Buying a Turnkey Vacation Rental in Nosara: What Actually Transfers With the Sale (2026)

Every few weeks a listing appears in Nosara with the words "turnkey vacation rental, strong booking history, sold furnished." The pitch is simple: buy the house, keep the calendar, collect the income from day one. And for the right buyer it is a genuinely good way to enter the market, because someone else has already absorbed the furnishing costs, the photography, the pricing mistakes, and the two slow seasons it takes to learn what guests in Playa Guiones actually book. But buying a turnkey vacation rental in Nosara is a different transaction from buying a house, and most of what makes the deal "turnkey" is not something a Costa Rican property deed can transfer. The Airbnb reviews, the future bookings, the housekeeper who has been there six years, the ICT registration, the management contract: each one follows its own rules, and several of them will not follow you.

📊 Nosara-wide, an active short-term rental averaged $38,380 in annual revenue at 39.8% occupancy over the trailing year, while listings in Playa Guiones Sur ran 60% occupancy at a $254 ADR. A seller's "booking history" is only worth a premium if it beats the zone it sits in.

This guide walks through what actually transfers with a Nosara turnkey sale, what quietly does not, and how to price the difference before you sign.

What "Turnkey" Means in Nosara (and What It Does Not)

In North America, "turnkey" usually implies a property that is finished and furnished. In Nosara it has come to mean something bigger: a furnished home plus a running rental business, sometimes with staff, a property manager, a booking calendar and a stack of five-star reviews. Sellers price that bundle as one thing. Legally, it is at least five things, and only one of them is real estate.

Component	Transfers automatically with the deed?	How it actually moves
Land and structure	Yes	Registered transfer at the Registro Nacional
Furniture, appliances, linens, decor	No	Separate bill of sale with a signed inventory
Airbnb / Vrbo listing and reviews	No	Cannot be transferred; new listing under your account
Confirmed future bookings	No	Guest by guest, with cancellation risk
Employees (housekeeping, pool, garden)	Depends on structure	Labor liabilities can follow the business
ICT, Hacienda, municipal registrations	No	Re-registered in your name or your corporation
Property management contract	No	Usually terminable on sale; renegotiate
Direct-booking website, email list, social accounts	No	Assigned by contract if you ask for them

Once you see the bundle as separate parts, the negotiation gets much clearer. You are paying real estate money for the house and lot. Everything else needs its own line in the offer.

💡 Key insight: The deed moves the property. Nothing about the rental business moves with it unless a contract says so. Treat "turnkey" as a checklist of assignments, not a feature of the house.

The Listing, the Reviews and the Calendar

This is where turnkey buyers get the biggest surprise. Both Airbnb and Vrbo prohibit transferring a listing to a new owner in their terms of service. The listing belongs to the host's account, and the reviews belong to that host's profile. When the seller closes their account or removes the listing, the reviews go with it.

What you can and cannot carry over:

• Reviews: Do not transfer. Airbnb will not move a review history to a new host account, even with the seller's consent. A property with 200 five-star reviews restarts at zero under your name.
• Listing ranking: Does not transfer. Search placement is earned by response rate, booking velocity and recent reviews on the account, all of which reset.
• Photos and copy: Can transfer, if the seller assigns the rights in writing. Ask for the original photographer's files and a written release.
• Future bookings: Airbnb's practical workaround is for the seller to cancel each reservation and the guest to rebook on your new listing. Guests are free to decline, and a seller-initiated cancellation can trigger penalties on the seller's side, so cooperation is not guaranteed.
• Booking.com and direct bookings: Booking.com properties are tied to a legal entity, so a share purchase (covered below) can keep that account intact. Direct bookings taken through the seller's own website or by email can be assigned to you by contract, along with the deposits already collected.

There is one structure that sidesteps most of this. If the seller runs the rental through a co-host or a property management company's account rather than their own, the listing and reviews live on the manager's account, and they stay there when the owner changes. In Nosara, where a large share of Guiones rentals are managed professionally, this is common. Ask on the first call: "Whose Airbnb account is this listing on?" The answer tells you whether the review history survives the sale.

