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Honduras's Régimen de Importación Temporal (RIT), originally established by Decreto No. 37 of 1984 and subsequently governed under the Ley de Ordenamiento de las Finanzas Públicas (Law on Financial Ordering and Public Spending), grants export-manufacturing firms a time-limited entitlement to import goods, machinery, raw materials, and equipment without payment of import tariffs, customs duties, VAT (ISV), or related taxes. The sole condition is that the resulting manufactured products are exported; any goods diverted to the domestic market become liable for all suspended duties.
The 2013 fiscal-ordering law capped RIT benefit validity at 12 fiscal years per beneficiary. By end-2025, approximately 124 companies had reached or were approaching that ceiling. Without legislative intervention, their RIT entitlements would have expired on 31 December 2025, subjecting them to full import-duty and VAT obligations on production inputs from 1 January 2026 onward — a direct cost-competitiveness shock threatening relocation of facilities to Guatemala, El Salvador, or Mexico's IMMEX zone.
Decreto No. 2-2026 grants each affected beneficiary five (5) additional fiscal periods, extending their RIT validity window through 2030. Crucially, the decree entered into force on publication (6 February 2026) and ADUANAS issued a circular on 10 February 2026 enabling the SARAH customs IT system to apply the extension automatically for affected entities — meaning continued duty-free importation with no operational gap.
preserving Honduras's competitiveness on the US$8 bn+ annual maquila export channel under CAFTA-DR.
Berkshire Hathaway, Gildan Activewear) relying on Honduran cut-make-trim (CMT) and full-package manufacturing are insulated from a 2026 cost step-up.
operating Honduran plants supplying North American OEM assembly lines avoid an input-cost disruption during a period of ongoing USMCA supply-chain regionalisation.
27 February 2026, La Gaceta No. 37,081), which provides the broader multi-sector extraordinary fiscal-reactivation package for the Honduran economy under the Castro administration.
near-shoring agenda (CAFTA-DR anchor, logistics-time advantage over Asia) as US multinationals re-evaluate supply-chain geography post-2024.
the SDE will propose a structural amendment to the RIT's 12-year cap mechanism.
ZEDEs unconstitutional): RIT-reliant free-zone operations increasingly function as the operative export-manufacturing incentive architecture as the ZEDE framework winds down.
semiconductor roadmap or El Salvador's SAR/BTP scheme) for the post-2030 window.