Our Complicated Relationship With the Immigration Department and the Name Change Curveball

Working with the Immigration Department in Costa Rica is not easy. The law seems pretty straightforward but the Immigration Department loves to throw curveballs at applicants.

One of these curveballs is the issue with name changes that we brought up a few months back. You can read further on the matter here. In summary, while it is perfectly normal for people to change their names (whether it be due to marriage or simply because they want to), this is not common in Costa Rica. Upon marrying, Costa Rican women do not take their spouse’s last name. Changing your name completely, say from Mariana Rodriguez to Andrea Perez, is complicated and not frequently done either.

As a result of this cultural difference, when we file an application for residency, it is usual for the name of the applicant to vary between the birth certificate and the passport. This used to be fine since Immigration did not raise any concerns until last year. Suddenly the name disparity became an issue and we even saw residencies get rejected because Immigration could not determine if the person on the birth certificate was the same person as the one featured on the passport.

We immediately complained. This situation is not contemplated in the current Immigration Law or Ruling; therefore, Immigration should not be asking for documents pertaining to name changes. If they did not anticipate that this could happen back in 2012 when the law was issued, that is on them, not on the applicants.

However, unsurprisingly, it took them weeks to address our concern. We urged the authorities to investigate it and Immigration was granted an 8-month period to regulate the situation, per the law. Just last week, we received a new notification in which Immigration asked for an extension to the 8 months and recognized that they are not justified, by law, in asking for name change documents since it is not featured in the current Law or Ruling. Once again, we have managed to make them see that they were overstepping and that such behavior can result in delayed processes and unfair treatment of applicants.

While it feels like a win, we do not trust that the message we received will be passed on to all of the attorneys that work at Immigration. It is to be expected that they will continue to raise concern in cases where there is a name change, enabled by their discretional powers. As one of the Directors of Immigration once stated in a meeting we held, human error is unpredictable (yikes!).

Therefore, we will continue to err on the side of caution and would urge expats applying for residency to do the same. If you underwent a name change, make sure that you file the necessary documents that explain how you acquired your name. For example, if you were born Jane Smith and married John Walker, divorced, and then married Ryan Brown so that your passport has you as Jane Brown and your marriage certificate has you as Jane Walker, make sure that you add to your request the marriage and divorce certificates so as to avoid inconveniences.