We Now Have Permanent Residency in Costa Rica

Just over a year ago, we finally applied for permanent residency status. We could have done it after living here for three years with legal residency - either pensionado, rentista or investor. We had pensionado status. We were just lazy in getting it started.

As is our custom, we always use a lawyer for anything relating to our residency and we have always used Romulo Pacheco at the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR). It was very easy - we initially met with Romulo, signed some documents, paid all the necessary fees then went home and let his staff deal with everything. Just over a year later, we were contacted by ARCR -  both of us had been approved. An appointment was set up to meet with one of the legal staff and he took us to the main post office in San José. This is where the last of the processing was completed. A small fee paid for the actual cedulas (ID cards), stamping of documents, photos taken and so on and we were done!

On April 27 of this year, we picked up our new cards.

Why have permanent residency? Here are some reasons:

•  you only have to be in Costa Rica one day a year to maintain this residency
•  you can now work in Costa Rica
•  you can own a company and receive income from it 
•  renewing your status is easy compared to renewing temporary status (not as much paperwork involved and not as expensive)

But I think the best reason is that it demonstrates a commitment to this country that so graciously permits us to live here.

Milestone - We Have Our Cédulas!

Friday was an important day - the day we received our cédulas, or cédula de identidad.

The cédula itself is a credit card sized ID card with our photos, a personal identification number, personal information and our signatures. The reverse includes additional information.

Every citizen and every legal resident of Costa Rica is issued a cédula - it is the legal identification instrument here. There are different ways for foreigners to become legal residents of Costa Rica, the most common being pensionado, rentista, and investor. I won't go into all the details here - one good source of residency information is ARCR (Association of Residents of Costa Rica).

One thing I want to stress in this post is the importance of getting yourself a good lawyer in Costa Rica to handle your residency application. I have mentioned our lawyer, Romulo Pacheco in San José, in previous posts and highly recommend him. We received our cédulas in just a little over a year. We know people who have spent three years or more and who are still slogging through the process. There were no snags. For example, when we had to make visits to government offices, Mr. Pacheco provided us with an English speaking attendant who smoothed the way every time.

Good News!

Yippee! Our lawyer just e-mailed us to say congratulations - our residency procedures have been approved and we are now official residents of Costa Rica!

It only took nine months - kind of like a pregnancy I guess.

If you are looking for a lawyer, we highly recommend Romulo Pacheco, Pacheco, Marin and Asociados. Mr. Pacheco took care of everything for us, including getting our drivers' licences.

Everything has gone so smoothly throughout all of this adventure. Of course, planning helps! Still, we have a great lawyer, great doctor, great vet, great hairdresser and barber, great house and landlady, great friends, great weather ..... I need to come up with some new adjectives. Even the move down here, including Genny's trip, went off without a hitch.

Our Third Day

Another amazing day, starting of course with the delicious buffet breakfast at our hotel. We were up early because we had an appointment with our lawyer, Rómulo Pacheco Sibaja. He is handling our pensionado application and we were so impressed with the service he offers.


Took a cab to his office and were met by one of his assistants who drove us to Interpol to be fingerprinted. One thing that has blown me away about San Jose is the level of entreprenerial spirit that exists here. We needed to have passport sized photos taken and this was done by a fellow with a camera outside a church. We stood against the church wall, he took our photos, then we went around the corner of the church where he settled down on his large paint bucket and printed our photos off his really small printer that was also sitting on a paint bucket. I think our cost was two bucks U.S. He even trimmed the edges and put them in plastic holders.


Then we lined up to get through the Interpol gates - lots of police - Lance got the "magic wand" experience but I got two winks from one of the guards. We eventually entered and stood in another line....sat actually, because they did provide chairs outside. Everyone is so polite. Our personal assistant helped us all the way - even tho he did not speak much English and our Spanish is non-existent - a lot can be understood with hand waving and pointing.


Had the fingerprinting done and entering of information into a computer and that was it. I'm not sure if we were actually at an Interpol compound - it was definitely a large police station - and maybe the information gathered plus the fingerprints is sent to Interpol.


All that is left for us to do is go to the Canadian Embassy on Monday, get one last piece of paper and register there, pay some government fees, take the paper back to Romulo and that is that. Now we wait for our official pensionado status, could take up to a year, but we do not have to leave the country in 90 days like the tourists.


Last night we ate at a soda (a neighborhood restaurant) - this one was the Soda Isabel just a block or so from our hotel. They are everywhere, ma and pop operations, could be a tiny hole in the wall or a bigger place. These are the places to go for inexpensive home cooking. The portions are enormous. We had plates of fried chicken, rice and beans, vegetables, coke and a beer each and we couldn't finish half of what we were given. Total cost: 11,660 colones, or about $23 Cdn. 


It was my turn to go into a bank yesterday and change U.S. dollars into colones using my limited Spanish. I managed to say "dinero a colones, por favor" but forgot "quiero cambiar" (I'd like to change). Oh well, the effort is always appreciated and it's the only way to learn.


We're taking a lot of cabs around the city - so inexpensive. You have to keep a sharp eye out when walking on the sidewalks because of the deep gutters, broken and uneven pavement, unexpected holes ... real easy to trip and break something.

Police Reports

Yippee! Two weeks ago we went and got our RCMP police reports - a requirement for pensionado status. It's painless and fast - fingerprinting, photo, pay the fee and the following week the reports arrive. That's assuming you haven't been naughty in your past and it has now caught up with you.

In the Lower Mainland of B.C., we use Commissionaires Canada and their office is in Surrey.

As far as Immigration in Costa Rica is concerned, these police reports have a life span of six months and no more so this is the document that you leave until the last. I then scanned our police reports, birth certificates and marriage certificate and e-mailed them to Antonio Arreaga-Valdes, the Consulado General de Costa Rica in North Vancouver. He is looking them over and if all seems okay, he'll prepare a letter that we need and we'll then bring the original documents to him for his stamp of approval.

Then I'll be heaving a big sigh of relief - because then I can make our airline reservations and we'll be on our way. The original approved documents come with us and we will give them to our Costa Rican lawyer when we arrive there.

So I'm hoping to hear soon that we can go and meet with the very helpful and charming Consulado General de Costa Rica.

One of the most sensible things we did during this process was to get ourselves a Costa Rican lawyer. We are using Romulo Pacheco. Originally I thought I could do all the process myself but I came to realize I could not - so don't waste your time trying to do this.