Costa Rica’s 80% App Habit Meets a Bill That Could Raise Fares

Eight in ten Costa Ricans have used mobility apps, according to a CID Gallup urban mobility study released with Uber in late July and early August 2026, and nine in ten say the platforms improve their family’s quality of life. The numbers arrive as Bill 23.736, which would formalize paid passenger transport via digital platforms, returns to the Legislative Assembly plenary after clearing 282 motions.

Users already treat the apps as daily infrastructure. The same survey shows they want stricter safety rules, price transparency and verified drivers. Yet the bill’s latest text also sets a state-calculated minimum gross profitability per kilometer and largely bars platform pickups and drop-offs at Juan Santamaría International Airport and other concessions. Those clauses sit at the center of the second-order fight now underway.

What the CID Gallup numbers actually show

The study finds that 80% of Costa Ricans use or have used rideshare and mobility platforms. Six in ten believe the services improve national transit and urban mobility overall. Favorable views of Uber specifically reach 82%. Seventy percent of respondents personally know someone who earns income through the platforms.

Laura Santillán, general manager of Uber for Costa Rica, Panama and the Caribbean, called the adoption figure the study’s strongest result.

The most convincing piece of data from the study is that 80% of Costa Ricans use or have used platforms at some point. It is very powerful data because we understand the reach and economic impact that platforms have in the country.

Santillán said users especially value upfront pricing, driver identification and in-app safety tools. Further breakdowns show 45% of app users travel to work, 39% run shopping trips and 33% handle other daily errands. Platforms have moved from occasional rides into routine life.

These figures come from the CID Gallup fieldwork presented by Uber and reported across CRHoy, El Observador and Mobile Time Latinoamérica. They form the baseline any regulation will confront.

Traditional red taxis still fill specific gaps

Only three in ten respondents used a traditional red taxi (taxi rojo) in the past year. Most of those trips started at street stands, hospitals or other fixed points. Sixty-five percent of taxi users still hail on the street, according to Santillán’s remarks on the data.

Price uncertainty is the standout complaint: 60% name it as the main drawback of the traditional model. Forty percent believe service quality would improve immediately with app integration. Ninety percent say they would use red taxis if they could book them through a digital platform for advance price, driver ID and safety features.

• 90% would request a red taxi via app
• 60% cite final-price uncertainty as the top taxi problem
• 40% expect quality gains from digital tools
• 30% used a red taxi at least once in the prior year

Uber has already opened its platform to traditional taxis in Costa Rica and says the survey supports wider integration so drivers reach more customers while riders keep choice. That move sits against years of taxi-driver protests that began the moment Uber launched in 2015.

Bill 23.736 clears its latest legislative hurdle

The Comisión de Gobierno y Administración finished reviewing 282 motions of substance in late July 2026 and approved nine of them. The updated text returns to the plenary for first-debate discussion; deputies can still file reiteration motions. The project defines platform transport as an economic service of general interest, subject to free-market pricing yet regulated by the state.

Core mechanics now include a state-set minimum gross profitability per kilometer for drivers. The Ministry of Public Works and Transport would calculate it from fuel, repairs, average mileage, a minimum profit per trip, insurance and Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social contributions, then update the figure by decree every February and August. Platforms may still quote a full fare up front or let rider and driver negotiate, but every trip must clear that floor.

Another approved change largely excludes platform vehicles from airports, ports, docks and international maritime terminals unless the concession holder grants express permission. That keeps the orange airport-taxi monopoly intact at Juan Santamaría. Drivers would pay ₡25,000 in the first year of the law; Cosevi would later set a temporary platform fee. Platforms need a Costa Rican company registration, ten-year renewable authorizations, quarterly reporting, VAT withholding and complaint mechanisms. Vehicles need annual technical inspection, marchamo, age limits and dual insurance. Drivers need a one-year-old license, Cosevi course, criminal-record check, windshield sticker and independent-worker status where required.

A new Fondo de Movilidad would collect platform and driver fees plus fines to fund road projects, mobility upgrades and enforcement. The full legislative file for expediente 23.736 tracks the evolving text and votes.

Uber’s concrete objections to two clauses

Uber supports regulation in principle and has met government officials, lawmakers and the Chamber of Commerce with alternative language. The company draws a hard line on the profitability floor and the airport restrictions.

Santillán warned that a mandated minimum gross return per kilometer “could translate into excessive prices or price increases for users and lower earnings for partner drivers” once demand falls. The airport wall, the company argues, limits consumer choice and damages tourism, a sector that already relies on seamless ground transport for visitors landing at SJO.

Those warnings sit beside the survey’s own finding that 60% of Costa Ricans feel user opinions have been ignored in drafting the bill. Seventy percent have heard of the project; only 10% feel well informed. The public’s stated priorities remain safety measures, absolute price transparency and clear driver verification, the same features the platforms already advertise.

Who pays if the second-order effects land

If the profitability floor pushes fares up, the 80% who already use the apps for work commutes, shopping and errands absorb the cost first. Lower trip volume then hits driver earnings, the very group the floor is meant to protect. Tourism operators and arriving visitors lose a flexible option at the country’s main gateway, exactly the friction that has fueled earlier taxi-versus-app clashes.

Traditional red-taxi drivers gain a clearer path into digital booking and a protected airport franchise. Airport orange-taxi concession holders keep their exclusive curb. Platforms face new compliance costs, local incorporation rules and the risk of blocked operations at high-value terminals. An IDB study of Uber drivers across Latin America has already mapped how earnings, risk and flexibility trade off for the people behind the wheel; Costa Rica’s rules will now write those trade-offs into statute.

On X, the sharpest reactions frame the bill as classic guild protection rather than pure safety reform. One widely shared take argued that platforms succeeded precisely because of limited state interference and that the new rules mainly stop “taxi tantrums.” Another called trying to force 21st-century flexible work into 1943-style molds a circle-into-triangle mismatch. Those views do not represent a scientific sample, yet they echo the survey’s finding that users feel sidelined.

Eleven years of gray-zone operation

Uber began service in Costa Rica on 21 August 2015. Taxi drivers immediately attacked some vehicles; protests and highway blockades followed for years. Presidents and ministers at times labeled the service illegal, yet enforcement stayed uneven and usage grew. Multiple legislative attempts since 2017, catalogued in a 2023 legislative technical report on the bill, were archived or stalled. Bill 23.736 is the furthest any formalization effort has advanced.

That long gray period produced the 80% adoption figure. It also left driver status, insurance gaps, tax collection and airport access unresolved. The current text tries to close those gaps while preserving free pricing on the surface and inserting the profitability floor underneath. Whether the floor functions as a safety net or a price escalator will be tested only after the law takes effect and MOPT publishes the first kilometer rate.

The dialogue gap the survey keeps highlighting

Santillán and Uber continue to press for open talks that include consumers and drivers before final passage. The company points to Uber’s Costa Rica newsroom updates and its existing taxi-integration work as evidence it wants coexistence rather than replacement. Assembly members still have room for reiteration motions and floor amendments.

The CID Gallup data make one fact hard to ignore: mobility apps are no longer a niche convenience. They are how most Costa Ricans already move. Any clause that raises everyday fares or walls off the main airport will land on that majority, even if the bill’s stated goals are safety and fair competition. The next plenary votes will decide how large that second-order cost becomes.