Dominican Republic vs Panama: The Comparison We Made Before We Built

Almost every buyer who reaches us has Panama on the same shortlist, and that is a fair fight to pick. We are the developer of Moon Garden 2, in Cabeza de Toro, so we are not neutral and we are not going to pretend to be. What we can do is show our working: the axes we weighed, the Dominican position with the law behind it, the places where Panama is genuinely the stronger answer, and the questions we would put to a Panamanian attorney if we were the ones buying there.

Two countries that answer two different questions

Panama and the Dominican Republic get compared as if they were interchangeable Caribbean options, and they are not. Panama's economy is organised around a capital city, a banking and corporate services sector, and canal trade. The Dominican Republic's eastern coast is organised around visitors. Neither of those is a defect; they simply produce different assets. A condominium in a Panamanian city block is a piece of an urban rental market with year-round professional tenants. A residence in a resort community is a piece of a leisure market whose demand rises and falls with flights and holidays.

Where Panama is the better answer: if you want a home base in a real metropolis, with a financial district, corporate offices and an urban tenant pool, we would send you to Panama City without argument. We do not build there, and telling you the two markets are the same would be the easiest way to lose your trust. What we build is the other thing: 108 residences at Moon Garden 2, priced from $211,000 to $490,000, delivering in 2027, inside a golf-and-lagoon community whose tenants arrive by plane. If that is the asset you want, the rest of this page is the case for buying it here rather than there.

Where we build, and why we chose this stretch of coast

Moon Garden 2 sits in Cabeza de Toro, inside the Coral Golf Resort master community, about 10 minutes from Punta Cana International Airport. The community is built around a 12-acre water-sports lagoon, with a golf course, a beach club and a spa on the same parcel. We have been developing in this region since 2017, across 21 delivered projects and more than 2,000 units, so the siting decision was made with a fair amount of scar tissue behind it.

The reason it is here rather than somewhere with a better brochure line is arrivals. In 2025, 71.9% of all foreign non-resident arrivals to the Dominican Republic came through Punta Cana International Airport — the same airport a short drive from this door. A leisure residence does not create its own demand; it inherits the demand of the airport it sits beside. That is the single number that decided this parcel for us, and it is the number we would look for first in any country, Panama included.

Title: what a foreign buyer actually ends up holding

On the Dominican side the answer is short. A foreign buyer is registered as the owner in their own name, on the same footing as a Dominican national. There is no local partner, no trust structure, and no residency requirement to buy. A purchaser at Moon Garden 2 takes title exactly as a Dominican purchaser would, and the whole transaction is handled by a Dominican real estate attorney you appoint, not by us.

Panama is widely described as permitting foreign ownership too, and we have no reason to doubt it — but the detail that decides a Panamanian purchase is not the nationality of the buyer, it is the status of the land. Panama is commonly described as still recognising untitled land held under possessory rights alongside registered title, and those are not the same instrument when you come to sell. So before anything else, get three answers in writing from a Panamanian attorney:

• Is this specific parcel registered title, or a possessory right?
• Does any coastal, island or border restriction touch it?
• Is a local company or resident agent needed to hold it, and what does maintaining one cost each year?

Tax: our side is written into a statute, theirs you have to ask for

The Dominican incentive that matters to a buyer here is CONFOTUR — Law 158-01 of 2001, amended by Law 195-13 in 2013 — and Moon Garden 2 is an approved project under it. For a first buyer from the developer, rather than a resale, the law removes the 3% transfer tax otherwise payable on registering the title, and it provides a fifteen-year exemption from the 1% annual property tax, the IPI, which is itself charged only on value above a threshold the tax authority adjusts each year. Two things marketing copy usually leaves out and we would rather say plainly: that fifteen-year period is the term the statute writes for qualifying projects, not a personal entitlement you should assume, and the relief is not automatic — your attorney has to file it and have it recorded against your title.

Rental earnings are assessed separately from the property, under a different part of the code. A non-resident owner's rental income carries a 27% withholding on gross receipts with no deductions, and short-stay tourist accommodation attracts ITBIS at 18%, for which the owner is liable rather than the booking platform. CONFOTUR's documented exemptions are the transfer tax and the IPI; how the two regimes meet on your particular unit is a question for your attorney. Rates move, so confirm the current position before you model anything. For Panama we will not print a rate we cannot source. Ask a Panamanian tax adviser for the same four items in writing: the transfer tax and who pays it, any annual property tax and any relief for new construction, the treatment of a non-resident's rental income, and how far the country's tax net reaches over income earned abroad — Panama is often described as taxing on a territorial basis, and that is exactly the kind of claim to have confirmed by a professional rather than absorbed from a brochure.