💡 Key insight: Reviews and rankings are the seller's, not the property's. A turnkey premium for "booking history" is only justified when the listing sits on a manager's account you can keep, or the bookings are direct and assignable.

Furniture, Equipment and the Inventory List

Furnishing a Nosara rental from scratch runs from roughly $25,000 for a modest two-bedroom to well over $80,000 for a four-bedroom villa with outdoor living, as covered in our guide to what it costs to furnish a Nosara vacation rental. That is the real value in a furnished sale, and it is the easiest part to get right if you do three things.

1. Get a room-by-room inventory attached to the purchase agreement. Not "furnished as seen." A list: bed frames, mattresses and their age, appliances with brand and serial number, AC units and install dates, the pool pump, the water pump and pressure tank, the backup water tank, generators, kayaks, surfboards, bikes.
2. Value the movables separately. Costa Rica's 1.5% transfer tax and registry stamps are charged on the real estate value. Furniture and equipment sold on a separate bill of sale are not part of that base. Your lawyer will want the split to be defensible against the property's registered fiscal value, so do not push it to an absurd ratio, but a legitimate $40,000 furniture allocation is normal.
3. Walk the inventory at the final inspection. In a market where sellers often live abroad and close remotely, the final walkthrough is your only check that the outdoor furniture in the listing photos is still on the deck.

Pay particular attention to the mechanical items. In Nosara the pool pump, water pressure system, AC compressors and septic system carry most of the maintenance cost, and a seller who has been running the property hard for rental income may have deferred all of them. Our home inspection guide covers what to test.

Staff: The Liability Nobody Prices In

A turnkey Nosara rental almost always comes with people: a housekeeper, a pool and garden worker, sometimes a caretaker who lives on site. Sellers present this as an asset ("the team stays"). Under Costa Rican labor law it can also be a liability, and it is the one item on this list that can cost you real money if the seller has not handled it.

Costa Rica's Labor Code is strongly protective of employees. When an employer ends a relationship without one of the narrow legal just causes, the employee is owed:

Item	What it is	Amount
Preaviso (notice)	Advance notice or pay in lieu	1 week (3 to 6 months of service), 15 days (6 to 12 months), 1 month (over 1 year)
Cesantía (severance)	Payment for years of service	Roughly 19 to 22 days of pay per year worked, capped at the last 8 years
Aguinaldo	Mandatory 13th-month bonus	Proportional share since December 1
Vacation	Accrued unused leave	2 weeks per 50 weeks worked, paid out at the daily rate

The key concept is antigüedad, or seniority. If a housekeeper has worked at the property for six years and the arrangement continues seamlessly under the new owner, an employment tribunal may treat that as one continuous relationship, and the accrued severance becomes the new employer's problem. For a worker paid the equivalent of $700 a month with six years of service, the cesantía plus notice plus accruals can exceed $4,000. Two or three staff with long tenure can mean $10,000 to $15,000 of unrecorded liability sitting inside a "turnkey" deal.

There is also the informal-payment problem. Many owners pay staff in cash without registering them with the CCSS (social security, about 26% on top of salary for the employer) or carrying INS workplace-injury insurance. If a worker is injured on the property and was never registered, the owner is personally liable for medical costs and lost wages, and the Caja can pursue back contributions.

How to handle it in the offer:

• Require the seller to provide a signed finiquito (liquidation and release) from every employee, dated before closing, showing severance and accruals paid in full.
• If you want to keep the staff, hire them fresh under your own name or corporation, with new written contracts, CCSS registration and INS coverage starting on your closing date.
• If the seller will not settle the staff, price the accrued liability and deduct it from the purchase price.

This applies whether you are buying the property directly or buying the corporation that owns it, but it applies far more sharply in a share purchase, which is the next topic.

💡 Key insight: In Nosara, "the team stays" can mean years of unpaid severance transfer with them. Get a finiquito from every worker or price the liability into the deal.

