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Interesting, Les. Marcia and I did exactly the same thing in 2005. We came here looking for whatever would rule it out as a destination. When we couldn’t find anything, we jumped. Best move we’ve ever made!
My wife just had one at a freestanding radiology clinic in Grecia. She did not need a physician’s order. She just walked in, requested it, and got it in a few minutes. The cost was c20,000 (+/-$40US). They read it on the spot and she left with the films.
Hard not to like, eh?
Let me suggest that before you get too deep into your planning for this first trip, you give some serious thought to the characteristics of where you want to live.
We moved here from the beach in North Carolina where the summers were very hot and humid, but we loved the place. So our first thought was to live on the beach here. That is, we thought so ’til we learned that the beach areas here are as hot and humid as the North Carolina beaches in the summer but year ’round. That would have been too much for us. So we settled in the Central Valley where the climate much milder and amenities more accessible.
Think about what sort of place you want to live and then pose that question in this forum. If high-end shopping and sophisticated medical care are important, ask about that. If scuba diving is important, ask about that. If you’re avid gardeners, ask about that.
If you can be more specific about yout needs and wants, the advice you get here will be much more meaningful.
Thank you, Shirley. I was wondering when somebody else would catch onto that one.
Of course, right here on earth we do have Mercury cars, Venus de Milo, Mars candy bars, Saturn cars, Pluto*, Neptune (Maytag front loaders), lots of Uranuses, and Jupiter, Florida, so why not Costa Rica?
*See “Mouse, Mickey”
ICE’s prepaid cost for in-country calling is less than $.07US per minute. Dunno about calling the U.S., but a service like MagicJack or Skype would almost certainly be cheaper if you have adequate Internet service.
ICE’s competitors are likely about the same.
I don’t know just how much research on resettling in Costa Rica you have done, but there are some obstacles that you cannot avoid.
First, you cannot safely remain in Costa Rica long-term without qualifying for, applying for, and being granted one or another form of legal residency. Initially, you become a temporary resident; later, you can qualify for permanent residency. The two common forms of legal temporary residency are [i]pensionado[/i] and [i]rentista[/i].
True, there are those who dash across the border and back every ninety days or so in order to be granted a new tourist visa. They are referred to as “perpetual tourists”. Immigration is widely reported to be cracking down on that practice. The only safe way to be and remain here for any length of time is to become a legal resident. What would you do if Immigration denied your request for re-entry or granted you a five-day tourist visa? It happens.
Becoming a legal temporary resident can easily take a year or longer. Then, once you have been a temporary resident for three years, you can apply for permanent residency which can take another year or so to be approved. So becoming a permanent resident can easily take five years or longer.
Legal residency is granted to individuals and legal families. If you and your significant other remain “significant others”, you will have to qualify for residency as individuals.
Second, Costa Rican law strictly prohibits anyone who is not either a citizen or a [u]permanent[/u] resident from working in any job that could be held by a Costa Rican worker. If you establish your own business, you can direct the work of your employees but you cannot perform work yourself.
The only exception would be if an employer could convince the Ministry of Labor that you have unique skills not present in the local laborforce which would qualify you for a work permit. That process can take a year or longer, and success is not assured.
Third, you should know that, as compared to North America, wages in Costa Rica are ridiculously low.
[quote=”loraine”] Is there a place where I can go to research average labor rates? Do they vary by region, too?[/quote]
There is a website where minimum wages by occupation for Costa Rican employees are posted. Maybe somebody can point us to it. (Or, didnt Scott write an article about this on the Home page a while back?) It does not vary by region.
We pay our “on contract” gardeners c12,500 each for a day’s work. They’re usually hard at it by 6:15am after the bus drops them off and they quit just after 11:00am in time to catch the bus home. That’s probably too generous, but they’re good guys and we want this work to be important to them.
I would look for a local person who would do all these tasks on a “per job” basis whether it takes them half a day, a full day, or a couple of days. That way, if they work extra hard they finish sooner and can go on to something else. And if they dawdle, they’re only wasting their own time.
I would be sure, too, that at the very least you have an oral understanding that each task is a one-time thing and that they are contracting to do the work rather than becoming your employees. Normally, an employee would be paid by the hour in accordance with the published hourly rate for each type of work.
If these folks become your employees, you are liable for workers compensation insurance, the CAJA premiums, etc. It’s possible that you could still get caught up in that entanglement, but having an agreement that the work is to be done on a contractual basis would afford you a little protection.
Please consider that Canada may require that you actually be granted legal residency status by Costa Rica before giving you this tax exemption. Mere physical presence here may not be enough. And it can take a year or longer for Costa Rican Immigration to formally grant you that legal residency.
If you are a U.S. citizen, I recommend you call or visit the U.S. Embassy to get some pointers on how to manage the registration of your newborn child. There are time limits.
The Embassy staff can probably put you on the right track regarding legal requirements under Costa Rican law, too.
Anyone can buy a prepaid ICE SIM in Costa Rica and fund it to the level they choose. The minimum, initially, is c2,500 — about $5.00US. The rate per minute for nationwide calling is about c34 — roughly $.07US per minute. You can recharge your SIM online or at any of about a zillion retail locations.
Not every vendor of SIMs may have the SIM trimmer that’s needed to make the typical SIM work in an iPhone. the ICE offices do have them, however.
You also have the option of buying a prepaid SIM from Movistar or Claro, two competitors for ICE. I’m not familiar with their terms.
The remaining question is whether your Verison-issued iPhone can be unlocked and is it compatible with the Costa Rican cellular systems. Anyone?
DIMEX is an acronym for [i]”Documento de Identidad Migratorio para Extrajaneros”.[/i] It’s the card we usually refer to as the [i]cedula[/i].
Since about 2007, [i]Migracion[/i] has been issuing solid plastic DIMEX cards with a computer-included facial photo on the front and an encoded magnetic data strip on the back. Prior to that, they issued an tan paper card onto which one’s photo was glued. Folks had them laminated at the local copy shops.
So, when you go to [i]Migracion[/i] to get your residency [i]cedula[/i], what they’ll be issuing you is a DIMEX card. They look like they are created by the same technology that creates your Costa Rican driver’s license.
If you are not a resident or in the process of becoming one, then the question of how and where to obtain one is something with which I can’t help.
Have you opened an account with Fidelity Investments while living in Costa Rica recently? I ask because I tried to open an account at HSBC Bank (in the U.S.) a few months ago. Everything went off perfectly until I got to the requirement for a physical street address. Then it came to a crashing halt.
I spoke to a customer service supervisor who, while congenial, said that there is simply no way for a non-resident (U.S. citizen or otherwise) to open a bank account in the U.S. And there it ended.
