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I have been wanting to move to Costa Rica since the ’90s and still have not made it.
All I hear about is retiring.
I am not ready to retire and still need to make a living but information on this is sparse.
I visited last year and really like the Grecia and Atenas areas.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it work?
[quote=”cfoutz”]I have been wanting to move to Costa Rica since the ’90s and still have not made it. All I hear about is retiring. I am not ready to retire and still need to make a living but information on this is sparse. I visited last year and really like the Grecia and Atenas areas. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it work?[/quote]
If you can work on-line you can make it work but working here requires that you have a skill that is in demand and can not be filled by a Tico or have a viable business that you can manage but you can not do the labor..
[quote=”waggoner41″][quote=”cfoutz”]I have been wanting to move to Costa Rica since the ’90s and still have not made it. All I hear about is retiring. I am not ready to retire and still need to make a living but information on this is sparse. I visited last year and really like the Grecia and Atenas areas. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it work?[/quote]
If you can work on-line you can make it work but working here requires that you have a skill that is in demand and can not be filled by a Tico or have a viable business that you can manage but you can not do the labor..[/quote]
You’ll also need a residency status that allows you to stay in Costa Rica while you give it a go. Unless you have a very special skill it’s unlikely you will find a “job” that will allow you to “work” or compete in the CR job market. A business would be a better option…. but be realistic in your expectations of sucess. Small businesses fail all the time. Starting one in a foreign country will make it even more of a challenge. Good Luck on making your dream a reality!
Suggest you read the info [url=http://www.costaricalaw.com/Immigration-and-Residency/residency-general-information-and-summary.html]here [/url]and more so, details regarding working in Costa Rica.
[quote=”costaricafinca”]Suggest you read the info [url=http://www.costaricalaw.com/Immigration-and-Residency/residency-general-information-and-summary.html]here [/url]and more so, details regarding working in Costa Rica.[/quote]
This is exactly why I’m not there yet. Everyone tells me why I CANT be there and no one tells how you CAN get there. I have looked into all the rules and regulations but there has to be a way other than just retiring. There are plenty of ex-pats there now and I’m sure they are not all retired.
[quote=”cfoutz”][quote=”costaricafinca”]Suggest you read the info [url=http://www.costaricalaw.com/Immigration-and-Residency/residency-general-information-and-summary.html]here [/url]and more so, details regarding working in Costa Rica.[/quote]
This is exactly why I’m not there yet. Everyone tells me why I CANT be there and no one tells how you CAN get there. Seems again no one wants to do the hard things only the easy things. There has to be a way.[/quote]
There’s always a way if you don’t mind running afoul of the law or doing something dishonorable…but I don’t think that’s what you want to do…. nor is it the type of advice you need or should listen to or will get from the folks on this board. Such a path can cause uneeded stress and complications in your future.
If the above isn’t an issue take a few trips to CR… meet up with some of the younger expats you’ll come across in some of the beach areas and pick their brains on how they’re “doing it”…. warning… having seen many come and go… what might seem like a good idea rarely will last very long.
If all else fail… impregnate a Costa Rican and then start missing your support payments…. they’ll never let you leave the country!!! (Only joking…. NOT a good idea!)
After I read my message it seemed harsh. NOT what I intended at all. So I changed it up a bit. Just looking for alternate ways of getting there. I love the place.
If all else fail… impregnate a Costa Rican and then start missing your support payments…. they’ll never let you leave the country!!! (Only joking…. NOT a good idea!)[/quote]
Married with one 9yr old. Seen plenty that looked good enough for that though.Hah!!
If you come with a family, and you do not intend to apply for legal residency, you could find difficulties getting your child into school here. Many schools require that you are either ‘in process’ or have already gained residency. You would probably prefer a private school and many of these start at $500 per month.
You will be required to keep exiting CR every 90 days or less to renew your tourist visa and your drivers license, and this is getting much more complicated.
Everything is costing more these days and employers are less likely to employ ‘illegal workers’, even those with Temporary resident status, as the fine is very high…especially when they can hire ‘local’s for the job.
Most of the younger, working expats you have seen, could be married and have had children here, so can legally work. Also once you have gained Permanent Residency, after approx 5 yrs, you can work.If you are a citizen of the U.S., as am I, you may wonder why it is so difficult to relocate and stay in Costa Rica. The U.S. permits almost anybody to move within its borders and stay. Cheaper labor is mostly the rationale behind this.
Costa Rica gets all its cheap labor (and more than it needs) from Nicaragua AND makes a sincere effort to protect its citizens from losing relatively good paying jobs to foreigners…unlike the U.S.
You want to move to a country where your worth to that country is measured in how many dollars you can bring to its economy. You weren’t born there so you have to be reasonable. What can you bring to that economy that they cannot get from their own citizenry. For many of us, we can bring a retirement dollars without taking anything from the economy. If you cannot do that, then you must find a way to bring to that economy something it cannot already get from its own people.
Here is my take on this;
If you are a citizen of the U.S., as am I, you may wonder why it is so difficult to relocate and stay in Costa Rica. The U.S. permits almost anybody to move within its borders and stay. Cheaper labor is mostly the rationale behind this.Costa Rica gets all its cheap labor (and more than it needs) from Nicaragua AND makes a sincere effort to protect its citizens from losing relatively good paying jobs to foreigners…unlike the U.S.
