| Renewing Cédulas/Residency In order
to renew, you must exchange a total of $7,200 per year as
a pensionado or $12,000 as a rentista. If you
spend only part of the year here, you must still exchange
this total amount. You can exchange it in as many increments
as you like, be it once or 60 times a year. You must keep
all exchange receipts for the total required. The only receipts
accepted are those you get at a bank every time you change
dollars to colones. You can use any Costa Rican state
or private bank to change your money. The receipt must show
your name, amount of dollars exchanged, rate of exchange,
and amount of colones received. You can then change it all
back into dollars if you wish.
You must renew before your cédula expires (vencimiento).
We also recommend you show your exchange each year, since
it means less paperwork. This keeps you correctly up to date
at immigration.
Migración has made a few changes to the process
of renewing the cédula de residencia (don't
know about carnets for rentistas or pensionados).
Timbres (stamps) deposit the money in the Haciendas
general account at Banco de Costa Rica Migración
web page indicates the money can be deposited at Banco
Nacional, but when I tried they send me to Banco de
Costa Rica.
Appointments try to plan ahead if you want to avoid
waiting in a huge line, like four or five months before the
expiry date.
Copies of cédula you are required to
provide a copy of the inside front cover (your picture, cédula
no.), inside back cover (expediente or file number)
and copy of page with latest expiry date.
Renewal without appointment Thursday and Friday only get
to Migración early, like 6 a.m. (the gates
open at 8 a.m.), as it's better to wait a couple of hours
early than four hours later. One resident we know renewed
his cédula in a few hours. He arrived at 7 a.m.
and left at noon.
Passport suggest you carry it with you they were
asking some people for their passport. For more information,
see
http://www.migracion. go.cr/residencias/index.html.
Requirements for Renewing Permanent Residency:
- Present the residency document that needs to be renewed.
- Pay 1,250 colones in the form of an entero bancario, special bank
deposit form, to account #242480-0 in the Banco de Costa
Rica or to account #215936-6 in the Banco Nacional de Costa
Rica, for each year of renewal of the cédula.
- For renewing a residency cédula that requires a new document booklet,
you must pay, at least one day prior to your appointment,
the sum of 1,013 colones in the Banco de Costa Rica account
#242480-0 or in the Banco Nacional de Costa Rica account
#215936-6. (Note: although not stated, you should have this
SEPARATE from No. 2 above, thus if you require a new cédula,
you will have two enteros bancarios).
- Indicate the place where you can be officially notified, or a fax number. (If
it is the place of notification, you must put exact directions
to your home or office, or attorneys office.)
- Resident investors must present financial statements certified by an authorized
public accountant. You must also be current with the payment
of your national taxes. (Note: Although it does not specify
how to be current, your accountant can also certify it.)
- In the case of loss, theft or complete destruction (of your cédula),
you must present two passport-size photographs, a certified
declaration, protocolized written in his protocol
book, before a notary public (apparently about the circumstances
of the loss, theft, or destruction of your cédula) and
pay (again, with an entero bancario) the sum of 1,013
colones in the Banco de Costa Rica account #242480-0
or in the Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, account #215936-6.
Also, you must pay the sum of 1,250 colones into
the same accounts. Note: It means only ONE payment into
either of the two accounts to cover the cost of replacing
the cédula document.
- If the foreigner has stayed away from Costa Rica for a period of more than one
year, you must bring a declaration of why and a certification
of your penal records (from your country of origin) authenticated
by the Costa Rican consulate in your country of origin or
where you are a legal resident, and also certified by the
Ministry of Foreign Relations in Costa Rica.
- If you have not renewed the residency document within 30 days after its expiration,
conforming to Article 82 of the Regulation of the Immigration
Law, you must present a declaration to justify the delay.
Note: This probably also requires a certified and protocolized
document from your notary public.
- For each month or fraction thereof after 30 days after the expiration of your
cédula, a fine of 125 colones per month
will be collected.
Here is what one couple experienced when they renewed their
cédulas: My wife and I arrived at 5:34 a.m.
We got into line and began the wait. A man came by and offered
a place closer to the front of the line for 4,000 colones.
This practice is not legal, but is not policed either.
"The man making the offer was selling music CD's, mostly
as a cover for the other offer. Having more time than money
and sharing the pirate's feelings about all things not legal,
I declined the offer. They also offered to rent me a plastic-chair-height
stool for 200 colones. Later I was sorry I did not
take them up on that offer.
"We stood there until a bit before 8:00 a.m., when the
line started moving. At the gate they checked to see that
we had the necessary papers:
- My cédula (residency document that has to be renewed).
- A copy of the pages with my picture, the prior validation stamp and the last
page.
- A receipt for the 1,250 colones deposited to the Migración account
at BCR (Banco de Costa Rica).
- An application, which was passed out in the line about 7:30 . If you had these
items they wrote a number on the copy of your cédula
and let you inside the gate to proceed to another line,
actually the same line in a different place. I was number
80 in the line.
"It took the better part of two hours to get to the
window where a person took all my papers and put my copy in
their printer and printed my information from their computer
on the back of the copy of my cédula.
"Next, they instructed me to go to Window 3.
"At window 3 they took four above-mentions items, put
them in some order and stapled them together. They told me
it would be about an hour and 15 minutes. It was now 9:45.
"We went to the coffee shop and had coffee, talked,
read, and at 11:00 returned to Window three. After about five
minutes, a person came out with a folder full of papers and
began calling names. If you looked remotely like the picture
on the cédula, they removed the cédula
from the packet of papers and gave it to you. At 11:17
I had my renewed cédula in my hand and we were
on our way to the parking lot. We got to the car before the
sixth hour was up. So I paid for six hours of parking (3,000
colones).
"By around 9 a.m. all of the people in line were inside
and I could and I could not tell if they were letting anyone
else in. I have heard that they only accept 300 per day without
appointments, and only on Thursday and Friday. I also heard
that appointments were being made only in person, with a two
to three hour window and were for three or four months in
the future. Apparently someone else can make the appointment
for you. But you have to go to get the renewal.
Costa Rica's Immigrations Building in La Uruca
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