Costa Rica Advances Toward Membership in Global Digital Trade Bloc

By IDEAS

Costa Rica has taken decisive steps toward becoming the fifth member of the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA), a framework designed to govern digital trade, data flows and technology cooperation among its signatory countries. On May 12, 2026, the country's Legislative Assembly approved, in a second and final debate, the bill authorizing Costa Rica's incorporation into the agreement, with 53 lawmakers voting in favor and none against.

Most recently, Costa Rica's Minister of Foreign Trade, Indiana Trejos, formally delivered the country's instrument of accession to DEPA during a ceremony in New Zealand, the depositary state for the agreement. The handover took place on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership (FIT-P) initiative, marking what officials described as the final stage of Costa Rica's accession process. According to the country's Ministry of Foreign Trade (COMEX), the agreement's entry into force for Costa Rica will now depend on confirmation from the other member states that their respective internal procedures have been completed.

DEPA was originally signed on June 11, 2020, by Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, and later expanded to include South Korea, which joined in 2024 as the bloc's first new member since its founding. Unlike traditional free trade agreements, DEPA is structured as a modular framework focused exclusively on digital trade issues, including electronic invoicing, data governance, cross-border data transfers, consumer protection, cybersecurity, paperless trade and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and financial technology.

Costa Rica's formal request to join DEPA was submitted on December 23, 2022. On October 6, 2023, the agreement's founding members established an Accession Working Group, chaired by New Zealand, to evaluate the country's application against the bloc's standards. That working group concluded that Costa Rica had demonstrated the capacity to meet DEPA's requirements and had shown commitment to cooperating on shared priorities within the framework.

Officials in Costa Rica have emphasized the economic weight of digital services in the country's trade profile. According to COMEX, services account for 46 percent of Costa Rica's total exports, and roughly half of those exports are delivered through digital channels. The country's Minister of Innovation, Science, Technology and Telecommunications, Paula Bogantes Zamora, said Costa Rica's entry into DEPA sends a signal about the country's orientation toward an open, innovative economy prepared to compete in digital markets.

DEPA maintains an open structure for additional economies seeking to meet its digital trade standards. Beyond Costa Rica, Peru received approval from DEPA's Joint Committee in January 2026 to advance its own accession process. Canada, China and the United Arab Emirates are also pursuing membership, while Uruguay, Ukraine and Thailand have submitted formal applications to join the agreement. El Salvador has expressed its intention to join DEPA since 2024, citing the framework's potential to support small and medium-sized enterprises in accessing the global digital economy.