Investing in Honduras

A Casa de Bolsa is a securities brokerage that receives investment orders, arranges purchases or sales and may provide custody or portfolio services. The Comisión Nacional de Bancos y Seguros (CNBS) registers and supervises Casas de Bolsa. Natural and legal persons, including eligible residents and non-residents, can generally invest after signing a brokerage contract and completing know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering checks. The Honduran market is supplied mainly by fixed-income instruments. Banco Central de Honduras (BCH) Letras are usually zero-coupon instruments with a maximum term of one year: the investor buys them at a discount and receives the nominal value at maturity. BCH Bonos normally have terms exceeding one year and pay principal together with a yield. Secretaría de Finanzas (SEFIN) issues domestic government bonds, commonly called GDH bonds, with short-, medium- and long-term maturities. Sovereign bonds denominated in US dollars and private bonds issued by financial or non-financial companies are also available. Private-bond terms, minimum amounts and payment conditions depend on the prospectus. Public-sector instruments can be purchased in primary auctions or in the secondary market through a Casa de Bolsa. BCH public auctions take place every two weeks on Monday. The government-auction minimum is L100,000, with additional bids in L1,000 increments; non-competitive local-currency bids are limited to L500,000. BCH registration and access can involve DV-BCH, the BCH depository system. There is no evidenced direct retail-app equivalent for ordinary trading, so orders, settlement and custody depend on the intermediary. The Bolsa Centroamericana de Valores (BCV) provides exchange and market infrastructure for primary and secondary transactions. Official information has shown a discrepancy in the number of active Casas de Bolsa: the July 2026 Registro Público del Mercado de Valores reported one exchange and six registered Casas de Bolsa, while a current CNBS FAQ reported five active firms. Verify the live CNBS and RPMV records before opening an account. Foreign-market access may be offered by a Casa de Bolsa, but that placement is not supervised by CNBS in the same way as the local service and requires clear disclosure. A hold-to-maturity strategy is the dominant practical approach for local bonds. Investors can also spread maturities, issuers and currencies across a ladder. Selling before maturity exposes the investor to price changes, interest-rate movements and limited liquidity. A portfolio-management contract can set limits for issuers, sectors and maturities. AFP pension funds provide a regulated, pooled long-term savings channel based on diversification, security, yield and liquidity principles, but the saver does not select individual securities inside the fund. Government securities are recorded in client securities accounts and dematerialized government instruments use DV-BCH. Client assets are separated from the Casa de Bolsa's own assets under CNBS rules. CEHVAL was authorized in 2026 to provide custody, clearing, settlement, transfer and interest or dividend administration services, but its operational availability should be confirmed before relying on a particular service. Costs can include the Casa de Bolsa commission, bid-ask spread, custody, transfer, payment and foreign-exchange charges. The brokerage contract should state commissions and other expenses. As an example, the BCV 2025 custody tariff listed a US$250 registration charge, a US$5 certificate charge, international custody at 0.008% per month and an international instruction charge of US$50; the total retail cost must be confirmed in the current contract. The Servicio de Administración de Rentas (SAR) applies tax treatment that depends on the instrument and the investor's residence. Research for Honduras identifies a single 10% capital-gains rate for domiciled and non-domiciled taxpayers, 10% withholding on Honduras-source dividends paid to non-residents and 10% treatment for interest on bonds and other titles, including BCH bond yields. Confirm the applicable treatment with SAR or a qualified adviser before investing. The main risks are issuer default, interest-rate and market-price changes, limited liquidity, exchange-rate movements between lempiras and US dollars, concentration in government or banking issuers, operational or custody failures, and regulatory or compliance restrictions. A Casa de Bolsa does not guarantee a return and does not assume responsibility for an issuer's default. CNBS Resolution 003/2024 prohibits supervised institutions from holding, investing in or intermediating unauthorized virtual assets; BCH does not provide backing or legal protection for such assets. Direct real-estate, private-business and other off-market investments require separate case-by-case checks, and no public pooled investment structure for them is evidenced in the available Honduran research.