IKEA has identified the first three sites it plans to operate in Costa Rica, giving the clearest picture yet of how the Swedish home furnishings retailer intends to build a physical presence in a year after signing its franchise agreement. The first will sit inside Parque Empresarial Lindora, a mixed-use business park in Pozos de Santa Ana, west of San José.
The company describes it as a hybrid site that pairs logistics support for online and telephone orders with a planning and ordering space, where customers who buy through the website can collect their purchases. Staff at that location will also advise customers on designing and organizing rooms in their homes, a service the chain offers in other markets. The site is not a conventional showroom, and the company has not described it as a full store.
Two further openings are planned after that. One is a compact-format store in Curridabat, east of the capital. The second is a medium-format store in Escazú, which will be developed alongside a distribution center of greater capacity. IKEA did not announce opening dates for any of the three. The company has said its rollout will be progressive, with online sales serving as the first commercial point of contact for Costa Rican customers.
That approach has been consistent since the beginning. Inter IKEA Systems B.V., the owner of the IKEA concept and its worldwide franchisor, announced in August 2025 that it had signed agreements with Sarton Group granting exclusive rights to explore expansion in Costa Rica and Panama.
Maria Johansson, IKEA’s expansion manager, said at the time that the agreements were part of the brand’s growth across the Americas and would “invite Panama and Costa Rica into the IKEA family.” Sarton Group already operates IKEA stores in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Spain’s Canary and Balearic Islands. Tony Tavira, retail manager at Sarton Group, has said Costa Rica represents a relevant market within the company’s regional development, and that assembling teams capable of bringing the brand to life in a new market would be central to the effort.
The groundwork has been visible for months. In June, the company opened hiring for roles spanning logistics, sales, customer service, communications, interior design, operations, information technology and human resources, and launched its Costa Rican site at ikea.cr, which initially displayed products without allowing purchases.
By July, heavy machinery was moving earth on a property in GuachipelÃn de Escazú near Route 27, close to the Sheraton hotel. El Financiero confirmed with the municipality that the project held the permits required to begin work, and a sign on the property showed environmental viability approval from the Ministry of Environment and Energy.
Whether that Escazú site corresponds to the medium-format store now listed third in the company’s sequence, or to the distribution center attached to it, has not been clarified. The company has consistently declined to give opening dates, citing the logistical complexity of the project. IKEA operates more than 500 stores across 63 markets, according to company figures for the close of its 2025 fiscal year, with retail run by more than a dozen franchise groups.
Its arrival gives Costa Rica’s home furnishings sector a competitor with global purchasing scale and flat-pack pricing and puts pressure on established local retailers to revisit their catalogs and price positions. For now, none of that has a date attached. The company’s online channel remains the only way to reach the brand in Costa Rica, and the Lindora site will be the first place customers can pick up what they order.
