Data-center law in Guatemala

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-05

Guatemala has no data-center-specific siting, permitting, or utility statute; a data center that qualifies as a services user under the Ley de Zonas Francas (Decreto 65-89) can operate inside a customs-controlled free zone and draw the same fiscal incentives as any other zone services user, including a ten-year income-tax exemption and duty exemption on imported equipment and, for the zone's own electricity generation, on the fuel used to produce it.

The same statute bars fixed, mobile, digital, or satellite telephony services and television or broadcasting services from being developed inside a free zone at all, a carve-out aimed at telecommunications and broadcasting rather than data processing or hosting, though its reach against a data center offering communications-adjacent services has not been tested.

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 de Zonas Francas, Decreto 65-89

In force

Decreto Número 65-89, Ley de Zonas Francas

Applies to both

Article 2 defines a Zona Franca as a physically delimited, planned area under a special customs regime in which an individual or legal person engages in producing or commercializing goods for export or re-export, or in providing services linked to international trade. A zone user authorized as a services user under article 4(b) qualifies for the law's incentives on that basis, without the statute naming information technology or data-hosting services specifically.

Article 22 grants a qualifying services user a full ten-year exemption from income tax on income from the activity, exemption from customs duties and import charges on machinery, equipment, tools, and inputs used in providing the service, and a value-added-tax exemption on qualifying local inputs and transfers within or between free zones.

Article 20(g) separately exempts, from the date of the zone's operating authorization, customs duties and import charges on fuel oil, bunker fuel, and butane or propane gas strictly necessary to generate the electricity the zone's own operations and services use.

Article 41 bars fixed, mobile, digital, or satellite telephony services and television, cable, satellite, or digital broadcasting services from being produced, commercialized, or developed inside a free zone at all; the statute does not address data processing, hosting, or cloud services as such.

Source: Full text of law