Costa Rica, like the rest of the world, is in a full-blown war against the coronavirus COVID-19. Officials are making every effort possible to prevent this deadly virus from entering the country, and from spreading within its borders. There have been 50 confirmed cases of infection in Costa Rica. The virus first arrived via two American tourists who visited asymptomatic in early March. They quickly developed symptoms and were then confined to their hotel room in San Jose.

Non-legal residents will find themselves in alarming situations if their visas expire while this moratorium on foreign immigration continues.

After midnight Wednesday, everyone must be Costa Rican citizen (including naturalized) or have legal resident status, verifiable by residency or citizenship cards (A.K.A. cedulas or DIMEX cards) to enter the country legally. Only foreign diplomats are exempt from these restrictions. Everyone permitted to enter legally after March 18, must attend mandatory preventive isolation for 14 days until further notice.

Flexibility is offered to tourists who entered Costa Rica after December 17, 2019. They may legally remain in Costa Rica until May 17, 2020, well past the expiry of the 90-day visa they would have received on their post- December 17th entry to Costa Rica.

This is a perfunctory description of the new immigration rules, and everyone is encouraged to check with their immigration attorney for more clarification and exact information on your specific case.

Each situation is unique, and the more complicated the case, the better idea it is to seek legal advice from an immigration specialist such as Laura Gutierrez from Immigration Help Costa Rica.

The Trouble with Border Runs:

Most expats began their stay in Costa Rica on a temporary tourist visa of 90 days. That is sufficient for their stay here, and they return home before the 90th day. Others wisely pursue official residency under the appropriate category. But some resort to what is referred to as Perpetual Tourism. They do a “border run” just before the expiry of their previous 90-day visa. Some have engaged in this practice for years. At either the Panama or Nicaragua crossing, they get a passport stamp, and then return to Costa Rica 90 -120 minutes later and receive a fresh 90-day visa stamp from the Costa Rica border police. Costa Rica has never been thrilled with this practice, and Laura Gutierrez, for one, has been strenuously warning people of the risks involved. There are legitimate needs for border runs but only temporarily while awaiting approvals on submitted residency applications. During those waits, if an applicant wishes to drive in Costa Rica, they can only do so with a foreign driver’s license. And those driver’s licenses are only valid for the length of the 90 visa stamps. So if it takes 18 months to get approval, that will entail six border runs to maintain driver’s license validity. If no desire to drive, then the expat applicant can stay indefinitely in Costa Rica while awaiting approval on their applications. Most make ample use of the excellent bus services and, or Uber.

Costa Rica authorities view border running as gaming the system, avoiding the registration in CAJA (Costa Rica’s universal healthcare system), and yet benefitting from all Costa Rica offers for free. When any of these border runners do finally decide to apply for residency, it sometimes does not bode well when an internal Immigration staff lawyer views all those passport stamps and visas.

Possible nightmare scenarios for border runners: They’re stamped out of Costa Rica, refused re-entry into the country, and find themselves on a one-way bus ride to the airport in Managua, Nicaragua. Out of Costa Rica for ten years. No recourse. No way back to their property/family/pets. Perhaps insufficient funds for a hotel room or airfare out of Nicaragua. After years out of the U.S.
or Canada, they have no home to go back to there either. Horror show. Yet so many continue the risk.

Many of those who elect not to become legal residents do so because they cannot meet the $1,000 a month requirement for residency. Non-residents can end up in quite a predicament in this situation, and it seems it could now get worse, as described above.

Please Note: All immigration documents not yet submitted, which are scheduled to expire before May 17, 2020, will be automatically extended to July 17, 2020. The Immigration Department will not be receiving any residency applications in any category, from now until May 17, 2020, at the earliest.

Ostensibly, this should give them time to catch up on backlogged applications. We shall see.

The Immigration Department has also announced (not for the first time) that starting April 21, 2020, fines will be levied on people who either overstay their visas or have an expired residency or citizenship card (DIMEX, Cedula). Penalties for these transgressions will be $100 a month for each month of overstaying one’s visa – and fines will be applied retroactively back to March 1, 2010.

This is NOT a good year to have your immigration status out of order. So border runners beware. Most expats who have been involved in the 90-day border hop tango know, the process is entirely subjective, often depending on the mood of the Immigration Border Police who processes you in or out.

With the danger of COVID-19 to Ticos and others, it is recommended that those who have postponed settling their immigration status for whatever reason, handle it this year. At a minimum, you will be sparred annoying scenes at the border, and in a worst-case scenario, an unscheduled hiatus out of Costa Rica. Time to embrace the many benefits of residency and the essential intangible of feeling like you belong to this beautiful country

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