Data-center law in Belize

Designated Processing Areas Act, 2018 (Act No. 27 of 2018)

Applies to private

The Act, assented 21 December 2018 and gazetted the next day, repeals and replaces the former Export Processing Zone Act, Chapter 280, and establishes a Designated Processing Areas Committee that may declare a company a DPA Developer, DPA Business, or Special DPA within an activity the Minister has declared a national priority sector.

An approved company is granted exemption from customs and excise duties, tariffs, consumption tax on imports, trade turnover tax, and property and land tax for up to ten years. The Act does not name information technology, data processing, or a data center as a national priority sector on its own face; whether such an activity qualifies turns on a Ministerial declaration under section 8, none of which was located in the sources checked.

The Act does not itself state a commencement date separate from its assent and gazettal, and no Ministerial commencement Order or Statutory Instrument confirming the Act is in force was located.

Source: Full text of law

Fiscal Incentives Act, 2023 (Act No. 4 of 2023), Schedule I, item 12

Applies to private

The Act, assented 7 March 2023 and gazetted 11 March 2023, repeals and replaces the former Fiscal Incentives Act, Chapter 54, and lets an eligible company apply to the Minister, through the Belize Trade and Investment Development Service (BELTRAIDE), for exemption from import duty, revenue replacement duty, excise duty, or business tax, for up to twenty-five years in total.

Schedule I lists 'Global Digital Services (including Information Technology Enabling Services, including Data Processing)' and 'Software Engineering and Network Services (IT-enabled Services)' among the approved activities eligible for these incentives, alongside activities such as agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism. Section 29 provides that the Act comes into force on a date the Minister appoints by Order published in the Gazette.

A Statutory Instrument made on 29 December 2023, granting an approved-enterprise order to an unrelated company, was made 'in exercise of the power conferred upon him by, section 3(5) of the Fiscal Incentives Act, Chapter 54, of the Laws of Belize, Revised Edition 2020', indicating the 2023 Act had not yet commenced as of that date and the former Chapter 54 regime remained the operative authority; no later commencement Order for the 2023 Act was located.

Source: Full text of law