Tourism Industry Loans in Costa Rica

Tourism is the sector where Costa Rican property and Costa Rican income meet, and it is also the sector where bank lending fits worst. A hotel that fills in January and empties in October does not present the smooth monthly income a bank underwrites against — even when it is comfortably profitable across the year.

What we actually lend against

The security is the property, not the business. That distinction matters more than anything else on this page.

We lend against registered property in Costa Rica — the hotel itself, the lodge, the land it sits on, or another property you own that has equity in it. What we are not doing is underwriting your occupancy forecast. If the collateral is sound and there is a credible way the principal comes back, the seasonality of the business is your problem to manage, not a reason to decline.

That is usually the opposite of the bank conversation, where the projections are the whole discussion.

What tourism operators typically use it for

• Buying the property when the seller wants to close faster than a bank can move.
• Renovation before high season — rooms, kitchen, pool, roof — where the work has to be finished by a date.
• Bridging a purchase while another property is being sold.
• Working capital through the green season, repaid out of high-season revenue.
• Buying out a partner or consolidating ownership.

The one thing that stops most tourism files

Concession land. A great deal of the most attractive coastal tourism property in Costa Rica sits in the maritime zone. The first 50 metres from the high-tide line is public and cannot be owned by anyone. The band beyond it is municipal concession — and a concession is not ordinary titled property, so it cannot carry a registered lien the way a titled finca can.

The same applies to land held by possession with no folio number. It may be genuinely yours in practice, but without a folio there is nothing to register a lien against.

If your hotel sits on concession land, the honest answer is that this property cannot be the collateral. The workable question then becomes whether you own something else that can.

Water, and why it comes up early

For anything that involves building or expanding rooms, the water letter is not paperwork — it is the thing that decides whether the project is real. A tourism project without confirmed water availability is a project that cannot be permitted, which means it is a project whose exit does not exist yet.

If you are buying with the intention of expanding, sort this out before you sign anything.

Terms

From $50,000, at 9% to 16% annually, over six months to three years, up to 50% of appraised value and most files between 30% and 40%. Closing costs run around 8%. Residency is not required — registered property is.

This is short-term financing with a defined exit, not a twenty-year hotel mortgage. Before we approve anything, we will ask how the principal comes back: sale, refinance, incoming capital, or the business itself. For a seasonal operation, we would rather structure the repayment around the season than pretend the season does not exist.

Related reading: commercial property financing, construction and renovation loans and why the water letter matters before you buy

Talk to us about your situation

WhatsApp us at +506 4001 6413, call 855-562-6427 from the US or Canada, or email info@gap.cr.

Four things let us give you a real answer instead of a brochure: the folio number of the property, roughly what it is worth, how much you need, and how you plan to pay it back. With that we can tell you straight away whether the file works and in what range, at no cost.

And if it does not fit, we will say so. We would rather save you the time.

Article by Glenn Tellier (Founder of CRIE and Grupo Gap)