Rentista in Costa Rica
Residency laws in Costa Rica are changing again! I am having difficulty keeping up with all of the changes this time so I have enlisted the help of my friends at Fragomen to help weed through some of the new laws.
I will be posting them here as they are made clear to me.
The first of the many changes that I learned of today is the following….for RENTISTA status. This is the status that family would file or someone that is not yet of the retirement age.
This new law is both good and bad for the Rentista’s. For a family, it is a very good thing. A family of 3, 4, 5 + it is far less expensive to file for residency now than it has been for the last couple of years. Now whether there is one member or 10 in your family, the amount that you have to prove as income is $2500/month or $125k/annually.
That opens another can of worms…Until a couple of years ago, it was only proof of $1k/month/ $65k /annually for a family of 1-2 or more to file for Rentista status, then everything changed. The amount doubled, tripled, quadrupled etc. The more in your family, the more you had to prove in income and deposit as guarantee in income. If you had a family of 5, you would have to deposit $210k to file for Rentista. It was just a bit ridiculous and apparently the CR government saw the err or their ways because only 2 years after this law went into effect another one follows that makes a little more sense economically for a large family.
This new law will be in full effect in March of 2010. Until that time, I imagine many people will continue to hold off on filing for Rentista.
More to follow about the other types of residency status available to foreigners soon.
Filed under: Living in Costa Rica, Moving to Costa Rica, Residency in Costa Rica
where can you go to see the legislation changes?
well, that is really weird. I am in Costa Rica right now, just to sort out the inofrmation about how to best enter the county with the family and to transfer some business here. I went to a lawyer for information and was told, that with the deposit of 60.000 $ in a special account for rentistas (from the government) we all get the visa as rentista, that allows me and my husband to work. It is more, this bank will give us back 1000 $ a month , as it is only as guarantee.
I was also told that the laws should be changeing in March 2010 and THEN would be required a 125000 $ deposit in the bank…
Possible, that there is no official pubblication?
thanks for advices , Fibi
Wow – that’s good to know. I will have to keep posted about the changing laws. I guess in a way it makes sense, since the Rentista residency is supposed to apply only to residents who are not working in Costa Rica, so you need to prove you can support your family on foreign income. Another way to get residency to my knowledge is through investments, like buying a business.