www.CostaRicaTicas.com

From Inside Costa Rica this morning....There is nothing like having the feeling of getting off the plane....Walking fast to immigration and coming around the corner to lines 20-30 deep. Man that sucks

"Visitors to the Juan Santamaría (San José) airport will soon have a new immigration lounge that is bigger and can handle more traffic, reducing the long lines that sometimes wears thin the patience of arriving visitors and nationals alike.

The new immigration lounge will be 1.300 square metres (14.000 square feet) and will have 24 counters, double of the present, and will be ready by the end of the year."

That's good to hear.last week as I returned to CR my plane was 3 hours late,THEN the immigration line was backed up to the Cafe Britt store opposite Gate 4. It was another hour before I finished.

That is good news. I have had immigration take more than a hour more times than one when you come in behind a couple of big flights.rbc100

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In Search of Fine Kittens,
Please... Bring back the Muff

A friend of mine was returning from a three day visit to Panama last week and was asked to produce proof or a ticket leaving Costa Rica.

Obviously he didn't have his return ticket to Denver and wasn't able to verify with the Airline that he actually had one.

They made him purchase a ticket

cost $750

True story

This is fantastic news for everybody, especially the "frequent" visitors. Sometimes, you can breeze right through, and other times it's a b*tch. This is the kind of info that I love to hear!
MG

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You ALWAYS have an option ....... "NEXT" !!!

This has been the subject of posts in the past. Usually it was the airline requesting that you provide proof of a ticket to leave Costa Rica prior to allowing you to board the flight to Costa Rica. American Airlines was the one most frequently mentioned but some other airlines had also made the same request.

If Immigration in CR starts enforcing that requirement, yes it is a requirement, then the airlines will become more vigilant in their enforcement policy.

The only good part of that is the ticket you have to purchase is a unrestricted one way ticket which can be fully refundable.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

They usually don't bother but that's an entrance requirement - and the outbound has to be within 90 of arrival.

I wonder what they do if you plan on driving out of country?

Hard thing to do unless you are bringing your car into the country as a rental car can not leave the country.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Not quite true. While its true that one can't leave the country with a rental car, there are definitely other ways to go.

There are many Gringo expats who purchased their own cars in CR (in fact probably most of those who even own a car) and who COULD technically drive out to a neighboring country. However, while not absolutely impossible, what ever way you started out, bringing your own vehicle over an international border is much more complicated than just bringing your little old self. Even if it isn't a rental car, you still have to concern yourself with the entry requirements for personally owned vehicles for what ever country you're driving on to. I won't list them since they're quite long and may vary somewhat between countries but here are the ones for CR: http://www.costarica-embassy.org/consular/travel/temporary_import.htm.

However, besides driving either your own car or a rental, there is a much simpler way to get into or out of the country that doesn't involve flying. How about just taking the bus? Or doesn't it count as driving if you're not actually behind the wheel?

The entry and exit requirements for land transit between the Central American countries are a bit more vague. I do know that the $26 CR departure tax only applies to flights out of the country. As for the prepaid airline ticket, the CR gov't website doesn't really distinguish between how you entered the country (air or land or sea). All they say is that they require this:source: http://www.costarica-embassy.org/consular/visa/no_visa.htm

"Pre-paid airline ticket"? Does that mean a bus ticket out won't work if you're flying in? Will an onward flight ticket from Managua or Panama City work even if you can't show an interim bus ticket to get to either of those places? And what if you came in by bus to begin with? Do you still have to fly out? My understanding is that, if this applies at all, the proof of departure requirement is even more laxly enforced at land borders than it is at the airport.

Prolijo quoted from the CR Government website:



If they choose to enforce that provision that makes moot any discussion about telling immigration you plan to drive a car, whether rented or owned, as your legal means of leaving the country at the expiration of your tourist visa. It also would negate the ploy of having an onward bus ticket as has been recommended in past postings.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

And yet clearly thousands of people travel between countries in Central America every year by bus without any trouble or companies like Tica Bus would be out of business. Clearly, they either in fact don't enforce this rule or the rule as stated on this english language website is inexact because it is aimed at a general Gringo tourist audience and presupposes the vast bulk of them fly both in and out. I'm fairly certain an onward bus ticket would satisfy their actual entry requirements (if you dug into the actual spanish legal code). Even if not, I'm absolutely certain that the immigration agent would not bust somebody just because they had a bus ticket instead of an airline ticket. The obvious intent of the law is they don't get stuck with people overstaying their visas. Why should they care HOW you leave the country as long as you DO? Or are you saying that if you buy a Tica Bus ticket for all the way from Guatemala City to Panama City you also have to buy seperate air tickets from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica in order to get through all the border checkpoints? I'm sorry, ID, but thats absurd.

And beyond even that, if you come in by bus, I'd question whether, in practical terms, they'd even check for the onward bus ticket let alone insisting that you have to fly out rather than continue on by bus. As I said before, land border enforcement is not the same as coming in through a modern airport. Okay, maybe you can never know with absolute certainty when you'll encounter that immigration official who has a bug up his ass about enforcing every requirement to the absolute letter of the law, but I think you're much more likely to encounter that coming into someplace like the US than in some developing country known for having a disorganized and underpaid bureacracy which could probably care less about even looking too seriously at your passport. If that does happen in your 3rd world travels, its more likely an agent making up his own rules or selective enforcement with the hope of extracting a bribe from the rich tourist to let it slide. In many countries, proof of sufficient funds, both to maintain oneself while in the country and to move on at the end, will suffice in leiu of an actual ticket and often being a reasonably well dressed Gringo is sufficient proof of that.

Prolijo wrote:



Perhaps you skimmed what I posted rather than read it. What I posted was simply a comment on what you had quoted as an official source of information.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

I read what you posted alright. Its not like it was nearly as long as what I write so it was easy enough to do.
For better or worse the website that I listed is the best source of official CR gov't info in english that I have found on this subject. It is still just a GENERAL guideline for us, nothing more and nothing less. Unfortunately, it suffers from being just a vague summary but it is at least some official substantiation or at least more official than anything you or I would just spout on our own. As I've demonstrated empirically it is either not completely accurate or is never enforced in cases like the example I provided. If you know a better source of info, other than you or I just stating what we think, I'd love to hear about it.

BTW, the only other semi-official english language sources of legal info I've found on the web is the following on entirely different but still interesting subject areas and that is only because they quote from the actual CR legal code even if they aren't official CR gov't websites:http://www.ageofconsent.com/costarica.htm and http://sanjose.usembassy.gov/proprigh.html. If your spanish is better than mine you could also try searching through this website and you might find the exact rules for exit and entry:http://www.costaricalaw.com/LEGALNET/civil_law/civil_code.php.

Of course, as I pointed out above, what is on the books and what is applied in CR and elsewhere is not necessarily the same and I don't think it would be much help if you run into a border snafu to pull out a copy of the law and tell the immigration agent he is wrong.

What constitutes proof that you have a return flight in an era when they don't give paper tickets? Does an itinerary count?

There are some discrepancies among various sources about how long your passports needs to be valid from the date you enter Costa Rica.

To be safe, make sure your passport is valid for at least 6 months from the date you arrive in CR. If yours is valid for less than 6, chances are they won't notice and you won't have any problems, but how much would it suck if you couldn't even get on the plane in the US because of this? Or worse, having just arrived in SJO and can almost smell pu*sy, you are turned around and put on the next flight home.

If needed, renew your passport. Do it ASAP since the wait times for passports have doubled since the new passport requirements for Canada and Caribbean.