Data-center law in Dominican Republic

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-05

The Dominican Republic has no data-center-specific siting, permitting, or utility statute; a data center is governed, if at all, by the general free-zone customs and tax incentive framework of Ley No. 8-90 sobre el Fomento de Zonas Francas, promulgated 15 January 1990.

That law defines a zona franca as a geographic area subject to special customs and fiscal controls, in which an enterprise producing goods or services for the external market may install itself in exchange for incentives, and its industrial-or-services category can be sited anywhere in the country, including, in the National District, advanced-technology industrial or services plants requiring highly skilled labor.

A separate border-zone incentive regime, Ley No. 28-01 (2001), covers only seven named border provinces and is not of general application. No provision of either law addresses electricity grid interconnection, water use, or air emissions specifically; those questions, if a facility does not qualify as a free-zone enterprise, fall to general environmental, energy, and construction law.

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Instruments on record

1 instrument on record, grouped by the family of approval each one governs.

Public agreements

What fiscal agreements attach a data center to its host jurisdiction?

Ley No. 8-90 sobre el Fomento de Zonas Francas

In force

Ley No. 8-90 sobre el Fomento de Zonas Francas, 15 de enero de 1990

Effective 1990-01-15 · Applies to private

Article 1 sets the law's object as fostering the establishment of new free zones and the growth of existing ones, coordinating public and private-sector action toward that end. Article 2 defines a zona franca as a geographic area of the country subject to the special customs and fiscal controls the law establishes, in which an enterprise directing its production or services to the external market may install itself in exchange for the incentives the law grants.

Article 6 sets out the zone types, including industrial-or-services zones installable anywhere in national territory, and a paragraph lets the Executive Power regulate, within the National District, the installation of advanced-technology industrial or services plants requiring highly skilled labor.

Article 24 grants free-zone operators and enterprises a 100 percent exemption from income tax, construction and real-property-transfer taxes, company-formation tax, municipal taxes, import duties on raw materials, equipment, and construction materials, export or re-export taxes, patent and asset taxes, and the industrialized-goods transfer tax (ITBIS), among the specific exemptions the article enumerates.

Free-zone operating permits are granted by Executive Decree on the prior recommendation of the Consejo Nacional de Zonas Francas (the operators-and-enterprises definition in article 5).

Source: Full text of law

Every entry cites the instrument it describes. None of it is legal advice: verify a citation before relying on it. Full sourcing: read the methodology. The rest of the record: all jurisdictions.