Nicaragua's 2026 free-zone reform
- Guatemala against the region
- Guatemala against the region
- not audited
The reform of the Export Free Zones Act, approved on 8-9 April 2026, grants 100% income-tax exemption for 15 years to zone operators and 10 years to users, renewable indefinitely with authorization from the free-zone commission (CNZF). The government presented it as a defense of competitiveness against its neighbours following company closures and capital flight to Honduras and Guatemala; LexLatin describes it as a strengthening of Nicaragua's position in the regional competition.
The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.
Figures
- Income-tax exemption, Nicaraguan free zones
- 15 years operators / 10 years users, indefinitely extendable
Sources
Related records
- Population, GDP and labor force: Guatemala versus the region (2024)
- Labor force at 7.5 vs 8.2 million: WDI versus ENEIC
- Guatemala's 2026 minimum wage for maquila and non-agricultural work
- Costa Rica's 2026 minimum wage versus Guatemala
- El Salvador's maquila minimum wage
- Honduras' 2026 maquila minimum wage
This layer is research: read from public sources by the archive's own team, every claim cited with the date it was consulted, and audited where it is marked so. It has not entered the verified store — no figure here was fetched back from its source or stamped with a retrieval time — so it wears no red provenance numeral and never mixes with the verified figures.