New Immigration Laws Will Go Into Effect March 1 2010
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The nation's new immigration law will go into effect March 1, officials said Tuesday. The law was published in the La Gaceta official newspaper Tuesday, triggering the clause in the law that says it will go into effect six months after publication.
The law is structured substantially different than previous versions. One item of interest to expats is that persons who overstay their visa will be fined $100 for each month they have been illegal in the country and they will be barred from entering Costa Rica for a period equal to the time they stayed here illegally.
The law also allows North America tourists to extend their 90-day stay for 90 more days with the payment of $100. This is important for the so-called snowbirds who come to Costa Rica for the north's winter season and may want to stay four or five months. Under the current law they would have to leave the country to renew their visa.
The new law also requires those foreigners living in the country to join the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social. The law says that those renewing their residencies must show that they have been enrolled in the Caja the entire time since residency was granted. The process for doing this was not specified in the law.
The Policía de Migración is beefed up in the new law, and the duties of the force are spelled out. One obligation is to check on the legality of persons working in Costa Rica and to enter workplaces to do so.
The law specifically says that pensionados and rentistas have the right to work and earn money on their own behalf. These so-called residentes temporales also have to enroll in the Caja, said the law. However, the law also says that an employer has the obligation to make sure an employee has the legal right to work and is assessed a fine for violation.
Under the new law, innkeepers and hotel operators will have to keep a registry of persons saying in their facilities for inspection by the immigration police.
The law, as reported previously, fixes the income requirement for a pensionado at $1,000 a month and $2,500 a month for rentistas. And that amount covers close dependents.
The final draft has ballooned by nearly 100 sections to 268 articles, The law has 28,263 words. What is not in the law is a topic that bothers many persons here living as so-called perpetual tourists. The amount of time a tourist must stay out of the country to legally renew a tourist visa is not addressed nor is the whole practice of multiple tourist visas.
The regulations that will be drafted to accompany the law may address this issue, but they have yet to be published.
The law is clear, however, that every foreigner here must pay taxes. Few perpetual tourists do.
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