Help in understanding Residency criteria

Hello Dan, welcome on the forum

I hope that other forumers will bring their input to your various interesting queries soon.

Warm Greetings

Hi Dan -

Welcome!

First, just a little vocabulary change - "Pensionado," "inversionista," and "Rentista" are all "temporary" residencies (officially designations).  After 3 years in this category, you could apply to become a "permanent" resident.

Another place you can find info (a bit clearer, and succinct): www.arcr.net

For rentista, what most do is this:
- deposit $150,000 (for the family) in a CR bank
- the bank writes a letter for immigration, with the correct wording (USA and Canadian banks usually won't do this), saying that they guarantee income to you (from this deposit) of $2,500/month for 5 years
- you add that letter to your immigration application packet

You can see that this is not a case of having to have enough to pay a *dividend* of $2500/month.  It is simply the bank paying out from your deposit over time, from your original deposit (and no, the bank pays hardly any interest).

Note that this procedure has not changed over the past 3 law changes (just the amount has changed).

Note too that an income from a job will not work for this, nor will a 401k.  You need to have the right wording in a letter from a recognized banking/financial institution.

Both Pensionado and Rentista categories cover the entire family.  However, the Inversionista only covers one person (if you go this route, see if your lawyer can recommend a method for covering the entire family; I've heard of a single case where this worked, but it could have been that the investment was double the required amount).

The Inversionista residency requirements have been relaxed in the latest law.  It used to be nearly impossible to get.  Now, houses, land, etc can count towards the amount.  However, I don't know anyone who has been successful at this yet - it's still very soon to know how easy it really is.

Re jobs - you can continue to work over the internet (for example).  You will likely hear people say "you can't work here unless you are a permanent resident"  - but that applies to working for a company in CR, not to working online for your present company (again, for example).

good luck,
Julie

Thanks for that info Julie, I have not gotten around to reading the latest info on legal residence.

And now the Pensionista requirement is $1,000/month, right? My question is, can this be from a guaranteed annuity from a U.S. investment. I know it works for social security and that's how most people meet the requirement. But what about other forms of guaranteed income? Of course I know I could wade through the law or read this at the Association of Residents of Costa Rica but I'd rather ask and have it answered here if someone knows!

Hi SamRamon -
Penisonado requires a "guaranteed income for life" of $1000/month from any source. For example, many people have a social security income of less (say $900), and purchase a lifelong annuity to make up the difference (say $100).  The two combined meet the requirement.  I'm not sure what "guaranteed annuity from a U.S. investment" means in this context.  If that's salespeak for a really good investment plan, then no, it won't count.  If it is an actual annuity, guaranteed for life, that you purchased, then it should count.

Thanks Julie! I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my questions.
RE: "the bank writes a letter for immigration, with the correct wording (USA and Canadian banks usually won't do this), saying that they guarantee income to you (from this deposit) of $2,500/month for 5 years"
I assume that after you receive your temporary residency status you can (if needed) withdraw your money back out of the account? Or does the bank actually put some restrictions on that? For example, what if you decided to purchase a house and you needed that money?

Your money is tied up - usually in laddered CDs that mature each month.
BTW - don't be surprised, but the bank starts the CD maturity right away - your first CD matures in 1 month.  This is because the bank has told immigration that it will supply your residency income, but has no way of knowing when your residency will actually start.  So, they must start the payments immediately.  What happens is that you get two accounts - a dollar account and a colon account.  Each month, the dollar CD is converted to colones and put in your colon account - this meets the requirement (needed for renewal each year) to convert the money to colones.   
You don't have to spend this money.  The requirement is to convert it to colones.  You can convert it right back to dollars if you wish (we did this because we weren't yet living in CR when we gained our residency).
However, you can see that you can't pull out a big chunk of money to buy something like a house.
Once you gain your permanent status (figure on 4 years after your initial temporary residency is gained), then you could pull the remainder of your money out of the bank.  However this will take some time, will generate a penalty (CDs won't all be mature), and you will probably only have one year's worth of cash left (remember that it starts right away, and it might take a year to gain your initial residency).  For us, it is not worth it - we keep spending our monthly "income" even as permanent residents. :-)

thanks. It's all starting to make a little more sense now:rolleyes:
I also started reading through the arcr.net forums and I can see they'll be a big help as well. We're visiting in March to get our first real taste of Costa Rica. Can you recommend any good forums covering international school experiences in CR? Google searches have revealed very little and the arcr forum crashes when I try to search a new topic. Thank!!

:-)
Although I have no experience w/ schools (as in, for children) here, there are quite a few parents on yahoo's "Costa Rica Living" group (go there with a thick skin, and be prepared to ignore an awful lot of ummm "opinions").  The ARCR forum has been having problems lately - suggest you try again, but in the evening (you have to sign up for that one). You could also try yahoo's "CostaRicaCentralValleyLiving" group - less traffic, but much more pleasant.