The step-by-step plan for Costa Rica

In this step you learn which residence cards there are. You also read which promise from the brochures no longer applies.

Whoever stays to live in Costa Rica chooses from three cards. All three are in the migration law of 2009:

• As a pensionado (retiree) you show a lifelong pension of at least 1,000 dollars a month.
• As a rentista (someone living on fixed income) you show fixed income of at least 2,500 dollars a month.
• As an inversionista (investor) you make an investment.

All three first give you a temporary residence, a residence permit for two years. You can renew it. After three years you get the permanent residence.

Then what the brochures haven't yet processed. A law of 2021 gave newcomers two advantages. You could import your household goods and two cars tax-free. And you got twenty percent off the transfer tax, the tax you pay when you buy a house. That applied only to applications in the first five years. Those five years expired on 14 July 2026.

So whoever comes now pays duties on their household goods and the full tax on a car. That is why this plan counts on selling and buying again.

In this step you see what it means that there are no treaties. It's about your income, your AOW and your healthcare. Three times no treaty, and three times a consequence.

The tax. The Netherlands has no tax treaty with Costa Rica. Then the main rule applies, as NederlandWereldwijd explains it: the Netherlands may tax. So your AOW, your occupational pension and your government pension stay taxed in the Netherlands. Because you live outside the EU, you usually don't get the tax credits, the reductions on your tax that you do get in the Netherlands. Costa Rica taxes only income from a Costa Rican source. So you pay nothing there on your Dutch income.

The AOW itself. Costa Rica isn't among the 36 countries the Netherlands has a social security treaty with. Your accrued AOW does come along, but at most up to the married rate: the amount for someone who is married or living together. For a couple nothing changes. Whoever goes alone falls back from seventy to fifty percent of the net minimum wage.

The healthcare. Costa Rica isn't on the CAK list, the list of countries where you can stay insured through the CAK. So your Dutch basic insurance ends when you deregister. An own policy then is your health insurance. But unlike in Panama or Mexico something comes on top. As a resident you have to affiliate to the Caja, the Costa Rican state healthcare system. You pay a percentage of your declared income for it.

Your AOW accrual stops. That's something different from the payment. What you've built up until you leave stays yours. But as soon as you're no longer insured in the Netherlands, you build up nothing more. For most emigrants that is the moment of departure. Every year until your AOW age then costs you 2% of your later AOW. Voluntary continued insurance with the SVB is possible, for ten years at most. But the application has to be in within one year of your insurance ending. After that the door is closed. If you already receive AOW, this no longer applies.

In this step you choose where in Costa Rica you want to live. Look beyond your holiday when you do.

On holiday you mostly see the coast. To live, most Dutch people choose the Central Valley, with San José, Escazú, Santa Ana, Heredia, Grecia and Atenas. There it's always spring, and there are the hospitals and the airport. The coast of Guanacaste has the sun and the prices of Florida. The Caribbean side has the rain and the quiet.

Factor into that choice what doesn't stand out on holiday:

• The rainy season runs from May to November. In the mountains it is then very different from dry Guanacaste.
• The good hospitals are in the valley.
• On the coast a boundary applies that you won't meet anywhere else. The first two hundred metres from the high-water line belong to the state. More on that in phase 5.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost. On the application side Costa Rica is cheap in fees (the government's charges), but expensive in lawyer. Almost everyone has the file lodged by a Costa Rican lawyer. That is the largest item before departure.

After that come these items:

• The contribution to the Caja, which returns every month.
• The move across the ocean, with duties on the household goods.
• The car, which you don't take along here.

In this conversation you decide together whether it will be Costa Rica. You set down what each of you needs to say yes.

Going alone? Then have this conversation with the people you leave behind. The questions below work for them too.

Take three evenings. One conversation is too short for a decision like this. Agree on three evenings, a week apart:

• Evening 1, why. What do we hope to find in Costa Rica? What are we leaving behind here? Would that really be different there?
• Evening 2, what we give up. Who and what will we miss? What are we dreading most? What do we do if it disappoints?
• Evening 3, the conditions. What has to be in place for each of us to say yes? When do we check together whether it's going well, for example after six and after twelve months? And what would be a reason for us to go back?

Write the conditions down. On the kitchen-table card it all fits on one A4.

With Costa Rica comes a sum you need to see together:

• Whoever goes alone gives up twenty percentage points of AOW.
• Whoever is older has to be insured twice. Their own policy, because the Caja isn't everything. And the Caja, because the law requires it.

Work that out before you decide, not after.

Also discuss the distance and the pace. You fly eleven to thirteen hours, with a layover. The time difference is seven or eight hours. And the government counts in months, where the Netherlands counts in weeks.

Divide the work. Agree who takes on which part of this plan: the papers for the visa, the house and the cancellations, the school, the move. That way not one of you carries everything. Invite your partner into your plan; then you both see what's done.

Is one of you going without an income of your own? Whoever lives in Costa Rica and doesn't work in the Netherlands usually no longer builds up AOW, the Dutch state pension. For every year you're not insured, you later get 2 percent less AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. You have one year for that, counted from the moment you're no longer insured. Also discuss whether that partner keeps an account and money of their own, and how you decide together on large expenses.

Married, registered or living together? That can make a difference for your partner's residence permit, for co-insurance in healthcare and for inheritance. For the pensionado and the rentista, the Costa Rican migration law names your spouse and your children under 25 as the family members who come along on your card. An unmarried partner isn't named there. If you're not married, read at partner and children further on in your plan what that means, and ask before you apply.

Are children coming? How you tell them depends on their age:

• Up to about four. Tell them shortly before the move and keep fixed routines, such as the bedtime ritual and the cuddly toy in the hand luggage.
• Primary school. Tell them well in advance and let them look along: photos of the school, the neighbourhood and the house. Let them choose something, such as their room.
• Teenagers. Involve them in the decision itself. For them, saying goodbye to friends weighs the most. Agree how they keep in touch and when they'll see their friends again.

How school works in Costa Rica, and when the school year starts, is in the article about school with this step.

Who learns the language, and when? In Costa Rica life runs in Spanish, right down to the translation of your own papers. Often the partner without work needs the language most, and that's exactly the one without colleagues to practise with. Agree who will learn Spanish, and how. Plan it together, preferably before you leave.

With this step you choose the date on which you want to live in Costa Rica. From here everything counts back. Keep an eye on the clocks of this journey:

• The tightest clock is the 180 days you get as a tourist. Within that time your application has to be lodged.
• The longest clock is the waiting time for the decision: months, sometimes more than a year. That decides when your card and your Caja can happen.