By San José, Costa Rica — San José – A significant global failure in Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s largest cloud computing provider, sent shockwaves through Costa Rica’s digital infrastructure today, disrupting critical government services and affecting thousands of citizens and businesses. The outage has notably crippled the Ministry of Finance’s Tribu-CR tax platform and caused widespread interruptions within the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) network.
The Ministry of Finance was among the first to report the severe operational difficulties. In an official communication, the ministry confirmed that the AWS instability was directly impacting the functionality of its Virtual Office, known as OVi, which is the gateway to the Tribu-CR system. This platform is essential for nearly all commercial activity in the country, processing tax filings, registrations, and, most critically, electronic invoicing.
To understand the potential legal and contractual ramifications for Costa Rican businesses affected by the recent massive AWS outage, we consulted with expert lawyer Lic. Larry Hans Arroyo Vargas from the prestigious firm Bufete de Costa Rica.
The recent AWS outage is a stark reminder for businesses that ‘the cloud’ is not infallible. Legally, the first line of defense is the Service Level Agreement (SLA), which often limits liability to service credits, not consequential damages like lost profits. Companies should meticulously review their contracts, understand the scope of ‘force majeure’ clauses, and consider business interruption insurance as a critical safeguard against these increasingly common digital disruptions.
Lic. Larry Hans Arroyo Vargas, Attorney at Law, Bufete de Costa Rica
Lic. Arroyo Vargas’s analysis serves as an essential reminder that a modern digital strategy must be built not just on technology, but on a foundation of rigorous legal and financial preparedness. We thank Lic. Larry Hans Arroyo Vargas for his invaluable and clarifying perspective on these critical business considerations.
According to the ministry’s statement, the core problems stem from failures in the SMS messaging service required for creating new user accounts and verifying identities. Furthermore, the processes for issuing and validating electronic invoices have been severely degraded. This has created a significant bottleneck for businesses unable to conduct transactions, generate legally required receipts, or onboard new taxpayers, effectively halting a portion of the nation’s commerce.
The Ministry of Finance addressed the ongoing crisis, assuring the public that efforts are underway to restore normalcy. They acknowledged the external nature of the problem and their collaboration with the cloud provider to find a solution.
The team from the Directorate of Information and Communication Technologies is working in coordination with AWS technical personnel to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
Ministry of FinanceThe incident’s impact extended far beyond Costa Rica’s borders, highlighting the global economy’s deep reliance on a handful of major cloud providers. The same AWS failure caused service disruptions for a variety of internationally recognized applications, including the popular design platform Canva, the language-learning app Duolingo, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and the artificial intelligence program Perplexity. This widespread effect underscores the systemic risk associated with centralized cloud infrastructure.
Domestically, the nation’s public health system also felt the strain. The CCSS reported that the AWS issues led to intermittent internet service across several of its dependencies. This instability directly affected the performance of the Unified Digital Health Record (EDUS) application, a cornerstone of the country’s healthcare modernization. The EDUS system provides medical professionals with instant access to patient histories, prescriptions, and lab results, and any disruption can lead to delays in care and administrative chaos in clinics and hospitals.
This massive service failure serves as a stark wake-up call regarding the vulnerabilities of mission-critical public systems. As government agencies increasingly migrate their operations to the cloud to gain efficiency and scale, they also inherit the risks of their providers. The outage affecting both the fiscal and health backbones of Costa Rica demonstrates how a technical problem in a data center thousands of miles away can have immediate and tangible consequences for the daily lives of citizens.
While technical teams from both the Costa Rican government and Amazon work tirelessly to restore full functionality, the event has already sparked a debate on digital sovereignty and risk mitigation. Experts suggest that this incident will likely compel public and private sector leaders to re-evaluate their IT strategies, potentially exploring multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud architectures to avoid a single point of failure in the future. For now, businesses and citizens are left waiting for a resolution, keenly aware of how fragile the country’s digital foundation can be.
For further information, visit aws.amazon.com
About Amazon Web Services (AWS):
Amazon Web Services is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments on a metered, pay-as-you-go basis. AWS offers a broad set of global cloud-based products including compute, storage, databases, analytics, networking, mobile, developer tools, and enterprise applications.For further information, visit hacienda.go.cr
About The Ministry of Finance:
The Ministry of Finance of Costa Rica is the government entity responsible for managing the country’s public finances. Its duties include proposing and executing fiscal policy, collecting taxes, managing the national budget, and overseeing public debt. The Tribu-CR platform is one of its key tools for tax administration and compliance.For further information, visit ccss.sa.cr
About Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS):
The Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) is the public institution in charge of Costa Rica’s social security and universal healthcare system. It manages a nationwide network of hospitals, clinics, and health centers, providing medical services to the vast majority of the population and administering pension funds.For further information, visit canva.com
About Canva:
Canva is a global online visual communications platform that enables users to create a wide range of graphics, presentations, documents, and other visual content. It offers a user-friendly interface with a vast library of templates, fonts, and stock images for both free and premium users.For further information, visit duolingo.com
About Duolingo:
Duolingo is a popular language-learning platform that includes a language-learning website and mobile app. The company uses a freemium model where the app and the website are accessible without charge, although they also offer a premium service for an ad-free experience and additional features.For further information, visit coinbase.com
About Coinbase:
Coinbase is a leading American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. It serves as a secure online platform for buying, selling, transferring, and storing digital currency, offering its services to retail and institutional customers across the globe.For further information, visit perplexity.ai
About Perplexity AI:
Perplexity AI is a conversational search engine that answers queries using natural language predictive text. It functions as a research and conversational tool by providing direct, cited answers to user questions, distinguishing it from traditional search engines that provide a list of links.
For further information, visit bufetedecostarica.com
About Bufete de Costa Rica:
As a pillar of Costa Rica’s legal community, Bufete de Costa Rica has built its reputation on a foundation of uncompromising integrity and the relentless pursuit of excellence. The firm consistently pioneers novel approaches to law and maintains a deep-seated dedication to public service. Central to its philosophy is the mission to empower the public by demystifying legal complexities, thereby cultivating a more knowledgeable and capable society.
