You CANNOT work in Costa Rica!

You cannot work in Costa Rica unless you have a work permit or the proper type of residency that allows you to do so. You cannot work while living in the country with a Tourist Visa, Rentista Status or Pensionado status. You are actually forbidden to do so by the Costa Rican government. You cannot [...]

Costa Rican Telephone Numbers Will Have 1 More Digit in March

According to the ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) one more digit will be added on March 20 to all phone numbers (both commercial, residential plus mobile phones) to leave space for future expansion.
The new numbers will look like this:

Residential and Commercial: add numnber 2 at the beginning

Now: xxx-xxxx
After March 20: 2xxx-xxxx

Mobile Phones

Now: 3xx-xxxx or 8xx-xxxx
After [...]

Live & Work Legally in Costa Rica

Obtain your Costa Rican Permanent Resident Investor Status through our Government approved reforestation project.
SPECIFIC BENEFITS USING THIS PROGRAM TO OBTAIN LEGAL STATUS
If the applicant chooses to obtain their Permanent Resident Investor status through this type of project they receive the following benefits:

Application can be made directly to the Immigration department here in Costa Rica [...]

Work From Home in Costa Rica

Living in Costa Rica can be challenging for the one that stays at home. While the spouse that goes to work has plenty of contact with other people and challenges at work, the spouse that is left at home often has nothing to do. I have addressed this before when talking about culture shock but [...]

TLC

For quite some time now, there has been a heated debate on whether or not to vote yes for the CAFTA/TLC or free trade agreement with the US.  Lines were drawn and the country has been divided far too long.  Costa Rica was coming to a deadline and had to make a decision one way [...]

Spanish classes in Costa Rica

In the better schools of Costa Rica, children are offered one hour a day of spanish instruction. They begin at the beginning for children that know no Spanish at all to intermediate classes where children speak a little Spanish. After one to 2 years your children can be bilingual and after 4-5 years they will [...]

Maid in Costa Rica

If you are planning to have a maid in Costa Rica or employees of any sort, you need to know the following applies to you.
LEGAL OBLIGATIONS BY THE EMPLOYER IF THE RELATIONSHIP IS CONSIDERED A LABOR RELATIONSHIP
Although all measures possible to try to characterize the relationship as out of the reach of local labor law [...]

Banks in Costa Rica

Banks in Costa Rica include both private and public banks, with each alternative offering its benefits and drawbacks. The four public banks can be slower, with longer lines-especially durning the lunch hour, at the end of the day, and on pay day-but are making efforts to increase efficiency and tend to offer better access with [...]

Exchange rate

Beginning today (October 17, 2006) there is a new exchange rate system in Costa Rica, as the Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) - Central Bank - announced last Friday evening that individual banks would be allowed to set their own exchange rate within a range of low and high, known in Spanish as “banda [...]

Investor status

To file for residency under investor status in the tourism industry an investment of $50,000 is required.  The hitch to this is that any other family members that you think would be covered under this type of investment is not.  This would only give the primary investor residency and spouses and dependant children would not [...]