Cases / Law, regulation and treaties · El Salvador · 2025
El Salvador enacts foreign agents law taxing foreign funding at 30%
Short record: the main facts, with sources. A full case file has not been prepared.
Nature's voice · report
No measurement of the harm done to me here is on record.
Did nature suffer? Not measured.
Not on record
- The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
El Salvador enacted a foreign agents law on 20 May 2025 that taxes foreign funding at 30% and requires registration. The sources reviewed do not confirm a link between the law and anti-mining groups.
What?
El Salvador enacted a foreign agents law on 20 May 2025 that taxes foreign funding at 30%. Human Rights Watch
Where?
El Salvador Human Rights Watch
When?
Enacted 20 May 2025 Human Rights Watch
Who?
Gained
None on recordLost
- Foreign-funded civil society groups — Face a 30% tax on foreign funding and a registration requirement under the law Human Rights Watch
Harmed
None on recordWhy?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
How?
The law sets a 30% tax on foreign funding, a registration requirement, and the possibility of cancelling legal personality. Human Rights Watch
6 of 6 questions answered from the record
What happened
The record, in order.
Human Rights Watch reported that El Salvador's foreign agents law was enacted on 20 May 2025.
According to the same source, the law sets a 30% tax on foreign funding, requires registration, and allows an organisation's legal personality to be cancelled.
In court and with insurers
Every proceeding and every insurer decision on record.
Lawsuits and rulings
No court case on record. No court has ruled on this case.
Insurers
No insurer decision on record.
What we don't know
Undisclosed, unproven, untried: recorded as data.
Nature
- Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.
Record
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: the mining ban was lifted about five months before the law was enacted (ABC News, AP and CISPES, December 2024).
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: Cristosal, a human rights organisation, left El Salvador in July 2025.
- Insufficient Reported but not verified: environmental groups say the law's real target is them; the sources reviewed found no link between the law and anti-mining groups.
- None on record The sources reviewed do not say who benefits from the law, or whether any organisation has been registered, penalised or dissolved under it.
Did the harm stop?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Who paid?
Not stated in the sources reviewed.
Sources
Voices on record: — Company or project— Government and regulators— Courts— Press and investigations✓ Communities and civil society— Researchers
Communities and civil society
- El Salvador foreign agents lawHuman Rights Watch · 2025-05-23
Connected cases
Related matters, and cases linked to this one through the same organisations, with the role each played in both.
- El Salvador won Pac Rim claim; 2017 metal mining ban repealed in 2024 El Salvador · 2016–2024
- Government of El Salvador (Government) — here: Enacted the foreign agents law; there: respondent