Laws governing foreign investment in Guatemala

The statutory skeleton begins with the Foreign Investment Law (Decree 9-98, 1998), which grants national treatment, protection against expropriation, free repatriation and access to arbitration. Export incentives rest on Decree 29-89 (maquila) and Decree 65-89 (free zones), both from 1989, cut back by Decree 19-2016 and partly reopened by Decree 6-2021; to these are added ZOLIC (Decree 22-73) and the ZDEEP (Decree 30-2008). Infrastructure is governed by the Partnerships Law (16-2010) and the Priority Road Infrastructure Law (29-2024). On corporate and tax matters: the Commercial Code (Decree 2-70), the Entrepreneurship Strengthening Law (20-2018), the Leasing Law (2-2021), the Insolvency Law (8-2022) and the Tax Update Law (10-2012). The map is completed by the Arbitration Law (67-95), the sectoral laws on electricity (93-96), telecommunications (94-96), mining (48-97) and renewables (52-2003), those on intellectual property (57-2000 and 33-98) and the Labor Code (Decree 1441, 1961). The number of the Commercial Code (2-70) comes from general knowledge and is still to be checked against the Diario de Centro América.

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.