Data-center law in Honduras

National jurisdiction · as of 2026-09-05

Honduras has no data-center-specific siting, permitting, energy or water statute. A data-center project sited in a free zone can draw on the Ley Constitutiva de la Zona Libre de Puerto Cortés (Decreto No. 356 of 1976), which exempts commercial and industrial enterprises operating within that zone from customs duties, consumption taxes and income tax on their zone operations, and channels administration and construction authorization through the zone's administering institution.

The law is scoped to the Puerto Cortés free zone specifically rather than a nationwide free-zone regime, and no provision addresses electricity grid interconnection, water utilities, or air emissions.

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 Constitutiva de la Zona Libre de Puerto Cortés

In force

Decreto No. 356 de 1976, Ley Constitutiva de la Zona Libre de Puerto Cortés

Effective 1976-08-10 · Applies to private

This law creates the Zona Libre de Puerto Cortés, an area of national territory under fiscal oversight with no resident population, administered by an institution the Executive Power creates or designates (arts. 1-2). Article 4 exempts merchandise entering the zone from tariff duties, consular fees, internal and consumption taxes, and exempts sales, production and property within the zone from municipal taxes and contributions.

It also exempts the profits an enterprise established in the zone earns from its zone operations from income tax, provided the enterprise is not subject in another country to a tax that would make the exemption ineffective. Article 5 exempts the zone's administering institution itself from fiscal and municipal taxes.

Article 11 requires a natural or legal person wishing to establish itself in the zone to obtain prior authorization from the administering institution, and article 9 requires the zone's perimeter to be secured so that entry and exit of persons, vehicles and cargo occurs only at designated points. Article 23 sets the law's entry into force at twenty days after its publication in La Gaceta, which the decree's own heading dates to 21 July 1976 (La Gaceta No. 21,947).

Source: Full text of law