A buyer looking at a hundred hectares of rainforest asks a reasonable question: what do I do with it? The answer most people expect involves either clearing some of it or leaving it entirely alone at their own expense.
There is a third option, and it has existed since 1996.
What is the PSA program?
Pago por Servicios Ambientales — Payment for Environmental Services — was created by Forest Law 7575 in 1996 and is administered by FONAFIFO, the National Forestry Financing Fund. The premise is that a standing forest performs work with real economic value, and that the landowner who maintains it should be paid for that work rather than being the only person not compensated for it.
Article 3 of the law names the services the state will pay for: mitigation of greenhouse gases, protection of water for urban, rural or hydroelectric use, protection of biodiversity, and protection of ecosystems and natural scenic beauty. The money comes principally from a share of the national fuel tax and from the water canon paid by concession holders — which is to say it is funded structurally, not from a grant that runs out.
It is also the mechanism behind a statistic worth knowing before you buy here. Costa Rica's forest cover fell to roughly 21 percent in the 1980s. It is now above 53 percent. That reversal did not happen by sentiment.
What does it actually pay?
For the 2025–2026 period, the forest protection modality — the one relevant to somebody who already owns standing forest — pays as follows, spread across a five-year contract at 20 percent per year:
The base rate covers greenhouse gas mitigation and biodiversity. The higher rate applies where the parcel also delivers water resource protection, or sits in an area designated as high biodiversity — both common on this coast.
At roughly ¢450 to the dollar, that works out to about $47 to $82 per hectare per year, or very roughly $19 to $33 per acre per year. Hold that figure in mind, because the next section is where most articles about PSA quietly stop.
Is it worth it on a villa lot?
No. I would rather say that plainly than let you work it out after a month of paperwork.
Forest protection requires a minimum of two hectares, which is about five acres, and pays at the top rate roughly $82 per hectare per year. A five-acre ocean-view lot that happens to be forested would earn on the order of $165 a year, before the cost of the forest regent whose technical study you need in order to apply. That is not an income stream. That is a rounding error on your property tax.
Where it changes shape is at scale:
Those are annual figures at the higher rate, sustained across the five-year contract term. On a large finca — the kind of holding that exists in real numbers on the Osa Peninsula, along the Golfo Dulce, and on the ridges behind this coast — PSA meaningfully offsets the annual cost of owning land you were never going to develop anyway. On a residential lot it does not, and the honest reason to know about it there is different.
Which land qualifies as forest?
Costa Rican law has a specific definition, and it is stricter than most people assume. Under Article 3 of Forest Law 7575, bosque means a native ecosystem — previously logged or not — that:
Occupies two or more hectares. Contains mature trees of differing ages, species and sizes. Carries one or more canopy layers covering more than 70 percent of that area. And holds more than 60 trees per hectare measuring 15 centimeters or more in diameter at breast height.
Regenerating pasture usually fails this test, which is why a separate regeneración natural modality exists at a lower rate. Whether a specific parcel qualifies is not a judgment call you or I get to make — it is certified by a regente forestal, a licensed forest regent whose technical study is a required part of the application and whose regency contract must be registered with CIAgro, the agronomists' association.
What does it do to your title?
This is the part that belongs in a real estate conversation and almost never appears in one.
Under Article 49 of the Forest Law, the PSA contract is protocolized and filed with the National Registry. It is not a private arrangement between you and FONAFIFO. It appears against the folio real for the term of the contract, the same register where a buyer's attorney looks for liens and annotations.
Two consequences follow, and they cut in opposite directions depending on which side of the transaction you are on.
If you are selling, a mortgaged property is not accepted into the program at all unless the mortgage creditor authorizes it in a public deed and accepts that, in the event of foreclosure, the property is awarded subject to the resulting limitations. Lenders do not always agree to that. Establish it before you apply, not after.
If you are buying land that already carries an active PSA contract, you are buying it subject to that contract. This is not a hidden trap — it is visible in the National Registry to anyone doing proper due diligence, which is one more reason the title study matters. But it should be found and priced, not discovered.
Article 19 of the Forest Law already prohibits changing land use on forested ground. You cannot legally clear mature forest to build on it, PSA or no PSA. So for a genuinely forested parcel, enrolling is largely being paid for a restriction you were already under. FONAFIFO says as much itself: demand for forest protection contracts keeps rising precisely because owners must protect that forest anyway.
