Buying Property in Roatán and the Bay Islands (Honduras), 2026: Caribbean Beachfront, and the Constitution That Governs It

Published on: July 9, 2026

Last verified: 9 July 2026. Honduran property law contains constitutional restrictions with severe consequences for non-compliance. This guide is informational only. Engage independent Honduran counsel.

Roatán is the most accessible Caribbean beachfront market a foreign buyer can still reach at prices that would not clear a deposit in Barbados or the Caymans. It sits on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second-largest reef system in the world, has direct international flights, two cruise terminals, and several thousand foreign residents concentrated in West Bay, West End, and Sandy Bay.

It also sits inside a constitutional restricted zone where, as a starting proposition, foreigners cannot own land at all.

Understanding how that squares is the entire job. Everything else, price per square foot, dive shops, sunsets, is downstream of it.

Article 107: read the actual text

The Constitution of Honduras, Article 107, provides in substance:

State, municipal, or private properties situated along neighbouring countries, or along the coastlines of both seas, within an extension of forty kilometres toward the interior of the country, including islands, cays, reefs, rocks, and sand banks, may only be acquired, possessed, or held under any title by Hondurans by birth, by corporations formed entirely by Hondurans, and by government institutions, under penalty of nullity of the act or contract.

The acquisition of urban properties located within those limits shall be the subject of special legislation.

Property registrars are forbidden to record documents that contravene these provisions.

Three things follow, and buyers routinely miss all three.

1. The entire Bay Islands archipelago is inside the restricted zone. Roatán, Utila, and Guanaja are islands. The forty-kilometre coastal belt is not the relevant clause for them, the islands clause is. There is no part of Roatán that is outside the restricted zone.

2. The sanction is nullity, not a fine. A transaction in breach of Article 107 is void. Not voidable. Void. And registrars are constitutionally barred from recording it.

3. The Constitution creates its own exception. "Shall be the subject of special legislation" is the hook. That special legislation exists.

Decree 90-90: the legal route for individuals

In 1990, Honduras enacted Congressional Decree 90-90 as the special legislation contemplated by Article 107, to encourage foreign investment in real estate.

Under Decree 90-90, a foreign individual may acquire, in their own name, an urban property within the restricted zone, subject to conditions. The conditions consistently reported across Honduran legal and brokerage sources are:

This is not a loophole. It is the exception the Constitution itself provides for, and a compliant Decree 90-90 purchase is legally protected.

A married couple is commonly reported to be able to hold up to 3,000 m² each, but confirm this against the current regulation, not against a broker's summary.

The word doing the heavy lifting is "urban." Whether the specific parcel you want qualifies is a legal determination, not a marketing one. A beachfront lot in West Bay may qualify. A jungle acre on the East End may not. Verify the classification, in writing, before you pay a deposit.

The corporate route, and why we are going to be blunt about it

For anything above 3,000 m², or for a second property, the near-universal practice on Roatán is to hold through a Honduran corporation, a Sociedad Anónima (S.A.) or Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada (S. de R.L.).

Here is the tension, stated plainly.

Article 107 permits ownership in the restricted zone by "corporations formed entirely by Hondurans." A Honduran-domiciled company has Honduran juridical nationality under the Commerce Code. But a company whose shareholders are foreign is not, on the face of the constitutional text, "formed entirely by Hondurans."

The standard market practice, described openly on Roatán brokerage websites, has been to incorporate with two Honduran nominee shareholders and then have them endorse their shares in blank to the foreign buyer, relying on bearer-share transfer provisions of the Commerce Code.

We are not going to tell you this is safe, and we are not going to tell you it is illegal. What we will tell you:

• It is extremely common on Roatán and has been for three decades.
• It sits in evident tension with the constitutional wording, and the constitutional sanction is nullity.
• Bearer shares have been the target of sustained international anti-money-laundering reform, and their availability and treatment have narrowed in many jurisdictions.
• Corporate holding brings real costs: incorporation (commonly quoted at