The moving checklist

Everything here costs you a plane ticket. Everything after it costs a great deal more, so this is the stage to be slow and honest.

• Visit in the green season, not just the dry one. September or October shows you the real place.
• Rent an ordinary apartment for two or three weeks. Not a resort, not a hotel.
• Do the boring things: a supermarket shop, a bank visit, a pharmacy run, a drive at night in the rain.
• Spend time in at least two towns. They differ more than they look on a map.
• Ask three residents what they would change about living here, then listen to the whole answer.
• If you are looking at Guanacaste, come in March or April too. That is the region at its hardest.
• Drive the road to any house you are considering, ideally when it is wet.
• Work out honestly whether you loved the place or loved the holiday.

Should you actually move here? →

The paperwork clock is slower than you think and it does not start until you start it. This is the stage that quietly determines whether your move runs to plan.

• Choose a residency category based on the shape of your income, not the size of it.
• Hire a Costa Rican immigration lawyer. Ask expats for names before you search for one.
• Order your documents and get them apostilled. Ask your lawyer for the right order.
• Do not order the FBI background check too early. It has a shelf life and people pay twice.
• Talk to an accountant who handles American expats, before your first filing season.
• Build a budget for the move itself, separate from your monthly cost of living.
• Work out what your health cover looks like in the gap before residency and the Caja.
• Start learning Spanish. Any amount, starting now.
• Tell the people who need a year of notice. Family first.

Visas and residency, explained →

The logistics stage. The instinct is to bring your life with you, and nearly all of the good decisions here are subtractions.

• File the residency application. Expect it to go quiet at some point, which is normal.
• Decide what ships and what does not. For most people the honest answer is almost nothing.
• Price a container against simply replacing things here, including import duty.
• Sell, store or give away the rest. Start earlier than feels necessary.
• Book the pets: health certificate from a USDA accredited vet, current rabies, airline confirmed.
• Check airline temperature embargoes for pets. A Guanacaste arrival in April needs planning.
• Check every card for foreign transaction fees and leave the ones that charge them behind.
• Do the same for your debit card and its ATM fees.
• Tell your bank you are moving so nobody freezes your card in week one.
• Decide what happens to your US address, and set up mail forwarding.

The complete guide to the move →

Nothing clever here. Just the list of things that ruin the first week if you skip them.

• Book somewhere to land for the first month or two. Do not sign a year lease from abroad.
• Arrange the airport pickup, or a rental car with the all-in insurance price confirmed in writing.
• Copy and back up every important document, digitally and on paper.
• Fill prescriptions and carry them in labelled packaging with a copy of the prescription.
• Cancel what you are actually cancelling: utilities, gym, subscriptions, insurance.
• Confirm the pet paperwork is inside its validity window for your travel date.
• Put a little cash in your pocket for the other side.
• Say the goodbyes properly. This is not admin and people underestimate it.

Landing: Liberia airport to Coco →

You have arrived. The temptation is to sprint at settling in. Resist it, and spend the momentum on people rather than possessions.

• Rent. Do not buy. Give yourself a year in the town before committing money to it.
• Get a local SIM and a local payment app in the first week.
• Find your people. A town with year round residents makes this far easier.
• Work out transport honestly: whether you need a car, and whether you need clearance.
• Register with the Caja once residency comes through. Compulsory, and the good news.
• Find a doctor, a dentist and a vet before you urgently need one.
• Learn the rhythm. What opens when, which day the feria runs, when the rain arrives.
• Keep going with the Spanish, now surrounded by it.
• Say yes to things for the first three months, even the ones you would decline at home.
• Give yourself six months before deciding how you feel.

Your first 90 days →