Costa Rica’s Five-Leaf Sustainability Rating: What It Meant and How CST Works Today

Travelers researching eco-lodges in Costa Rica often run into a green symbol showing one, three or five leaves. An older article may describe a lodge as “five-leaf certified,” while a newer website says CST Basic or CST Elite. Is five leaves still the top rating? Does a five-star hotel automatically get five leaves? And how do you know whether a certificate is current?

The short answer: Costa Rica’s old one-to-five leaf scale has been replaced by two official levels, Basic and Elite, and each certificate is valid for two years. Five leaves are part of the country’s sustainable tourism history. They are not how the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) classifies businesses today. The good news is that checking a business’s current status now takes about a minute, using the official online directory described below.

What CST is

CST stands for Certificación para la Sostenibilidad Turística, the Certification for Sustainable Tourism. It is run by the ICT, and its own history page says the groundwork was laid in 1995. The ICT’s English CST page dates the program’s definition of sustainability to 1997 and notes that the World Tourism Organization recognized it in 2000. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council also lists CST among its recognized standards for hotels.

Three features matter most to travelers:

• It is free and voluntary. The CST program page describes the process as free, voluntary and open to tourism businesses of any size. Many good lodges never apply, and the absence of CST is not evidence of bad practice.
• It covers far more than hotels. The current standard has categories for lodging, restaurants, car rental, theme parks, protected areas, land and water transport, three kinds of tour operators, event venues, hot springs, spas, and institutions and organizations.
• It measures management, not luxury. Every applicant is assessed in four areas: business management; social, economic and cultural impact; environmental impact; and indicators specific to its category. A Technical Verification Commission that includes the ICT, the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the University of Costa Rica, INCAE, the National Chamber of Tourism and IUCN grants the certificate.

CST is different from online reviews, hotel star ratings and the Ecological Blue Flag program. A highly rated hotel does not necessarily hold CST, and a CST lodge is not necessarily luxurious.

The old five-leaf scale

For many years CST graded businesses on a scale of one to five leaves, with more leaves representing stronger performance against the standard in force at the time. The ICT’s own sustainability page still notes that classifications “may also appear on a 1-5 scale,” which is why the leaves continue to show up on websites, brochures and older reviews.

Different editions of the standard used different manuals and scoring rules, so internet charts that give one fixed percentage for each leaf should be treated with caution. A five-leaf rating meant the top band of the earlier system. It never meant a hotel had no environmental impact, guaranteed wildlife or offered five-star service.

You will still meet the old scale in older reviews across the web, including earlier versions of some pages on this site. Si Como No earned five leaves under the former scale, and Arenas del Mar was known for five stars plus five leaves. Rancho Margot still describes itself on its website as a “5-Leaves resort.” Those statements can be accurate history. What they cannot tell you is the business’s status today, and as the next sections show, the current picture is often different.

Today’s two levels: Basic and Elite

The program moved its audits onto a digital platform, and the CST program page counts nearly 400 certifications issued to businesses since 2018. The current standard was published in Costa Rica’s official gazette, La Gaceta No. 215, on November 15, 2024, and a refreshed 2025 version with a new logo and a simpler online process was presented in September 2025, when the ICT reported 157 businesses with current certificates.

The two official sources currently give different figures for the improvement share. The ICT’s English page says 30 percent; the CST program’s own FAQ says 50 percent. Both agree on 70 percent for external impact. For travelers the exact number matters less than the meaning: Basic is the foundation, and Elite asks for more evidence of continuing progress and positive impact on surroundings.

A certificate is valid for two calendar years from the date it is granted. When it expires, the business must go through the audit again. That is why a badge in a 2019 photo, or even a page that says “certified” without a date, is not enough on its own.

How to look up a business’s current CST status

The CST program now publishes a searchable directory. Here is how to use it:

