Overview

Investment Regimes Overview

Panama, with the establishment of different laws and regulations for local and foreign investors, has managed to promote the creation of companies with the objective of developing different types of activities and promoting international trade, manufacturing production and complementary services. Here, are some Investment Regimes:

  • Colon Free Zone is a free trade zone whose objective is to serve as a platform for redistributing wholesale and tax exempted goods from Asia, Europe and North America to Latin America and the Caribbean.  Located at the Atlantic side of the country, it is supported by a variety of logistics and financial services that leverages its connectivity to improve the cargo flow to regional markets.
  • Panama Pacifico is a model of special economic zone aiming to become a hub for high-tech manufacturing, logistics services, commercial activities, and non-traditional services, with an eco-friendly residential area.  A joint consortium between a government agency and a private developer develops an aggressive master plan that includes dedicated areas for warehousing and distribution centers, manufacturing, commercial offices, airport operations, and residential.
  • Panamanian Free Zones have a special regime which contributes to the economic development of the country and promotes foreign investment. They are defined as delimited zones, within which all the infrastructures are developed, as well as the operative organization and the administrative management that are necessary, so that they are established within them, companies of all parts of the world whose activities are manufacturing, assembly, processing of finished or semi-finished products, services, high technology, higher education, health services, scientific research, logistics services, environmental services and general services.
  • City of Knowledge is a complex managed by the Ciudad del Saber Foundation, an organization created in 1995 for non-profit. Ciudad del Saber provides fiscal and migratory incentives for its users that are located within the complex and that are dedicated to research and innovation in the scientific and technological fields Humanistic and cultural transfer of knowledge for use in productive activities and high quality programs of higher education.
  • Baru Free Zone. This Zone offers tax incentives to a range of commercial, tourist, industrial and service activities that are established in that area.
  • The Special System of the Multinational Corporation Headquarters and companies under the law EMMA . It Provides benefits in tax and migratory benefits for companies that wish to establish in Panama and offer services to their head office or subsidiary
  • Public Private Partnerships: Panama created this regime in 2019 with the purpose of creating, developing, improving and/or maintaining public infrastructure for the supply of public services through long-term contracts signed between one or more public entities and the private sector.

Other special regimes have been established in order to continue attracting new investments, such as Logistics Customs Warehouses, Agroparks, Oil Free Zones and the Aguadulce Special Economic Area (AEEA).