January and July: key months to apply for the automatic increase in alimony in 2026
By: ECIJA Costa Rica.
When the person obliged to pay alimony is a salaried employee, the amount of the contribution may be updated every six months, specifically in the months of January and July, applying the salary increases decreed by law for the public or private sector, as the case may be. In the case of non-salaried obligated persons, the adjustment proceeds annually, in the month of January, taking as a reference the variation of the legal minimum wage.
"Although the Family Procedural Code qualifies this adjustment as an automatic increase, practical experience and doctrine have shown that the maintenance courts do not have the material capacity to apply it ex officio in all cases, due to the high volume of proceedings in this area. Consequently, it is essential that maintenance creditors expressly request the increase before the court where their case is being processed," said Mario Umaña, ECIJA's Family Law specialist in Costa Rica.
This updating mechanism responds to the legislator's intention to reduce the outdatedness of maintenance payments and to prevent beneficiaries from having to constantly resort to more complex processes of modification due to changes in circumstances, without prejudice to the fact that these may be promoted when there are additional reasons that justify it.
The proper application of this regulation strengthens the protection of the right to maintenance, as it seeks to preserve the purchasing power of the pension and to guarantee that it continues to fulfil its essential purpose: to adequately cover the needs of food, health, education, recreation and integral development of the beneficiary.
Umaña also pointed out that: "the timely management of the increase of the quota in the months of January and July 2026 constitutes a relevant tool for the effective protection of the right to food and for the realisation of the principles of the interest of the beneficiary and of responsibility in the fulfilment of the food obligation, which should guide all judicial decisions in this matter".
