Moving to Costa Rica Q&A: Cost, Safety, Residency, Healthcare and Fitting In (October 2026)

For our October live Q&A we went back through every question anyone has asked us: YouTube comments, our inbox, our forms, about a thousand questions in all. We also had 101 people tell us, in their own words, what worries them about moving to Costa Rica.

Cost of living came in sixth. The top answers were whether they could communicate, whether they would like where they ended up, and whether they could make friends. So we built the session in three parts: money and the practical stuff, residency and health, and the things people worry about but almost never type into a chat box.

The full session is above, with chapters in the description, if you would rather watch.

Part 1: Money and the practical stuff

Can you live without a car in the Central Valley?

Yes, plenty of people do, but it depends enormously on the town and the neighborhood. Aaron owns a car and gets in it about once every ten days. What matters is where the grocery store and pharmacy are and how you would reach medical care.

A car does open up a great deal of Costa Rica: exploring, a weekend trip to Dota for coffee, the freedom to hop in and go. Beach towns are often walkable but small. Mountain towns are hilly, with winding roads between home and the center, and the rainy season makes that worse. Our town guides rank walkability and distance to a hospital and the airport for exactly this reason.

What does it really cost? Everyone says $2,000 a month

That number is not wrong. It is incomplete. Most budgets cover rent and groceries and miss car repairs, HOA fees, taxes and renter's insurance. Then there is how you want to live: rice, beans and fruit at home is a very different budget from delivery and daily coffees. Housing is the largest factor, and every creature comfort you add, from a teak roof to hot water to a pool, makes $2,000 harder to hit.

Patrick's honest view is that $2,000 a month is very low. It would be low in the United States, and Costa Rica is cost-equivalent to many parts of the States. Our cost of living guide goes deeper, and the budgeting tools on our site run your own numbers against a specific town.

Is Costa Rica actually safe?

The mixed messages are the problem. A story on Facebook is fine to hear, but it is not data, and Costa Rica is a big place. So we built costaricacrime.com. The OIJ, Costa Rica's investigative police, publishes statistics down to the district level by type of crime, but its site is hard to use. Every month we import the latest data so you can filter by the exact places you are considering, and you can subscribe to a town and get its numbers by email. It is free.

One caution on per-capita figures: a pickpocketed tourist counts as a crime, but tourists are not part of the population of 5.5 million, so the rates look higher than they are for those of us who live here. Our guide to safety in Costa Rica covers the rest.

Do I really need a 4x4?

It depends more on your driveway than your town. In a normal Central Valley town a sedan can work; on a steep or unpaved road in October you will not want one. Tires matter more than people think, and for many a raised 4x4 is simply a mental comfort. We both drive one. If you go with a sedan, keep it well tuned, and think twice about a stick shift on steep hills. More in buying a car in Costa Rica.

Ship a container, or sell everything and start fresh?

People often think they want to ship a container, get quotes, and find it does not make sense. Sometimes it does. Talk it through with the shippers in our provider directory. There is also an in-between: store or sell the furniture, bring things down in tubs on a plane, and let visiting friends carry a bag. Furniture often does not survive the climate here, and some things, such as appliances, cannot be shipped at all.

One update matters. New residents used to be able to import a container of household goods and two vehicles duty free. That benefit expired in July. If your residency application was in process before then, you can still use it once residency is granted; anyone applying now will not. Duties are not that expensive, so it is still worth a quote.

Part 2: Residency, health and logistics

A caveat first. Residency rules, income thresholds and import taxes change, and the blog post you found may be three years old. We are not attorneys. Our job is to get you to the right providers, and your attorney and CPA are the ones to plan around.

Is the rentista visa gone?

No, but the mechanism has changed. You used to be able to deposit $60,000 in a Costa Rican bank and draw $2,500 a month from it. Our legal partners tell us that applications built that way are now often denied. What Costa Rica wants to see is proof of $2,500 a month in passive income from outside the country.

Not qualifying for that version does not mean you are out of pathways. The legal partners in our directory will take a free call and lay out a route, and we wrote about the options after rentista.

Does Medicare cover anything? Do I skip the Caja? What about pre-existing conditions?

Medicare does not follow you to Costa Rica. Some Medigap or Advantage plans have limited coverage abroad, usually for emergencies, so check your plan rather than assuming. Many people keep Part B for care when they are back in the States.

If you have residency, you must enroll in the Caja. There is no medical underwriting, so your history does not turn you away, and you pay a percentage of the income declared in your residency application. Think of it like the Canadian system: the care is there, and you may wait a long time for it. Many people keep the Caja and add private insurance for speed. Our healthcare guide goes into this in depth.

Can you back out of a property purchase if something turns up?

