Register a company in Nicaragua, cheap for a reason.

Targeted, not comprehensive: officials, state entities and parts of the gold complex are listed by OFAC, the EU and the UK - the country itself is not embargoed, CAFTA stands, and the US remains its biggest trade partner. The practical meaning: ordinary private business is legal, every counterparty gets screened, and government-linked deals are off our menu.

Predictable if you stay apolitical, ruthless if you don't. Cost-driven exporters operate for years without friction; anyone whose interests cross the regime's loses, and no court will save them. That is why our structures assume the worst - offshore parent, foreign arbitration, clean sectors - and why some projects we simply decline.

Legally yes - the investment law guarantees repatriation and there are no exchange controls. Practically the constraint is banking: local banks process transfers correctly but slowly when correspondent banks ask questions, which they do. A clean file moves money; a sloppy one waits.

The régimen de zonas francas grants approved export operations ten years at zero corporate tax plus duty-free inputs - the engine behind a maquila sector that employs well over a hundred thousand people sewing for US retail. Approval is functional and well-trodden. INSS payroll charges still apply.

The 2019 fiscal rescue raised employer contributions to roughly 22.5%, and it claws back part of the famous wage discount. Nicaragua still nets out cheapest in the region for most models - but we run the loaded-cost comparison against El Salvador and Honduras before you commit, not after.

It is the hemisphere's most predictable currency: a crawling peg that devalues five percent a year, announced and honoured for decades. You plan it like an indexation clause. Dollar accounts are routine and most serious contracts price in USD anyway.

It is dead: the concession law was repealed in 2024 and the Chinese concessionaire is gone. Land along the old route still carries title scars - one more reason our due diligence on property is thorough here.

The 1980s confiscations still echo in some land titles, and title diligence is non-negotiable - we run it as standard. Modern-era expropriation of ordinary foreign business has been rare; the regime's targets are political, which is exactly why we keep clients out of politics.

A tenth of the population has left since 2018 - a tragedy that, coldly, keeps remittances flowing and wages low. Labour remains available in the maquila corridors and services; specialised talent is thinner and priced accordingly. We tell you which your model needs.

From $2,900 for the company, from $4,900 with a bank account - screening included in both. The registry takes one to three weeks; the bank adds two to four. Free-zone applications run from $2,500. Renewal from $1,200/year.