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Home › Forums › Costa Rica Living Forum › Question about four-month residency requirement for pensionado status
Could someone tell me at what point we have to start spending four months per year in CR in order to obtain or keep pensionado status? Specifically, do we have to spend four months per year in CR during the application process, or does the four-month-per-year requirement begin after our residency paperwork has been approved for the first year? Thanks very much.
It starts when you receive your cedula. Once your application is approved, your contact person will be notified by fax. You will have a certain amount of time to complete the conditions to get your cedula. Then you will go back to migracion in San Jose to get your cedula. It will be a lamenated id with your picture on it and your cedula number. When you get that, your year starts and thus the 4 month stay in Costa Rica requirement. The 4 months does not have to be continuous. If it is, don’t forget to get your Costa Rican driver’s license before you have been in the country for 3 months. You can only use your foreign driver’s license for 3 months at a time.
Thanks very much, rosiemaji. So prior to receiving our cedulas, we can spend as much or little time as we like in country. After receiving our cedulas, the clock for the first year starts ticking and we must spend four months in CR during that year and convert $12,000 USD into colones during that period too. Do I have that right?
This is true as long as you have already submitted your application to migracion. As long as your application is pending, you don’t have to exit the country every 3 months (you will have gotten a form that shows that you have submitted all of your paperwork and that your application is pending) and you can spend substantially less time than 4 months in Costa Rica as well.
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