The Mysterious Disappearing Tourist Visa Law in Costa Rica

|image1|

I am certain that most readers of this site are also familiar with the “new law” that was to go into effect as of March 1st, 2010, enabling the perpetual tourist to renew their 90 day visa for an additional 90 days for the meagre cost of USD $100.

As it stands, anyone living in Costa Rica part-time (or full-time — the perpetual tourist) must leave the country every 90 days for at least 3 days.

This new law has been talked about for months and offers the ability to process an application to extend the 90 day tourist visa by another 90 days (some say indefinitely and some say for up to a year of renewals).

Quoting the Tico Times in an article by Chrissie Long and Pablo Franceschi, quoting Immigration Administration Director Mario Zamora:

What if I don’t want to leave Costa Rica?

“Under the new immigration law, there is an option for you. Beginning March 1, you can submit a petition at the Immigration Administration in La Uruca, which is to the west of San José, pay $100 and you can remain another 90 days.”

Is this a complicated process?

According to the director of the Immigration Administration, it is not. You must submit a copy of your passport, a letter addressed to the head of the Immigration Administration explaining your situation and proof that you have financial solvency. You must also pay $100.

In my humble opinion, this new law will put more money in the government coffers and keep more dollars inside of Costa Rica for the multitude of tourists (over 600,000 according to the above referenced article) that own property here and/or spend more than 3 months in the country.

Currently, the departure tax is set at $26, so the math is quite simple. Almost 4 times the money paid by the perpetual tourist upon exiting and returning shortly thereafter will go to the government with this new deal and keep three days of spending inside Costa Rica.

Seems simple, doesn’t it? Sounds like a brilliant idea, really.

Although there seems to have been some invalid information posted and then recanted at times, much like the actual laws in Costa Rica — one day in effect, the next rescinded — many “tourists” have been anticipating the effect this new law will have on them.

Thus, we undertook an investigation for the purpose of taking advantage of this new law and conveying our findings to all. What we found was beyond the usual scattered and contradictory information found when trying to deal with any government agency.

Owning multiple properties in Costa Rica and spending more than 3 months in the country a year, this new deal seemed ideal and we took the following steps knowing full well that any expectation of ease was ridiculously naive on our part. We counted on problems at every turn and in order to expedite things, enlisted a fluent Spanish speaker — A Tico — to help us.

First, we had our friend (also our architect — who is very familiar with the intricacies of government insanity) call “Migración” to verify the new law and the requirements for extending our visa 90 days for $100.

After speaking to 10 different people (this is no exaggeration) and making many more phone calls he found someone that detailed the requirements for the “new law”.

We would require something to prove that we had enough money to support ourselves for 90 days, but this person offered no examples of what they wanted for proof.

We would need a notarized letter addressed to the Departamento de Extranjero explaining our reason for requesting an extension.

We would also need a notarized copy of our passports, because it is important in Costa Rica to feed our lawyers at every turn. So, we assumed a bank statement from Banco Nacional with sufficient funds to prove our financial viability, officially stamped by them, would be sufficient.

We paid our lawyer to make certified copies of our passports and to notarize two letters at the prescribed rate, according to Costa Rican notary law.

(Interesting side note: He didn’t have enough stamps, which you can buy without any official capacity, so we had to make a trip to the mall to get him more stamps. I love the stamps they put on everything. So colourful, and yet so pointless in every other regard.)

We were happy to confirm that the requirements this person outlined over the phone seemed to match the article from the Tico Times. We proceeded with cautious optimism.

On our second trip to the city a few days later, we met our friend to help us navigate the signless – I realize that is not a word – myriad of buildings in the migración compound in La Uruca. From his conversation over the phone, he had an idea where to go, but we still had to ask 4 or 5 people to verify the building and section that would handle this type of request.

We entered the room where they were apparently serving #40 according to the brightly lit number above the crowd. Of course, there was no one and nothing to actually get a ticket from, so our friend busily butted in to talk to some of the servants of this government agency.

He was told something different by everyone, with the first person telling us that we needed to come back tomorrow because “those applications” were only taken between 8am and 12pm. For a moment, we considered this and then decided it was best to ask more questions and the answers continued to vary, but the gist was the same. There was no new law that they were aware of that would enable a North American to extend their visa for 90 days.

We couldn’t just stop there. We’ve been around the block a few times in Costa Rica, so the rule of thumb is to keep asking questions until you get an answer that works. So, we decided to visit the office of the sub director.

The director and sub director were not available; however, the secretary was helpful in reiterating that the “new law”, although seemingly published in September 2009, only allows for persons who have a visa less than 90 days, to apply for a renewal of that visa for $100. They also conveyed to us that it really only applies to Central American tourists.

Here is the copy of what they referred to as the “new law” published in September:

Excerpt from: Ley General de Migracion y Extranjeria

Articulo 90. — Las personas extranjeras autorizadas para ingresar al país y permanecer en el bajo la categoría migratoria de turista, por un plazo inferior a noventa días, tendrán la posibilidad de prorrogar su permanencia, previa gestión anterior al vencimiento del plazo original autorizado y previa comprobación de que poseen medios económicos suficientes para subsistir. Dicho tramite tendrá un coste de cien dólares moneda de los Estados Unidos de America (US$100,00). El Reglamento de la presente Ley determinara las condiciones, los procedimientos y los requisitos para el otorgamiento de la prorroga.

Here’s a bad translation — thanks Google — for those who don’t understand the paragraph above, including me:

Article 90. – Foreigners allowed to enter and remain in the country under the tourist immigration status for a period of less than ninety days, will be able to extend their stay, responding to the deadline before an authorized and after verifying that have sufficient financial means to survive. Such procedure will cost one hundred dollar currency of the United States of America (U.S. $ 100.00). The regulations under this law determine the conditions, procedures and requirements for granting the extension.

Is it possible that the new law mentioned in the beginning of this article does actually exist and the new law according to everyone at migración is really the old law? Sure!

Is it possible that it just has not been conveyed to anyone other than the newspapers? Absolutely!

Is it conceivable that the person who gave our friend the information over the phone read the article in the Tico Times and was quoting that? Maybe!

Does it help the perpetual tourist in any possible way? No! Not yet, at least.

The moral of this story is that you should not waste your time until something is published and conveyed to the actual people processing the applications.

This will clearly take some time. That is, if this new law does actually exist.

It would be most helpful if Immigration Administration Director Mario Zamora or any of the reporters that quoted him could comment on this issue since articles quoting him enticed us to try this route, to no avail.

The good news? Our lawyer ate for another day.

We’re off to Panama to spend a lot of money there!

[custom_script adID=97]

Written by VIP Member Dave Playfair who has run an IT consulting company in Canada for many years and tries to spend as much time as he can in Costa Rica.

Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.