You want to move to a country where your worth to that country is measured in how many dollars you can bring to its economy. You weren’t born there so you have to be reasonable. What can you bring to that economy that they cannot get from their own citizenry. For many of us, we can bring retirement dollars without taking anything from the economy. If you cannot do that, then you must find a way to bring to that economy something it cannot already get from its own people.
[quote=”sprite”]Here is my take on this;
If you are a citizen of the U.S., as am I, you may wonder why it is so difficult to relocate and stay in Costa Rica. The U.S. permits almost anybody to move within its borders and stay. Cheaper labor is mostly the rationale behind this.Costa Rica gets all its cheaper labor (and more than it needs) from Nicaragua AND makes a sincere effort to protect its citizens from losing relatively good paying jobs to foreigners…unlike the U.S.
You want to move to a country where your worth to that country is measured in how many dollars you can bring to its economy. You weren’t born there so you have to be reasonable. What can you bring to that economy that they cannot get from their own citizenry. For many of us, we can bring retirement dollars without taking anything from the economy. If you cannot do that, then you must find a way to bring to that economy something it cannot already get from its own people.[/quote]
[quote=”sweikert925″][quote=”sprite”]..you may wonder why it is so difficult to relocate and stay in Costa Rica.[/quote]
Costa Rica is, as I understand it, actually one of the easier countries for foreigners to apply to live in as legal residents.
[quote=”sprite”]The U.S. permits almost anybody to move within its borders and stay.[/quote]
Not quite. The US permits only a selected quota from each country to apply for residency in the US and only after a fairly rigorous application process. The reason there are so many Mexicans residing in the US illegally is that [url=http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/07/14_million_mexicans_waiting_to.html]as of 2010, there were 1.4 million Mexicans waiting to legally immigrate into U.S., and only 65,600 were allowed in.[/url] Most of the Mexicans here illegally came in on tourist visas and then didn’t go back. [It’s a similar story for almost all potential immigrants from other countries but the numbers from Mexico dwarf those of the others].[i]”To emigrate [to the US] is a very complicated process; it takes a lot of time, and it takes a lot of money,” Rubio said. “Because of a close to 20-year backlog for residents of Mexico, people don’t feel like they have 20 years to wait in line”. [/i]
Some may complain about the long wait for getting Costa Rican residency – but you are allowed to reside there legally while the process unfolds (unlike the US) and the wait is nowhere near what it is for those wanting to get US residency. From the article cited above:
[i]There are no limits on the number of visas for immediate family of U.S. citizens. That is defined as spouses, minor children or parents. And that process takes [b]only about a year[/b], experts said. [/i]
And that’s for immediate family members of US citizens![/quote]
The U.S. does not require that most applicants for residency be able to show that they bring special skills to the country. It is merely a quota system based on sheer numbers and little else. Wage slaves who will drive down salaries and the cost of doing business (and living standards) is what is being sought by the elites in the US. And even that quota system is systematically ignored to hasten the process. Every decade or so, amnesty is declared and undocumented immigrants are permitted to stay.
From my perspective, there is a different attitude coming from official Costa Rican immigration policy towards U.S citizens because they are dealing with the exact reverse of what the U.S. is looking at. And I suspect that sooner or later, the U.S. government, if allowed to, will begin even harsher restrictions on US citizens leaving the country with
any wealth.A long time ago, shortly after the American Revolution, the same rich, white land owners that wrote the constitution excluding women, blacks, natives and poor whites from the rights they wanted for themselves set to work to establish and continue their blood lines’ hegemony over the new country. They replaced the king.
Over the years, the wealth from the labor percolated upwards into fewer and fewer hands until we are unhappily where we are today. It sickens me every time I hear those tired old propaganda lines from the past about opportunity, the American Dream and American Exceptionalism.
Some people are blessed with excellent critical thinking capacity and they wake up early in life to these lies. It takes many others of us almost a lifetime to wake up and see through the BS. Many more others never wake up and serve to perpetuate the Big Lie onto the next generation.
Why do you want to leave the United States? I know why I need to leave and I have said so here enough times. But you seem to still be asleep and dreaming that American lie…so why do you want to leave?
So you consider Costa Rica to be a superior place to live than the United States? I do but I have listed my reasons for this.
Moving to another country is no small step for most people. If things were great in the U.S., I probably would not want to leave except for extended vacations. Is that what your intentions are…an extended vacation? Or perhaps do you sense that things are coming apart at the seams in the States?Regarding the sir names of the rich and powerful in the US, remember that concentrated wealth has no national borders. The wealthy move around a lot, I suspect for safety concerns..and they fight with each other often enough using common people for cannon fodder in their wars of acquisition. Right now, there are numerous reports of wealthy and powerful US citizens buying large tracts of land in South America. The Bush family purchased a huge tract of land in Paraguay recently. It was a significant expenditure even for them. Was it just a financial investment? Or are the rats leaving the sinking ship as they have throughout history after they have sucked dry the host nation?
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