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Just looking longingly at CR from Ireland and I wondered if anyone could give me a rough idea of cost of living in CR? I know its a big question but I have 16 year old twins and a husband,is it just a pipe dream,could we set up a bike shop somewhere( what we do now) or survive by self Sufficiency? All thoughts welcomed.Great site by the way obviously run by someone who is very “awake”:wink:
You are running into legal problems, you need to be a permanent resident to work in Costa Rica. This process takes a minimum of 3 years. Owning your own business is allowed but you cannot work the business, you would be required to hire local staff which would probably eat up any profits.
Depending on where and how you live I would say it is difficult to live on less than $2,000 per month.
Expect this cost to rise if your children are not finished their education. You would, I expect, choose private schools that could cost $500 and up, each, per month and varies with location. This doesn’t include uniforms, transportation, meals or extracurricular activities.
Right now, it it is taking approx 18 months to get [url=http://costaricalaw.com/Immigration-and-Residency/]Temporary residence[/url] after your residency application, and you cannot even apply for Permanent status until you have completed three years in a temporary position, so it would ‘probably’ add another year, so all in more likely 5+ years until you you receive a [i]cedula[/i] that states you are ‘legal to work’.
Your children once they are 18 cannot be claimed as dependents during the time of your application for residency, unless they are enrolled full time in university or college in Costa Rica so they are required to make individual applications will work out very costly to you as parents.This would mean that they would also have to have their own CAJA healthcare accounts.
If you are under 55 and apply as [i]Rentistas[/i], health care costs, which is mandatory and you may choose not to use them, could be approx. $450 per month per family with children under 18, although some EBAIS allow some cost of living expenses, but not all do this.Many bike shops all over the country run by [i]Ticos[/i] and the labor costs are [i]usually[/i] ‘cheap’.
[url=http://costaricalaw.com/Labor-Law/labor-law-in-a-nutshell.html]Running a business[/url] is not for the feint of heart…:shock:…due to [i]lot’s[/i] of red tape.
Hi ‘Ireland’ and welcome to WeLoveCostaRica.com
Please find a few of my comments below:
The state of the roads here in Costa Rica may not be quite as good as you think…
[img]https://www.welovecostarica.com/members/images/5381c.jpg[/img]
The bar chart above shows the percentage of roads in an ’Excellent state’ a ‘Good state’, a ‘Regular state’, a ‘Bad state’ and finally a ‘Very bad state.’It’s safe to assume that a bike shop would probably only work in a touristy area and these would be typically beach areas which unfortunately tend to have the most expensive real estate for both rental and purchase.
Owning a business here is easy but, as one of the other commentators mentioned, getting the correct residency status to actually work in your business can be a long process…
Just like Ireland doesn’t want people waltzing into their country and stealing their jobs, Costa Rica tries to defend their workers and small businesses.
With 16 year old twins you should also know that these areas will tend to have more ‘temptations’ than most. What I mean by that is where there is more tourist money there will be more drugs, more prostitution and the Ticos are fairly promiscuous.
You did not mention anything about education but if your twins want further education, you will find some schools on the coast but the best choice in colleges and universities is in and around the capital San José.
Unless you have some unique twist to the business, the barrier to entry in this business is low meaning that anybody with a few bikes could set up shop and compete with you, no?
All of this is NOT meant to put you off but to encourage you to investigate further.
I would certainly encourage you to come visit Costa Rica for a few months to have a good look around before even starting to think about living here.
Lastly, with twins and a husband, I would suggest that your cost of living here would be at least $2,000 per month NOT including your rent.
Best wishes from wide ‘awake’ Scott 🙂 A Brit in Costa Rica….
Thanks very much for your reply guys,will require a lot of thought not to mention money :shock:Back to the drawing board I guess…..
Sorry about all the negatives you saw.Some are relevant, and some not. We received our first temp residency status within 2 1/2 months of our application and our permanent residency 3 1/2 years later. If you want to live with the thought of having all the food and material items you enjoyed in your home country, it is going to cost you. You must come here with an open mind that allows you to adjust. If we didn’t have that when we arrived, we would not have lasted much more than a year here. However, we did, and are now living on the same scale we did in the US at 1/3 the cost. But, you absolutely need to be able to adjust. This is based on living here almost 8 years and I hope it helps.
Raising a family make a [b]huge[/b] difference in the cost of living here… or anywhere else…so the costs involved are not comparable to that a retired couple.
Also when obtaining residency now that CAJA healthcare is mandatory, along with it goes very high ‘base’ CAJA premium for either Rentistas or Investors, as young families are not likely to have a ‘guaranteed for life’ pension, and the time taken to get residency, seems to take a lot longer than it did a few years ago,
The cost of raising a family is certainly going to be more expensive. However, my point is that the cost of living in Costa Rica is not more expensive than the US when you take all relative factors into consideration. One of the biggest factors is going to be shopping habits – “Don’t try to bring the idea of US or European needs and desired items to Costa Rica because it is going to cost you. My wife cut our monthly shopping cost in half by staying away from the stores that cater to the Gringo’s. If you live in a small town, try to adjust and do your shopping locally. My favorite story about this is that I can by a bottle of good scotch where we live locally for $6 less than PriceSmart or any other store in the Gringo suburbs of Sna Jose. For medical care, which is important to any size family – it is about 1/2 of any place in the US and the quality of care is much superior.
As far as your residency is concerned. The Caja was mandatory when we moved here. My monthly cost is less than $80 per month. I have the name and contact information for a highly qualified immigration attorney if you would like to have it. She had a lot to do with the speed in which we became qualified at the time. Please note – that at that time, the system was a mess and we knew of people who were waiting as long as two years. – A good immigration attorney is something that should be a prime consideration. – Hope this helps
Here is good link with info on [url=http://www.residencyincostarica.com/questions.html]Residency requirements[/url].
Yes, I remember this as I was part of the group that went to meet with the Congress of CR to discuss this matter. Our immigration attorney stayed for 9 more hours after we left to convince them to change their idea of wanting $2,000 per month per person to qualify. She is the one that convinced them to bring it down to $1,000 per family. Yep, remember it well.
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