Tiribí Limpio loses public utility status for omitting management reports

The Executive Branch has revoked the public utility status of the Asociación Movimiento Tiribí Limpio through executive decree N° 45929-MJP, published in La Gaceta N° 209 on Wednesday, November 4, 2026. The measure is based on the fact that the organization failed to submit its 2024 and 2025 management reports without providing any justification. The decree bears the signature of the President of the Republic, Laura Fernández Delgado, and the Minister of Justice and Peace, Gabriel Arturo Aguilar Vargas, and was issued in San José on August 10, 2026.

The background: a 2023 declaration

The association, registered under legal ID 3-002-650552, was recorded in the Associations Registry of the Public Registry on January 29, 2011, volume 2011, entry 37252. Its public utility benefit was granted via executive decree N° 44184-MJP on July 25, 2023, published in La Gaceta N° 160 on September 1, 2023, based on the authority that Article 32 of the Associations Law N° 218 of August 8, 1939, confers upon the Executive Branch.

The regulatory basis for the revocation is numeral 33 bis of the Regulations to the Associations Law N° 29496-J, published in La Gaceta N° 96 on May 21, 2001. That article establishes that the declaration of public utility “shall be revocable at any time” and that, in the event of non-submission or incomplete submission of the labor report, the association shall be warned a single time within a period of ten business days. Among the listed grounds for repeal, subsection e) expressly states: “Failure to submit the annual report.”

The non-compliance that motivated the decision

According to recital IV of the decree, the organization, through its legal representative, Mr. Gustavo Adolfo Ortiz Meseguer, holder of identity card 1-0625-0674, “failed to submit the 2024 and 2025 management reports, without presenting any valuable elements to justify said failures.” The text does not detail amounts, additional deadlines, or prior collection efforts.

The effects of the decree are distributed across three fronts:

• Registry: the Associations Registry of the National Registry must record the repeal once the decree is published.
• Taxation: the administration will notify the Ministry of Finance, the General Directorate of Taxation, and the National Property Registry so that each entity may proceed according to its competence.
• Donors: by losing its public utility status, the organization no longer has the state backing that supported its differentiated treatment, although the decree does not quantify the fiscal impact.

Validity and scope

The decree consists of four articles: the first nullifies No. 44184-MJP; the second orders communication to the Registry of Associations; the third provides for notifications to Treasury, Taxation, and the National Property Registry; and the fourth establishes that it takes effect upon its publication. The publication occurred this November 4, 2026, in the official gazette, with the reference D45929-IN202601137237.

The same issue of La Gaceta No. 209 includes another decree of a similar nature, No. 45896-MJP, which withdrew the public utility status from the Asociación Cámara de Ganaderos de San Carlos for ceasing to fulfill the purposes that motivated the benefit granted in 2004, confirming an active line of review regarding benefited organizations.

The decision directly affects an environmental organization dedicated to the Tiribí river basin, which thus loses the formal recognition of the Costa Rican state and is exposed to a change in its tax regime and the deductibility of the donations it receives. For donors and companies that funded its programs, the repeal implies reviewing the tax treatment applied to their contributions, while the association maintains the possibility of requesting the benefit again if it regularizes its reporting obligations.

Source: La Gaceta, No. 209, November 4, 2026, Section I (Executive Branch), p. 6 (official reference: D45929-IN202601137237).