Additional Costa Rica Border Crossing Information
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From Drive the Americas
People's experiences vary depending on crowds at the border, corrupt or honest border officials, and rules can also change. Read about individual experiences at specific borders below.
[edit] Entering Costa Rica
Penas Blancas
January 20, 2009
After complete the exit procedure for Nicaragua, we headed down the road. At a fork in the road, there will be a small blue building, where we paid $2 to have our car fumigated. Make sure to get a receipt for the fumigation. Take the righthand road through the fumigation station, and then immediately take a sharp left. There are no signs here, so we mistakenly kept going straight and were turned back by a police officer who told us this road was for heavy trucks only. After correcting our mistake, we reached the mobbed Costa Rican immigration station, where people surrounded our cars and offered to help us through the process. For $5/person they would get us to the front of the line so we wouldn't have to wait for '3 hours.' We declined, as we didn't think it was right to cut in front of all of the people who were patiently waiting in line, and didn't want to perpetrate a system of corruption. Even though the line was long, I don't think we waited more than 45 minutes before we were ushered into the immigration station. After reaching the front of the line, we were given immigration forms to fill out, which we then presented with our passports. They stamped the passports and took the forms. In the same building just next door, we bought 'obligatory insurance' for 7,890 colones (about $12 US) even though our cars were already insured. Make sure to get a xerox of your freshly stamped passport with the receipt for the insurance payment as they will need this to begin the vehicle import permit process. Xeroxes were 50 colones each (about 10 cents). For every person driving the car, make similar xeroxes. We then proceeded across the street to the aduana and presented the xeroxes, our passports, and vehicle title. We then filled out the form the aduana gave us, and the official will take the form over to your car to make sure the numbers match. He then stamped the paperwork, and directed us up the road. After taking the first right, we entered another building where they processed all of the paperwork and gave us our final vehicle import documents. This process took about 3 hours, so we were glad we left plenty of time even though we weren't driving very far.
[edit] Exiting Costa Rica
Paso Canoas
March 13, 2009
Very painless and quick. There are two windows, one for migracion and one for the aduana. You need to shuttle paperwork between the two windows a couple of times, but it's pretty easy. Get the tourist paperwork at migraction fill out the form for leaving the country, check your paperwork with migracion, and then head to the aduana for cancel the car permit. There are the ever present 'helpers' who offer to speed you through the process, but they seemed pretty unnecessary and weren't nearly as pushy as we've seen at other borders. They also had signs posted in English, Spanish, and French stating that 'All custom procedures are free. The ones related with tourism should be handled by the interested party only. No third parties are allowed.'
Sixaolo - Guabito
Out of Costa Rica - hassle free. Park your vehicle just before the bridge by the vendors and walk to the little house just beyound the stop bar - here you will find Migration where your passport is stamped and to the right inside the building is Aduana where you get your temporary vehicle import permit cancelled - they do not stamp it or take it - but data is altered in their computer system. If you need photocopies they can be made in the building just before the bridge on the right hand side across a walkway (50 coloness each).
