a traceability system that must identify the lawful origin of cannabis plants across the entire production chain. The national platform to enforce it was still being stood up through 2025 and 2026.

The statutory mandate itself is firm. Article 25 requires a “sistema de trazabilidad” to “identificar el origen lícito … de las plantas de cannabis … a lo largo de toda la cadena de producción.” What is less firm, and where a lot of secondhand commentary gets it wrong, is the deadline. The 2024 general regulation gives the executive branch roughly 24 months to stand up the national traceability system, which points to a target around late 2026. Operators should confirm the current deadline directly with MAG or the Ministerio de Salud rather than relying on any single reported date, because the clock is counted from the regulation’s 18 October 2024 entry into force and reporting on the exact end date has been inconsistent.

For operators, the practical takeaway is that batch-level, chain-of-custody record keeping is not optional and is not a future problem. Whether or not the government’s central system is live on a given date, the legal obligation to demonstrate lawful origin across the whole chain already exists. Building your internal traceability now is the safest way to be ready when the national system switches on. Our Costa Rica Cannabis Compliance Checklist (Law 10,113) walks through exactly what to capture at each stage.

Is recreational cannabis coming to Costa Rica?

Not in the near term. The only recreational-cannabis bill to reach the legislature was declared unconstitutional in November 2024, and no adult-use statute exists as of mid-2026.

The bill, Expediente 23.383 (“Ley de control y regulación del cannabis para uso recreativo”), was declared unconstitutional by the Sala Constitucional (Sala IV) in November 2024. The court’s reasoning is important for investors reading the tea leaves: it found that ratified United Nations drug-control conventions restrict cannabis to medical and scientific use, so a domestic recreational statute clashed with Costa Rica’s treaty commitments. That is a structural obstacle, not a scheduling delay. Barring a change in the country’s treaty posture or a very different legislative vehicle, recreational cannabis is off the table for the foreseeable future, and Costa Rica cannabis regulation will remain a medical-and-industrial framework.

What foreign investors should verify before committing capital

Costa Rica cannabis regulation does not, in the text of Ley 10.113, impose a blanket nationality bar on licensees. Licenses are granted to natural or legal persons (persona física o jurídica) who must disclose their share capital and authorize the ICD to verify the lawful origin of their funds. In practice, foreign investors typically operate through a local company, and the disclosure requirement extends to affiliated “sociedades vinculadas.” Because the precise structuring requirements sit in the reglamento detail and can change, confirm current requirements with MAG and the Ministerio de Salud (or local counsel) before you commit capital.

The other item to verify early is the export angle. In March 2026, Costa Rican grower Hybrida Farms reported completing the country’s first export of GACP-certified medical cannabis to the European Union. This is a company-announced milestone reported by reputable trade press rather than a government-confirmed statistic, but it signals the direction of travel: Costa Rica’s realistic commercial upside is export-oriented medical production held to GACP and GMP standards, not domestic recreational retail.

Where seed-to-sale software fits

The Article 25 traceability mandate and the multi-agency reporting model (MAG for cultivation, Salud for industrialization and product registration, ICD for capital verification) describe, almost line for line, what seed-to-sale software is built to support. If you are cultivating under a MAG license, industrializing under a Salud license, and preparing for the national traceability system, you need batch-level records and chain-of-custody data that can demonstrate lawful origin across the whole chain.

That need only sharpens if you plan to export. Producers shipping to the EU need GACP and GMP-grade batch records and defensible chain-of-custody documentation. Getting that data structure right from day one is far cheaper than reconstructing it under audit pressure later. GrowerIQ is designed to carry exactly that record-keeping load, so the compliance system grows with the operation instead of being bolted on afterward.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading

For a stage-by-stage operator worksheet mapping each requirement above to what you need to capture, see the Costa Rica Cannabis Compliance Checklist (Law 10,113).

Last updated: July 2026