Share Purchase vs Asset Purchase

Most Nosara properties owned by foreigners are held inside a Costa Rican corporation, usually an SRL or SA (see our guide to using a corporation to buy property in Nosara). When you buy a turnkey rental, the seller may offer you the shares of that corporation instead of the property itself. This is a real business decision, and the two paths behave differently for a rental with a history.

Factor	Asset purchase (buy the property)	Share purchase (buy the corporation)
What you receive	The real estate, clean, in your name or your new corporation	The corporation, with everything it owns and everything it owes
Transfer tax (1.5%)	Payable	Also payable. Since Law 9069, transferring control (over 50%) of a property-holding corporation is an "indirect transfer" and is taxed the same way
Booking.com, bank accounts, ICT and Hacienda registrations	All re-registered in your name	Stay with the corporation, so they can continue uninterrupted
Direct bookings and deposits	Assigned by contract	Remain with the corporation
Hidden liabilities (unpaid staff, tax debts, lawsuits, personal guarantees)	Stay with the seller	Come with the shares
Capital gains base for your future sale	Set at your purchase price	Stays at the corporation's old "valor histórico" unless updated, which can inflate your 15% capital gains bill later
Due diligence required	Standard property due diligence	Standard due diligence plus a full corporate and tax audit

The old reason for share purchases, avoiding the transfer tax, has been dead since 2012. The Law to Strengthen Tax Management (Law 9069) redefined a transfer to include any transaction that moves ownership or control of a real estate holding corporation, with the tax due within 15 business days and based on a value no lower than the registered fiscal value. So the only remaining reasons to buy shares are operational: keeping the corporation's registrations, bank account and non-Airbnb booking channels intact.

For a turnkey rental that is a legitimate advantage, but it comes with the corporation's whole history. Your lawyer should pull the corporation's tax filings, its Registro de Accionistas (shareholder registry) status, its annual corporate tax (impuesto a personas jurídicas) payments, any CCSS employer account, and a certification that no lawsuits or liens are pending. Our guide to hiring a real estate lawyer in Nosara covers what to ask for.

One more closing mechanic that applies either way: the buyer is now the withholding agent for the seller's capital gains tax. If the seller is not tax-domiciled in Costa Rica (fewer than 183 days in the country in the look-back period, which describes most absentee Nosara owners), you withhold 2.5% of the total price as a final tax and file it through TRIBU-CR. If the seller is domiciled, the withholding is 2% as a payment on account. Miss it and you can be held jointly liable. Your closing attorney handles the filing, but the money comes out of the price at the table, so it belongs in your closing budget.

💡 Key insight: A share purchase no longer saves the 1.5% transfer tax. Choose it only when the corporation holds registrations and booking channels worth keeping, and only after a full corporate audit.

Licenses and Registrations That Restart

A properly run Nosara short-term rental in 2026 carries several registrations, and none of them transfer with the deed in an asset purchase:

• Hacienda (tax registration) for the rental activity, including IVA. Short-term rentals charge 13% IVA on the nightly rate, and the platforms withhold on behalf of Hacienda for unregistered hosts. See our guide to Nosara rental income tax.
• ICT (Costa Rican Tourism Institute) registration for non-traditional lodging under Law 9742. Required to operate legally and increasingly checked.
• Municipal patente from the Municipalidad de Nicoya, the business license for the rental activity.
• CCSS employer registration if you employ anyone.
• Bank account for receiving platform payouts, which takes weeks to open as a new foreign owner. See opening a Costa Rica bank account.

Build a gap of four to eight weeks into your plan. Between closing and having your own registrations, bank account and new listings live, the calendar will be dark. A seller who claims you can "take over the bookings the next day" is describing a share purchase with a co-host account, and you should confirm that is what is on offer.

How to Verify the Rental Numbers

Sellers of turnkey rentals lead with gross revenue. Your job is to test it against three sources, and to compare it to the zone rather than to Nosara as a whole.