1. Open the official directory. The Spanish version is Entidades certificadas. There is also an English version, but when we checked on October 20, 2026, the Spanish directory listed noticeably more businesses, including several lodges missing from the English one. Start with the Spanish page.
2. Search by keyword. Type part of the business name into “Palabra clave” (Keyword). Use one distinctive word, such as “Nicuesa” or “Lapa,” rather than the full name, because listings may use a legal or older name.
3. Filter if you need to. You can filter by category (“Hospedaje” is lodging; “Tour operador” is tour operator), by level (“Élite” or “Básico”), by province and by canton. Filtering lodging by province is a quick way to see which certified places exist in the region you are visiting.
4. Read the category and level. Each result shows the business name, its categories and “Nivel Básico” or “Nivel Élite.” Make sure the certified entity is the hotel you are booking, not a sister tour company or a different property in the same group.
5. Try former names. Our Santa Lucia Jungle Hacienda page covers a lodge that used to be Hotel Villa Lapas; in the directory it appears under the old name, Hotel Villa Lapas, at the Basic level. Likewise, our Corcovado Wilderness Lodge page covers the former Casa Corcovado, listed as “SCP Corcovado Wilderness Lodge.”
6. Ask for the date. The directory shows the level but, in our check, not the expiry date. If timing matters to you, ask the business for its certificate date, or write to the program at [email protected], the contact address published on the CST site.

If a business is not in the directory, that does not mean it is doing anything wrong. It may never have applied, its certificate may be in renewal, or it may be listed under another name. It simply means you should not describe it as currently certified.

Which lodges on our site are listed today?

This is a snapshot of lodges with reviews on our site that appeared in the official Spanish directory on October 20, 2026. Certificates last two years, so check the directory again before you book.

Two things stand out. First, a former five-leaf hotel can hold either level today: Arenas del Mar is listed at Elite and Si Como No at Basic. Second, many well-known nature lodges did not appear in the directory at all on the day we checked. That is not a judgment on them, only a reminder to verify rather than assume. You can browse more lodges by region, for example our Osa Peninsula eco-lodges or Guanacaste eco-lodges, and then check each one.

Parks and reserves can hold CST too

Because CST has a protected areas category, some parks and reserves are certified in their own right. SINAC’s page for Carara National Park states that the park holds CST, and the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve appears in the directory at the Elite level. That certification applies to the protected area’s management, not to the hotels near it. Our Monteverde cloud forest guide and national parks guide cover visiting both.

CST and the Ecological Blue Flag are different things

The Programa Bandera Azul Ecológica is another prominent national program, and it causes a lot of confusion in beach towns. According to the ICT’s Blue Flag page, it is an annual award run by several institutions with ten categories, including beaches, communities, education centers, sustainable homes and protected natural spaces. Beach awards range from one to five stars, which adds to the confusion with the old CST leaves.

“Blue Flag beach nearby” and “CST Elite hotel” are different claims. A Blue Flag on the beach in front of a hotel says nothing about how the hotel itself treats wastewater or employs local staff, and a CST certificate does not certify the beach.

What CST does and does not tell you

CST is useful evidence that a business has passed a structured, independent audit. It is not a promise that every meal is organic, every tour is low-carbon or every guest will have the same experience. A certified resort can still have a large physical footprint, and an excellent family-run lodge can make a real conservation contribution without a certificate.

CST also does not override wildlife law. A certified hotel has no special permission to feed, handle or display wild animals. For responsible wildlife watching, the official Costa Rica Silvestre visitor resources cover feeding, pets and photo ethics. Monkeys or toucans on the grounds are not proof of good management either; wildlife can persist for a while in fragmented habitat.

Many strong lodges also protect land through private reserves rather than paperwork, and our guide to private nature reserves explains that network. The fair approach is to treat CST as one strong signal and combine it with what the property says, specifically and verifiably, about land, water, waste, energy and people.

Questions worth sending before you book

A short email clarifies more than a glossy sustainability page. Useful questions:

• “Do you hold a current CST certificate, and at what level? When was it granted?”
• “Is the certificate in the hotel’s name, or in a related company’s name?”
• “If your website mentions five leaves, is that a past rating?”
• “How do you treat wastewater, and where does your drinking water come from?”
• “Do you protect native habitat on your land, and how much?”
• “How do your guides handle sloths, monkeys and nesting turtles?”

Specific, dated answers are what you are looking for. Our guide on how to choose a sustainable hotel turns these into a full checklist, and what is an eco-lodge explains the terms.

Read the leaves as history

Costa Rica’s five-leaf symbol helped popularize the idea that tourism businesses could be judged on how they treat nature and their neighbors, and that remains a proud part of the country’s story, which our Costa Rica conservation story traces in full. Today the honest way to use the symbol is as history: recognize the Basic and Elite levels, check the directory, ask for a date, and look at the real work behind each label. Our complete Costa Rica ecotourism guide puts certification in the context of planning a whole trip.