Renewal of the Pensionado Category Part I

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We received a question from Donald Hickman which will be valuable to share with the readers.

“Assume that someone established pensionado residency using a letter from a private pension in the States. At renewal time they have to provide another pension letter. But now the person is also getting Social Security. Could they just get the standard letter from the Embassy instead of getting the private pension letter which has to be apostilled and translated? The Social Security is more than the $1,000/month requirement but less than the original private pension.” This is a good question as many people are faced with this type of situation.

Let’s review a couple of key points of the temporary residency under the pensionado category. On the one hand, the main requirement is to receive retirement income for at least $1,000 USD per month. The source of the retirement income can either be a private pension fund such as a pension plan from a company, or it could be from some government agency such as the SSA in the US or a teacher’s union such as the California Teacher’s Retirement System, just to give you a couple of examples.

As long as the primary applicant receives the retirement income for at least $1,000 USD, that person will be eligible for temporary residency. Another important aspect is that a person can have a combination of two pensions adding up to over a thousand dollars. For instance, the applicant may receive $600 USD from the SSA and $600 USD from the private pension fund. Notwithstanding that the retirement income originates from different sources, it is still valid as the total amount adds up to more than one thousand dollars.

Finally, the combined income is only admissible for the primary applicant, which means that it is not allowed to combine the retirement income of two different people, for instance, the spouses. Thus, if one spouse only receives $900 USD and the other spouse only receives $800 USD, it will not be possible to combine the income in order to qualify for the temporary residence, as the regulations require that for one person to meet the requirement. Some people may think that it does not make sense not to allow the combined income from both spouses to qualify if it adds up to more than $1000 USD, while the law allows a couple to obtain residency if only one spouse makes $1000 and the other one may not have an income at all. I may agree that it does not make sense, but I also agree that laws in Costa Rica may not make a lot of sense.

Regarding the renewal and going back to Donald’s question, as long as the primary applicant has a retirement income for at least $1000 USD per month, it will be possible to obtain residency and to renew it, regardless of the source of funds. Thus, it is perfectly admissible if you applied for residency for the first time under a private pension plan, and then you renew with the SSA income.

Some readers may wonder about the necessity to do the renewal with a different source of income. Well, some people may retire early under the regulations of the private pension plan; so early that at the time of retirement the person may not meet the retirement age according to the SSA regulations. But then, at the time of the renewal, the person may already be receiving SSA income. Anyhow, that still does not answer the question as to why should a person use the SSA letter this time instead of the letter from the private pension plan. Well, while the letter from the SSA can be obtained through the US Consulate in Costa Rica, which is already in Spanish, the letter from the private pension plan may be issued in English, and it will require to be authenticated by a notary public and apostilled (or legalized if the letter comes from another country not member of the Apostille Convention). Therefore, it will be much easier to produce a letter from the SSA in order to renew.

To summarize, it is possible to renew the temporary residency category with a SSA letter even if you initially obtained residency with a different source of income.

I hope this information to be helpful. Please feel free to suggest any other topics through our blog or through the Facebook page for Outlier Legal Services or the Expat Information Center.

Thanks,

Rafael Valverde