The Costa Rican government is enforcing a new law about transparency and stockholders: Ley 9416.
To comply with the law, each corporation or LLC has to register its shareholders and beneficial owners. The registration must be filed and signed with a new electronic tool: la Firma Digital.
Firma Digital is a digital signature, which is used for making or signing an electronic document using the technology known as public-key cryptography.
Currently, the system is available to Costa Rican citizens with a valid cédula and to foreign residents with a valid DIMEX (residency identification card). You cannot get a digital signature card with your passport.
If you are not a resident, your corporation will have to issue a Power of Attorney to a citizen or legal resident with a Firma Digital card so they can do the filing on behalf of the corporation.
If you are not resident, and if I (Nathalie) am part of your corporation’s board of directors, and I have a Poder Generalismo, I am authorized, through less of a process, to register your shareholders and beneficial owners and use my digital signature to sign and validate your document.
I may offer you my services to register your corporation shareholders and beneficial owners.
The fees:
-for the corporations I am not part of the board of directors: $320
-for the corporations I am part of the board of directors: $120
The corporations which juridical ID finishing by 0 and 1 must comply with the law before the 31th of September, 2019. Please contact me to know when your registration is due.
The fine to not comply with the law is over 1 million of colons.
So if you need my services, please contact me individually.
I will not be able to process any registration in a rush, or at the last minute, as each Power of Attorney (existing or new needs to be submitted and accepted by the Central Bank.) To finalize the registration, an appointment at the authorized bank is needed.
For the corporations due before the end of September, please contact me as soon as possible.
Thank you.
Saludos de Pavones.
Nathalie Donahue.
Category : Blog