Currency, residency and the cost of staying, side by side

On currency, Panama simply wins, and we will say so. The US dollar circulates there as everyday money, so a North American buyer never converts anything at the national level. The Dominican Republic runs its own peso. Our price list and our published figures are in US dollars, and so are the resort's charges, but the wider economy around you is not — groceries, fuel, a plumber and a local salary are peso items. That is a genuine difference in daily friction and it is worth weighing honestly rather than waving away. What it does not do is change the tax treatment, the title regime or the rental market, which are the three things that actually decide the return on a resort residence.

On staying long term, both countries offer routes and neither is something we can settle for you. Panama's Friendly Nations visa is a well-established residency path for nationals of qualifying countries; its current requirements change and belong to a Panamanian immigration attorney, not to us. On the Dominican side there is an investment route described as having a US$200,000 minimum, though the sources conflict on whether real estate alone counts toward it and above what value — so nothing here says that buying a residence delivers residency. Law 171-07 also provides streams for pensioners and for foreign passive income, described at US$1,500 and US$2,000 a month, which for many buyers is the more relevant door. A residency permit is not tax residency either, which the Dominican Republic tests at 182 days. Cost of living we deliberately leave without a number in either column: the spread between a capital city and a coastal town is wider than the spread between the two countries, and a national average would tell you nothing useful about your own budget.

Getting there, and who ends up renting it

Access is where the two countries stop being abstract. Panama City is a large connecting hub with reach deep into South America, and if your family, your work or your travel pattern runs south, that connectivity is a real argument we are not going to talk you out of. Punta Cana's strength is a different one: depth on the leisure routes out of the United States and Canada. The share tells the story — 71.9% of the country's foreign non-resident arrivals in 2025 landed at the airport 10 minutes from this building. Those are holiday travellers, and holiday travellers are the people who rent a residence like this one.

That is why we treat arrivals as the demand curve rather than a marketing statistic. The projected return we publish for Moon Garden 2 is 10-13%; it is a projection and nothing more, and you should ask us — and anyone else — what sits behind any number of that kind before you rely on it. One last practical point that applies in either country: what limits short-term letting here is usually the building's own rules rather than the national statute, so read the condominium regime of anything you are considering, in Punta Cana or in Panama, before you assume you may rent it out at all.

Common questions

So which country is actually the better buy?

It depends which question you are answering, and we would rather say that than sell you a verdict. If you want an urban home base with a financial district and a year-round professional tenant pool, Panama City is the better answer and we do not build there. If you want a leisure residence whose tenants arrive by plane, the case for this coast is the arrivals behind it: 71.9% of the country's foreign non-resident arrivals in 2025 came through the airport 10 minutes from Moon Garden 2. Pick the asset first, then pick the country that produces it.

Panama uses the US dollar. Isn't that a real advantage over the Dominican peso?

Yes, and we are not going to argue with it. Not converting at the national level removes a layer of friction from daily life, and for some buyers that alone decides it. What we would ask you to keep in proportion is what it does not touch: our price list and the resort's charges are already quoted in US dollars, and the currency of the country does not change how title is registered, what tax the purchase attracts, or how many visitors land nearby each year. Weigh the friction honestly, then weigh the other three.

Are the tax benefits here better than what Panama offers?

We can only answer half of that honestly. On our side the position is written down: Moon Garden 2 is approved under CONFOTUR, Law 158-01 of 2001 as amended by Law 195-13, which removes the 3% transfer tax for a first buyer from the developer and gives qualifying projects a fifteen-year exemption from the 1% IPI, once your attorney has filed and recorded it. On the Panamanian side we hold no sourced figure, so we will not rank the two. Ask a Panamanian tax adviser for the equivalent citations and the comparison becomes yours to make on facts.

Do I need Dominican residency to buy here, and does buying get me residency?

No to the first, and we cannot claim the second. Buying carries no residency precondition — a non-resident foreign buyer is registered as owner in their own name. On whether a purchase counts toward the investment residency route described at US$200,000, the sources conflict on both the principle and the amount, so nothing here says a residence delivers it. Law 171-07's pensioner and foreign-passive-income streams, described at US$1,500 and US$2,000 a month, are a separate and often more relevant door. All of it belongs to a Dominican immigration attorney reading your own circumstances.