1. Platform exports. Ask for the Airbnb and Vrbo transaction history CSVs for the last 24 months, not a screenshot of a dashboard. Cross-check nights booked, ADR and cleaning fees.
2. Bank deposits. Platform payouts land in a bank account. Two years of statements from that account confirm the exports are real and show the cadence of income by month.
3. Tax filings. The seller's IVA returns and income tax filings should reconcile with the platform numbers. If they do not, either the revenue is overstated or the taxes are underpaid. Both are your problem in a share purchase.

Then benchmark. A four-bedroom in Guiones claiming 70% occupancy at $450 a night is running well ahead of the zone (Guiones Sur averages 60% at $254). It is possible, but it needs an explanation: a pool, walking distance to the beach, a pro manager with a strong direct-booking list. Our breakdown of Nosara Airbnb occupancy by neighborhood gives you the comparison set, and what you actually net after fees, taxes and expenses turns gross into a real number.

Finally, discount for the reset. If the reviews do not transfer, budget for a slower first six months while your new listing earns its ranking. Managers in Guiones commonly see a new listing run 15% to 30% below the mature listing's occupancy in that window, even for the same house.

💡 Key insight: Verify revenue against exports, bank statements and tax returns, benchmark it against the zone, then discount the first six months for the review reset.

A Worked Example

Say you are looking at a three-bedroom pool home in Guiones listed at $895,000 turnkey, with the seller claiming $82,000 in gross revenue last year and two long-tenured staff.

Item	Amount	Notes
Real estate value (agreed allocation)	$850,000	Transfer tax 1.5%, stamps and legal fees on this base
Furniture and equipment (bill of sale)	$45,000	Verified against a room-by-room inventory
Closing costs (approx. 3.7% of real estate value)	$31,450	See our closing costs breakdown
Capital gains withholding (2.5%, non-domiciled seller)	$22,375	Withheld from the seller's proceeds at closing, filed by your attorney
Staff liquidation (finiquitos), if seller refuses to settle	$8,500	Two workers, five and three years of service
Verified gross revenue (from exports and bank deposits)	$74,000	Seller's claim reduced after reconciliation
Year-one revenue after review reset (minus ~20%)	$59,000	Recovers in year two if you operate well

The listing looked like a 9.2% gross yield on the sticker. Verified and adjusted for the first year, it is closer to 6.6%, recovering toward 8% once the new listing matures. That is still a sound Nosara rental, and it is a very different number from the one on the brochure. Whether it beats an unfurnished home you fit out yourself is a question worth running through our fixer-upper and value-add guide.

What to Put in the Offer

A turnkey purchase in Nosara is won or lost in the purchase agreement. Ask your lawyer to include:

• A signed inventory of all movables, attached as an annex, with a separate bill of sale and agreed value.
• Assignment of intellectual property: photos, listing copy, domain name, website, social media accounts, and the guest email list.
• Assignment of direct bookings with a schedule of confirmed reservations, deposits held, and a mechanism to transfer those deposits at closing.
• Cooperation clause obliging the seller to help move platform bookings to your new listing and to keep the old listing blocked from closing onward.
• Finiquitos from every employee as a condition of closing, or a price reduction equal to the calculated liability.
• Representations that all IVA, income tax, corporate tax and CCSS obligations are current, with an indemnity if they are not (essential in a share purchase).
• Manager transition: written confirmation from the property manager of the terms they will offer you, or a clean termination.

Most of this costs the seller nothing if the business is as clean as advertised. Resistance to any of it is information.

The Bottom Line

Turnkey rentals in Nosara can be the smartest way into the market, especially in Guiones where furnishing, permitting and the first two seasons of learning are expensive to replicate. The mistake is paying for the whole bundle as if the deed carries it. It carries the land and the walls. The reviews stay with the seller, the bookings move one guest at a time, the registrations restart, and the staff bring their years of service with them.

Price each piece on its own, verify the revenue against three sources, decide deliberately between an asset and a share purchase, and get the finiquitos before you close. Do that and "turnkey" means what the listing promised.

Browse current Nosara listings, read our buyer's guide, and compare the rental profiles of Playa Guiones, Playa Pelada and Garza before you decide which turnkey deal is actually worth the premium.