Extending Your Tourist Visa: A Review

If you arrive before June 1st, 2021, and receive less than a 90-day entry stamp, please note that it is still possible to extend your visa by following the steps outlined here.

First of all, ensure your insurance covers the entire length of your desired stay. You will need to have your insurance validated by Costa Rica’s Tourism Board known as ICT as described here. This step must be completed while you have legal status in the country, meaning within the original tourist days granted. Your stay will be validated until June 1, 2021.

If you wish to stay past June 1, 2021, you need to schedule an in-person appointment with Immigration, in Uruca, San Jose,  to extend your visa for the soonest possible date. As of the writing of this article, the first date open for these appointments is June 2, 2021.

You can request an appointment to extend the tourist entry stamp by calling 1311 using a Kolbi line (in Costa Rica there are various phone providers, including Claro, Movistar, and Kolbi. Only Kolbi lines can be used to call 1311) or by going online to migracion.go.cr where the person registers and requests an appointment in the following: Crear Cita – Tipo de Cita – Visas Prórroga de Turismo click on Visas, Sede Uruca.

On the day of your appointment, you will be expected to carry with you:

1. Letter explaining why the entry stamp shall be extended, the reasons why you wish to stay up to 90 days including an address where you are currently staying, and means of notification (email, phone, etc.)

2. Original and valid passport as well as copies of every single page of the passport

3. Two recent passport size photographs

4. Demonstrate that you have the means to support yourself. Per local Immigration Law, you must prove that you have at least $100 per month. You can carry with you bank statements for the past 3 months, duly translated by a translator recognized by the Costa Rican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

5. Payment of government fee of $100 that must be deposited in your name to account number 242480-0 Banco de Costa Rica.

6. Payment of $1 that must be deposited in your name to account number 242480-0 Banco de Costa Rica to meet with the requirement of the tax request, in Spanish: Timbre 125 fiscal y reintegro por ¢ 2,50 colones por cada uno de los folios.

7. Insurance that covers you until the day of departure from Costa Rica. The insurance must meet the following requirements

   • Coverage for medical expenses in case of contracting COVID19. The insurance policy shall cover you for at least $50,000 USD in medical expenses.

   • A minimum coverage of $2,000 USD for lodging.

This process must be completed before the days originally granted, expire. So, for example, if you arrived on June 01, 2021, and received a 20-day entry stamp, you must complete the aforementioned process before the 20 days run out. If you are already in irregular status, your entry stamp cannot be extended.

All of these requirements are presented per person. One appointment is requested per person.

The entry stamps will be extended to complete a total of 90 days, not for an additional 90 days. So, for example, if you entered the country and received a 10-day entry stamp, you can follow this process before these 10 days expire to receive an additional 80 days, for a grand total of 90. If you already enjoyed a 90-day entry stamp, this process is not for you. The maximum permitted stay allowed by our Immigration Law is 90 days. You cannot extend past 90 days.

If you do not extend your entry stamp or if you overstay, please be advised that you would be in violation of local immigration law. If by any chance, you are caught by the Immigration Police or any Authority that identifies your irregular status, you could face deportation proceedings. Furthermore, while the fines and penalties for overstaying are currently suspended due to COVID (as you can read here), when reinstated (which could be any day), they will be retroactive. Furthermore, if caught driving without a valid foreign drivers’ license and a valid entry stamp, your plates could be taken, a fine could be imposed and you will be referred to the Immigration Police.

Tourists who will be traveling to Costa Rica need to know a few basic things:

• Nobody receives an automatic 90-day entry stamp anymore. This is a thing of the past, a pre-COVID past. Now your entry stamp will depend on your insurance. If you enter with 5-day insurance, you will receive a 5-day entry stamp. Extending the entry stamp was never easy, the process was relatively cumbersome. Hence, we have always advised people, if you are unsure of how long you wish to stay, save yourself time and trouble and enter using 90-day insurance.

• Our air and land borders are opened to tourists, nationals, and residents. Hence, if you will not or cannot extend your entry stamp and will continue to spend time in the country, you could also consider the possibility of driving to the Nicaraguan or Panamanian border, departing and re-entering to secure a new entry stamp. This is generally referred to as a border run.

• Every person entering the country needs to keep the current entry requirements in mind. These can be reviewed here.

If you enter the country with the intention to file for Residency, you can also request an appointment to file. The act of requesting the appointment (which must be done while you have legal status in the country, meaning within the original tourist days granted) grants you the right to legally stay until the date of your appointment and beyond such a date since you should have an application filed by then. This approach is reserved for people who wish to file for Residency only, as you can review here.