Costa Rica's family bar is $4,000, not $5,000
TravelPirates published another 'everything Americans need to know' roundup of Costa Rica's digital nomad programme. We could not open the article behind the Google News link, so this page sticks to the tourism board's own requirements text. The stay is open. The family income figure on that page is $4,000 a month — not the $5,000 one of its marketing pages still prints.
What the requirements page actually says
The Instituto Costarricense de Turismo keeps an English requirements page for the immigration sub-category of Stay (Estancia) for Remote Workers and Service Providers. It is a tourism-board page, not the Dirección General de Migración y Extranjería’s own text, and that distinction matters: ICT markets the programme; DGME runs it. The page is still the clearest English statement of the income rule that ICT publishes, and it is what secondary guides keep paraphrasing.
On that page, foreign nationals may apply if they provide paid remote services to a person or entity outside Costa Rica, using digital or telecommunication means, and earn a minimum of:
- USD 3,000 a month originating from outside Costa Rica, applying alone; or
- USD 4,000 a month originating from outside Costa Rica, if they also want dependents to stay legally under the same sub-category.
Those amounts are read at the Central Bank of Costa Rica’s official sale price. The page does not hedge them as guidance or as an “ideal” range. They are the floor.
Where $5,000 still appears
ICT’s own hub at visitcostarica.com/digital-nomads still summarises the programme as needing “a stable net income of at least $3,000 per month ($5,000 for families)”. That family figure disagrees with the requirements page linked from the same site. If a listicle for Americans quotes $5,000 with dependents, it is repeating the marketing summary, not the requirements text.
Our Costa Rica page follows the requirements figure: USD 3,000 alone, USD 4,000 with dependents, graded medium because the row’s legal basis is Ley 10008 and its reglamento, and DGME’s own pages refuse automated fetches.
What else the requirements page asks for
The numbered list on that page is short. The parts that decide whether a file is complete:
- An application form, signed by the applicant or a representative — online through Trámite YA or on paper at a DGME office.
- USD 100 (or the colón equivalent at the Central Bank reference rate) paid into the Ministry of Finance account the page names. International transfers have to arrive net of bank fees; Banco de Costa Rica’s own cut is given as USD 15. Dependents each need their own payment.
- Passport bio page, plus the Costa Rican entry stamp page if you are already in the country.
- A consular or restricted visa where Executive Decree 36626-G still requires one for your nationality. The page does not invent a special American exception here; it points at the ordinary non-resident visa rules.
- Twelve months of bank statements showing the income floor, with an affidavit that the statements came from the bank — or a certification from a public accountant or notary (apostilled or consular-legalised if issued abroad). That certification is the only item the page says must carry legalisation.
Foreign-language documents need an official Spanish translation. DGME also runs a security check against the criminal and police databases it can reach, under Law 10008.
The same ICT hub says the stay turns a 90-day tourist entry into one year, renewable once for another year, and that foreign-source income under the programme is tax-exempt. Those claims sit on the marketing page, not in the numbered requirements list. Medical cover of at least USD 50,000 for the full authorised stay appears in the hub’s FAQ, again not in that numbered list.
Open, not announced
This is not a launch story. Costa Rica’s remote-worker estancia has been an active category for years. You can file today on Trámite YA or at a DGME office. What keeps circulating is a US-facing explainer of a programme that already has a portal, a fee and a dollar threshold — and a family figure that the tourism board has not kept consistent with itself.
The comparison tool converts the USD 3,000 / USD 4,000 bars into your currency. If DGME publishes a figure that disagrees with the requirements page, tell us.
The row behind this
Every figure this post relies on lives on a country page with its source and its confidence grade beside it. That is where it gets corrected, and where it stays current after the post stops being news.
- Costa Rica — Stay for Remote Workers (Estancia para Trabajadores Remotos)
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