There is no general consumer protection law for real estate in Costa Rica. It is buyer beware. Sellers are generally not required to provide disclosures, and real estate agents are not fully licensed or regulated. Aaron is still dealing with the consequences of this six years after his own purchase.

Your safety net is everything before closing. With the right attorney you can add clauses that let you walk away for specific findings, and home inspections exist here, along with checks on water rights, soil and surveys. Do not see a for-sale sign by the road and wire money the next day. We have a longer rant on not buying real estate before you plan your life.

How do I find an attorney or realtor I can trust?

This is the question we hear most. We vet the providers in our directory, we keep the list short on purpose so everyone on it has a track record, and we remove anyone we get bad information about. If you are only planning a scouting trip, this is not the stage to worry about it. And you should never feel pressured into signing. If a deal falls through, there will be another one.

How hard is it to rent with two dogs?

Not impossible, but it takes patience and sometimes a bigger deposit. A furnished apartment with several cats is unlikely, so some clients buy furniture after arriving. In one client budget we are about to publish, a dog in Rohrmoser added about $380 a month, mostly through rent. In mountain towns around the Central Valley, where most houses have yards, a dog often adds nothing. Patrick's post on moving pets to Costa Rica covers the process.

Part 3: The things people worry about

How hard is it to live here without Spanish?

You can function from day one in the Central Valley and most tourist towns if you take the right approach: be humble, open with hola and como esta, say that your Spanish is limited and ask people to go slowly. Keep Google Translate open and have phrases written out on your phone.

The more Spanish you have, the more your life opens up. After a year and a half of weekly one-on-one classes, Aaron can follow about ninety percent of a conversation. A few couples have told us one partner has a learning disability and may never be fluent. That is a reason to choose your town carefully, not a reason to stay home. See Speak in Spanish.

It is also why we call ourselves immigrants rather than using the other common label for foreigners abroad. That label implies people here should speak your language and do things your way because you are paying. It is a problem in Spain, Portugal and Italy, and it is becoming one in parts of Costa Rica. We are in Costa Rica; it is our obligation to learn.

How do you actually make friends in the first year?

It takes real effort anywhere, and at our age it takes years. Give yourself that grace. Aaron has deliberately built friendships with Costa Ricans rather than other foreigners, and it has taken longer than it takes clients who land in a beach town with an instant set of North American friends. There are lonely days.

Where you live matters. A rural spot means being the outsider. A neighborhood open to newcomers, Facebook and WhatsApp groups, and events you actually enjoy all help. Our post on how to make friends in Costa Rica has more.

Why do people end up moving back?

We often cite that upwards of 40 to 50 percent of people leave within two years. Some of that is planned: a gap year, a job with an end date. The rest is usually economics or expectations.

Economics: a Canadian converts to US dollars and then to colones, and the exchange rate has moved against them. When Patrick arrived the dollar bought around 625 colones; the day before the live it was 457. Expectations: Costa Rica is an agrarian country without the boulevards, art scene and food scene people know from Europe. If you can adapt to how things work here, it works exactly as it should. If you cannot, you get frustrated, and that is why many leave. More in why people leave Costa Rica.

Is it safe for a single woman to live here alone?

Neither of us is a single woman, so we say this carefully, but we have walked alongside many single women making this move. The answer depends on where you live, whether you use public transport, and who you spend time with, and that is what a scouting trip is for. Crime data by town is built into our site. There is also the question of being treated with respect at the attorney's office and the bank, and what we hear is generally positive, with problems as in any culture. We take this seriously and would welcome the conversation.

What is it like for a same-sex couple in Atenas?

Patrick and his husband chose Atenas because it felt comfortable: country living, a small-town feel, and clearly tolerant. Pura vida means many things, and one of them is live and let live. A very small town in the northern region might be less comfortable, but most of the Central Valley is fine, and every town guide on our site rates how LGBTQ-friendly the place is. More in LGBTQ+ life in Costa Rica.

The lightning round

• Is weed tolerated? It is not legal.
• Is there hockey? Yes, one rink, at a country club in Heredia, with ice hockey and figure skating.
• When is IKEA opening? It is coming as a phased, multi-format plan rather than one giant store: a logistics center in Lindora, a compact store in Curridabat and a medium-format store in Escazu, with openings expected to start next year.
• Why no pretty drone shots? That footage is everywhere, and it is not real life. Real life is seven at night, raining, damp and hungry.

Where to start

Most of these answers end the same way: it depends on you, your town and your budget. The quiz takes five minutes and gives you a region and a short list to argue with, and a free account opens the town guides. The budget tools, full town data and provider directory are part of membership, and the Guided plan is for people who want us in their corner by email, WhatsApp and video call to pressure-test the plan.

By Aaron Bailey & Patrick Jager, Co-Founders of Your Pura Vida