Applying for Residency as a Parent of a Tico or Tica

We usually receive numerous inquiries from expats stating that they wish to secure Permanent Residency in Costa Rica. To secure Permanent Residency you would need to meet one of the two following requirements:

Have held Temporary Residency for at least 3 consecutive years.

 OR

Have had a child in Costa Rica. Parents or minor siblings of Costa Rican nationals as well as siblings over the legal age of 18 with a disability are eligible for Permanent Residency.

Consequently, people generally need to start by securing Temporary Residency and working their way to Permanent.

Nonetheless, parents and siblings of Costa Rican nationals are immediately eligible for Permanent Residency, without the need to securing Temporary first.

Permanent Residency provides a permanent status with a temporary ID card. Unlike Temporary Residency, which you may loose if you remain abroad for 2 years or if you do not renew it within 3 months of expiration, you do not loose your Permanent Residency so easily.

You will loose Permanent Residency if you remain abroad for 4 years. But if you do not renew in time, your status will remain intact. You will just have the inconvenience of walking around with an expired ID card.

Permanent Residency also allows you to legally work in the country.

Securing Permanent Residency through the birth of a child in Costa Rica is an interesting process. The Residency process for this category is basically identical to applying for Residency as a Pensionado, Rentista or Investor. There is a procurement stage, application and analysis at the Immigration Department, approval, registration with CAJA and procurement of the DIMEX card.

The common requirements that are necessary are birth certificates, background checks, etc. The marriage certificate will also be required to explain any name changes and it is also useful to later on register in CAJA as a family if both foreign parents are filing for Residency.

This category does not allow for dependents. That means that each applicant must be eligible by themselves. Each Parent of the Costa Rican child applies as a principal, as do the siblings.

The same application rules apply to Permanent Residency for Parents pertaining to the fact that if the application is incomplete, if you do not meet deadlines, if documents are not filed properly and on time, you can still get denied.

You can also get denied if your background check shows a criminal record. In our experience, Immigration does not have a history any sort of concession or consideration to Parents who have a criminal record and we have had Parents whose Residencies have been denied, even if they have a child in Costa Rica.

When expats have children born in the country they must remember that this child is Costa Rican by birth. That means they will have two last names (father and mother’s respectively) and that to depart the country they will always need a minors’ exit permit.

It is not mandatory to process a Costa Rican child’s Costa Rican passport if they have dual nationality and already hold another passport. For example, a baby born to US parents in Costa Rica may first get a US passport and his/her parents may not be interested in securing a Costa Rican passport for them. And that is fine. However, that does not delete the need for a minors’ exit permit to depart the country. You can read further on minor’s exit permits here.

This article was written in collaboration with Rocío Fóster, Immigration Administrative Assistant.