Costa Rica’s Free Zones Draw Billions in Foreign Capital

Costa Rica attracted US$5.12 billion in foreign direct investment in 2025, and companies operating under the free-zone regime received 66.4% of that total. The figures, reported by PROCOMER using central bank data, show how heavily the country’s investment model depends on foreign companies and a designated regime for their operations. The money came mostly from the United States, which accounted for 54.8%.

The composition of that investment matters, too. Reinvested profits reached US$4.33 billion, up 26%, while new capital fell 18% to US$895 million. The larger flow was money companies already operating in Costa Rica put back into their businesses; the smaller flow was new capital entering the country. Those figures place corporate expansion, rather than fresh investment, at the center of the year’s total.

Where the Capital Goes

Medical devices led Costa Rica’s exports in 2025, making up 31% and worth more than US$10.8 billion. PROCOMER’s 2025 investment report named Insulet as planning one of the largest sums recorded for a multinational in the country. It also listed Boston Scientific, Zimmer Biomet, Johnson & Johnson, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Trelleborg, Cretex Medical, Medtronic, Mozarc Medical and Penumbra among projects announced from 2023 to 2025.

Boston Scientific opened its third Costa Rican plant in Cartago on May 19, 2026, adding to its sites in Coyol and Heredia. The first phase was expected to add 1,000 jobs. Minister Indiana Trejos said the company had grown from 17 employees to almost 12,000 direct jobs in a little over two decades, making it the country’s fourth-largest employer. One company’s growth now occupies a conspicuous place in the national employment picture.

Other projects extend the same corporate footprint. Medtronic opened its third manufacturing module in the Coyol free zone in November 2022, with a projected investment of US$65 million. Johnson & Johnson MedTech announced a plant in Grecia in September 2023, with 3,000 jobs planned outside the central metropolitan area. Zimmer Biomet announced a plant there in August 2025, expected to provide about 500 direct jobs by 2033.

Jobs, Promises and Promotional Figures

Bayer opened a US$200 million pharmaceutical plant in the Coyol free zone on Nov. 6, 2025, with 300 jobs planned. Newmont’s Global Delivery Center began operating in a Heredia free zone in 2026 and was projected to reach 400 specialist jobs by year’s end. These are announced, planned or projected totals, not all descriptions of jobs already filled; the distinctions matter when investment figures are used to describe the benefits reaching workers.

CINDE, the investment-promotion coalition, says 18 of the world’s 35 largest medical-device multinationals operate in Costa Rica, including Abbott, Edwards Lifesciences, Baxter, Philips and Hologic. CINDE also says the sector has more than 62,000 direct jobs. The report identifies those numbers as CINDE’s promotional figures, not official statistics. That caveat belongs beside the headline totals: an organization promoting investment is the source for those figures.

The Corporate Roll Call

The article also names Intel among multinational companies with Costa Rican operations, but provides no current investment or employment figures for the company. The account details corporate projects, government-reported investment and promised job counts; it does not describe community responses, mutual aid, or direct action. Nor does it identify an electoral or legislative proposal as a route to changing the investment model.

The available numbers show the structure plainly: US$5.12 billion in foreign investment, more than half from the United States, and nearly two-thirds received by companies operating under the free-zone regime. Reinvested profits rose as new capital fell. The companies and state investment agency supply the figures; workers appear chiefly as projected job totals, while the promotional coalition’s larger employment claim comes with a clear label: promotional, not official.