What about the carbon rights?
Article 65 of the regulation to Forest Law 7575 provides that a landowner signing a PSA contract assigns their carbon rights to FONAFIFO for the duration of the contract.
If you have any notion of a separate carbon credit arrangement on the same land — and buyers of large forested parcels here increasingly do — those rights are not available to sell twice. It is not a reason to avoid PSA. It is a reason to decide which of the two you want before signing either.
Can a foreign owner enroll?
Yes, and the route is ordinary. PSA contracts are signed with property owners, who may be individuals or Costa Rican legal entities. FONAFIFO's requirements explicitly contemplate corporate applicants, asking for the cédula jurídica and the legal representative's identification. Given how many foreign-owned properties here are already held through an S.A. or S.R.L., most buyers are structurally ready for this without doing anything special.
Nationality is collected as socioeconomic information on the application. It is not an eligibility bar.
What do you actually need to apply?
The first stage is light: a copy of the plano catastrado, a copy of the deed or a certificación literal of the property, the legal representative's identification where a corporation is involved, a signed application and consent form, and a declaration of whether the property carries INDER limitations or debt to any bank.
The second stage, once FONAFIFO notifies you to continue, is the real work: a plano certified by the National Cadastre or a notary, the technical study by a forest regent, that regent's contract registered with CIAgro, and georeferenced shapefiles of the project area. Projects also have to satisfy the priority criteria FONAFIFO sets for each modality — being eligible is not the same as being funded, and the program is budget-constrained.
When can you apply?
Applications open in an annual window rather than continuously, and the window moves. For 2026, FONAFIFO opened appointment booking on 4 August. Document reception for forest protection and forest management runs 11 August to 11 September 2026, with appointments themselves taken only up to 10 September. Reforestation, agroforestry, mixed systems and natural regeneration stay open until 25 September, with appointments to 24 September.
Read those dates against last year’s. In 2025 the forest protection window ran 17 September to 14 October. In 2026 it opened five weeks earlier and closes 11 September. Anyone working from last year’s calendar would have missed the entire cycle without ever knowing the window had been and gone.
Which is the practical point. The window is a matter of weeks, the technical study takes longer to arrange than the window stays open, and the dates are reset annually by FONAFIFO rather than fixed in law. Confirm them at fonafifo.go.cr or through a regent before you plan around them — including the ones on this page, which I will keep current but which are not the official source. Start with the regent.
Why I put this in front of you
Partly because it is real money on the right kind of land, and I represent that kind of land.
But mostly because of what it tells you about the parcel next door. When you buy a view here, the honest question is what stops someone from building in the middle of it. A neighboring finca under an active PSA contract has a registered, verifiable answer to that question for the term of the contract — and unlike a verbal assurance from a developer, it is something your attorney can actually look up.
That is worth knowing whether or not you ever enroll a hectare yourself.
Where these figures come from
Every number on this page is taken from an official source rather than from another article. The rates and the application dates both change, so they are listed here with what each one supports — check them yourself if you are about to act on any of it.
- Oficina Nacional Forestal — Monto por modalidad, 2025–2026The per-hectare rates, the 20% annual distribution across a five-year contract, and the 2–300 hectare limits.
- FONAFIFO — Citas PPSA 2026 (PDF)The 2026 application dates, including the 11 August to 11 September window for forest protection.
- Oficina Nacional Forestal — RequisitosThe two-stage document list, and the forest regent’s technical study and CIAgro-registered regency contract.
- FONAFIFO — Pago de Servicios AmbientalesThe four environmental services recognised under Forest Law 7575, and how the programme is funded.
Figures on this page last checked against these sources on 4 September 2026.
I am a broker, not an attorney, a forest regent or an accountant. The figures above are the published rates for the 2025–2026 period and the legal framework as it stands in September 2026, and they are here to tell you what to ask and who to ask. Colón amounts are converted at roughly ¢450 to the dollar, which moves. Eligibility for any specific parcel has to come from a licensed forest regent, and the title consequences from your own Costa Rican attorney.
If you are looking at forested land here and want to know whether this is worth pursuing on it, send it to me. On a large finca it usually is. On five acres it usually is not, and I will tell you that too.