When a region goes from having one in four households living in poverty to more than one in just a year, the figures deserve more than a headline. According to the results of the National Household Survey (Encuesta Nacional de Hogares, Enaho), published by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos, INEC), the Brunca region now has the highest proportion of households living in poverty in the country. Here, we explain what this figure measures, what it reveals about household income, and what questions it cannot yet answer.
What the INEC Measured in the Brunca Region
According to information published by Delfino.cr based on the Enaho, income poverty in the Brunca region rose from 23.8% of households in 2025 to 27.3% in 2026. This represents an increase of 3.5 percentage points. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that Brunca was the only one of the country’s six planning regions where the INEC identified a statistically significant increase in this indicator. In simple terms, the difference is substantial enough that it cannot be attributed merely to the natural variation inherent in any survey.
Meanwhile, the national average barely changed, moving from 15.2% to 15.4%, a variation that was not statistically significant. This means that poverty is not affecting the country evenly; instead, the problem is concentrated in a specific region.
Per Capita Income: The Figure That Best Explains the Change
To understand income poverty, it is important to look at how it is calculated. The INEC does not simply compare how much a household earns; it also considers how much income is available to each household member. For this reason, the key indicator is average monthly income per person.
According to the same source, this indicator in the Brunca region fell by 11.7%, from ₡374,374 in 2025 to ₡330,697 in 2026. That represents a monthly difference of ₡43,677 per person, which the INEC considers statistically significant. The decline was also considerably greater than the national average decrease of 3.8%.
Average household income also declined, from ₡889,193 to ₡805,633, equivalent to a 9.4% decrease. However, the INEC did not find this variation to be statistically significant. These findings are not contradictory: a household may experience a drop in income without that decline being statistically conclusive. However, when the number of people per household remains relatively stable, the loss of income per person becomes more apparent. The available sources do not explain why incomes declined in the region; answering that question would require examining the INEC’s full report.
Extreme Poverty and the Gap Between Regions
Extreme poverty represents an even more severe level of economic hardship. It occurs when a family’s income is insufficient even to afford the basic food basket. According to Delfino.cr, extreme poverty in the Brunca region reached 7.8% of households, compared with 6% in 2025 and a national average of 3.8%. In other words, the regional figure is nearly twice the national average. One important clarification is necessary: unlike the increase in overall poverty, the report does not identify this change as statistically significant.
The regional gap is also considerable. In 2026, the Huetar Caribe region recorded 22.2% of households living in poverty, followed by Huetar Norte at 21.3%, the Central Pacific at 21%, Chorotega at 17.2%, and the Central region at 11.4%. The difference between Brunca and the Central region is 15.9 percentage points.
News Sources
- Delfino.cr: Poverty increased by 3.5 percentage points in the Brunca region, affecting one in four households.
- El Financiero Costa Rica: Is your household among Costa Rica’s highest- or lowest-income households? This calculator will give you the answer.
- La Nación Costa Rica: Only one region of Costa Rica experienced an increase in household income.
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