Household goods, car and pet to Costa Rica: the exemption that is closed, the car you don't take, and a chip for the animal

Your household goods can come with you to Costa Rica, but since 14 July 2026 you pay import duty and VAT on them. Bringing a car doesn't pay, and a dog or cat can come with a chip and the right papers.

For five years the move to Costa Rica was cheaper than to almost any other country outside Europe. New residents brought their household goods and two cars into the country free of tax. Those five years are over, and that changes the sum of every container.

Item	What the rule is	Clock or cost
Household goods	import duty, one percent emergency levy and thirteen percent VAT on the customs value	clearance by a customs agent, a week
Car	selective consumption tax (30 or 48 percent in the customs examples), one percent, a 25 percent margin and 13 percent VAT	a good half to a good seventy percent of the value: sell
Driving licence	homologation without exam, already with a pending application	5,000 colones plus bank charges
Pet	chip, vaccinations, deworming, clinical examination	deworming within fifteen days, examination within two weeks before the journey

The household goods: duties and VAT, since July

Law 9996 of 2021 gave pensionados, rentistas and inversionistas (pensioners, people with a fixed income and investors) a one-off exemption from all import taxes for their household goods. The ICT, Costa Rica's tourism institute, describes the condition: the benefits could only be applied for in the first five years of the law, and those ended on 14 July 2026. Whoever was granted them earlier keeps them ten years. Whoever comes now falls under the ordinary customs rules.

Those rules are in the customs calculation instruction. On the customs value of what you ship come three charges:

• the import duty of the tariff heading concerned;
• the emergency levy of one percent;
• on top of that, thirteen percent VAT.

Used things are valued low. That keeps a container with a used household affordable. But everything that looks new or is still in the box is taxed as trade.

Have your mover make a detailed inventory with values, have the clearance done by a Costa Rican customs agent, and consider per piece whether it is worth the shipping plus the tax. The containers go via Rotterdam or Antwerp to Puerto Limón on the Caribbean side or Caldera on the Pacific, in five to eight weeks.

The car: a good half of the value or more, so no

Costa Rica taxes an imported car more heavily than almost any country Dutch people move to, and the calculation instruction works it out. The sum goes like this:

• On the customs value comes the selective consumption tax, an extra tax on certain products. In the customs examples with a passenger car that is 30 percent, in another example 48 percent, and the percentage rises with the age of the car.
• Added to that is one percent emergency levy.
• On that comes an estimated profit margin of 25 percent.
• On that whole comes the VAT of 13 percent.

All together that is a good half of the value of the car at 30 percent (52 percent), and a good seventy percent at 48 percent (74 percent).

The two cars to be imported free from the law of 2021 closed with the law. So count on selling in the Netherlands and buying in Costa Rica. Cars are expensive there for exactly the same reason, so count generously. And count on a used car with four-wheel drive if you're going to live outside the valley.