Costa Rica digital nomad visa: income, cost & requirements (2026)

DGME implemented sweeping changes under Law 10493: approved residents may enter without a consular visa, applicants may now apply for temporary residence from abroad or beyond their authorised stay, while police-clearance and consular-registration requirements were tightened. The reforms materially altered how all residency categories — including digital nomads — interact with immigration authorities.

The National Assembly enacted Law 10493, the most significant amendment to Costa Rica's 2009 General Immigration Law, modernising DGME procedures, addressing processing backlogs, and adjusting documentation requirements across all residency pathways. Most provisions took effect July 1, 2024.

Published as Alcance No. 207 to La Gaceta No. 185 (Year CXLIV), Circular DG-0027 consolidated DGME's visa-application guidelines and incorporated the newly operational digital nomad sub-category. The circular, updated by addenda through at least 2025, remains the operative visa-procedure framework for all categories.

President Rodrigo Chaves signed Executive Decree 43619-H-MGP-TUR, the implementing regulation for Law 10008, published in La Gaceta. The decree codified the $3,000/month income threshold ($4,000 with dependents), mandated private health insurance, set a 15-day DGME review window, and launched applications via the Trámite Ya digital platform — activating the visa nearly eleven months after the law's enactment.

Signed July 5 by President Alvarado and published in Official Gazette No. 135, Law 9996 granted a five-year incentive window to new temporary residents in the investor, rentista, and pensionado categories: duty-free import of household goods and up to two vehicles, a 20% reduction on real estate transfer tax, and income-tax exemption on foreign earnings. Explicitly framed as post-COVID economic stimulus, it made existing residency categories significantly more attractive.

Costa Rica's foundational modern immigration statute took effect, having been enacted August 19, 2009. It established DGME as the primary regulatory authority, institutionalised the pensionado, rentista, and inversionista temporary-residency categories, and created pathways to permanent residency (three years of temporary residence) and citizenship (seven years total). It superseded the prior Law 8487 of 2005.

The National Assembly enacted Ley No. 8764, the comprehensive overhaul of Costa Rica's immigration framework. The law declared migration a matter of state, created DGME, formally defined all immigration categories including temporary-residency streams for financially independent foreigners, and built the legal scaffolding on which subsequent digital nomad and fiscal-incentive legislation would be constructed.