Cédula Renewal

Renewing Cédulas/Residency  In order to renew, you must exchange a total of $7,200 per year as a pensionado or $12,000 as a rentista. If you spend only part of the year here, you must still exchange this total amount. You can exchange it in as many increments as you like, be it once or 60 times a year. You must keep all exchange receipts for the total required. The only receipts accepted are those you get at a bank every time you change dollars to colones. You can use any Costa Rican state or private bank to change your money. The receipt must show your name, amount of dollars exchanged, rate of exchange, and amount of colones received. You can then change it all back into dollars if you wish.

You must renew before your cédula expires (vencimiento). We also recommend you show your exchange each year, since it means less paperwork. This keeps you correctly up to date at immigration.

Migración has made a few changes to the process of renewing the cédula de residencia (don't know about carnets for rentistas or pensionados).

Timbres (stamps)  deposit the money in the Haciendas general account at Banco de Costa Rica  Migración web page indicates the money can be deposited at Banco Nacional,  but when I tried they send me to Banco de Costa Rica.

Appointments  try to plan ahead if you want to avoid waiting in a huge line, like four or five months before the expiry date.

Copies of cédula  you are required to provide a copy of the inside front cover (your picture, cédula no.), inside back cover (expediente or file number) and copy of page with latest expiry date.

Renewal without appointment  Thursday and Friday only get to Migración early,  like 6 a.m. (the gates open at 8 a.m.), as it's better to wait a couple of hours early than four hours later. One resident we know renewed his cédula in a few hours. He arrived at 7 a.m. and left at noon.

Passport  suggest you carry it with you  they were asking some people for their passport. For more information, see
http://www.migracion. go.cr/residencias/index.html.

1. Present the residency document that needs to be renewed.
2. Pay 1,250 colones in the form of an entero bancario, special bank deposit form, to account #242480-0 in the Banco de Costa Rica or to account #215936-6 in the Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, for each year of renewal of the cédula.
3. For renewing a residency cédula that requires a new document booklet, you must pay, at least one day prior to your appointment, the sum of 1,013 colones in the Banco de Costa Rica account #242480-0 or in the Banco Nacional de Costa Rica account #215936-6. (Note: although not stated, you should have this SEPARATE from No. 2 above, thus if you require a new cédula, you will have two enteros bancarios).
4. Indicate the place where you can be officially notified, or a fax number. (If it is the place of notification, you must put exact directions to your home or office, or attorneys office.)
5. Resident investors must present financial statements certified by an authorized public accountant. You must also be current with the payment of your national taxes. (Note: Although it does not specify how to be current, your accountant can also certify it.)
6. In the case of loss, theft or complete destruction (of your cédula), you must present two passport-size photographs, a certified declaration, protocolized  written in his protocol book, before a notary public (apparently about the circumstances of the loss, theft, or destruction of your cédula) and pay (again, with an entero bancario) the sum of 1,013 colones in the Banco de Costa Rica account #242480-0 or in the Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, account #215936-6.
   Also, you must pay the sum of 1,250 colones into the same accounts. Note: It means only ONE payment into either of the two accounts to cover the cost of replacing the cédula document.
7. If the foreigner has stayed away from Costa Rica for a period of more than one year, you must bring a declaration of why and a certification of your penal records (from your country of origin) authenticated by the Costa Rican consulate in your country of origin or where you are a legal resident, and also certified by the Ministry of Foreign Relations in Costa Rica.
8. If you have not renewed the residency document within 30 days after its expiration, conforming to Article 82 of the Regulation of the Immigration Law, you must present a declaration to justify the delay. Note: This probably also requires a certified and protocolized document from your notary public.
9. For each month or fraction thereof after 30 days after the expiration of your cédula, a fine of 125 colones per month will be collected.

Here is what one couple experienced when they renewed their cédulas: My wife and I arrived at 5:34 a.m. We got into line and began the wait. A man came by and offered a place closer to the front of the line for 4,000 colones. This practice is not legal, but is not policed either.

"The man making the offer was selling music CD's, mostly as a cover for the other offer. Having more time than money and sharing the pirate's feelings about all things not legal, I declined the offer. They also offered to rent me a plastic-chair-height stool for 200 colones. Later I was sorry I did not take them up on that offer.

"We stood there until a bit before 8:00 a.m., when the line started moving. At the gate they checked to see that we had the necessary papers:

1. My cédula (residency document that has to be renewed).
2. A copy of the pages with my picture, the prior validation stamp and the last page.
3. A receipt for the 1,250 colones deposited to the Migración account at BCR (Banco de Costa Rica).
4. An application, which was passed out in the line about 7:30 . If you had these items they wrote a number on the copy of your cédula and let you inside the gate to proceed to another line, actually the same line in a different place. I was number 80 in the line.

"It took the better part of two hours to get to the window where a person took all my papers and put my copy in their printer and printed my information from their computer on the back of the copy of my cédula.

"Next, they instructed me to go to Window 3.

"At window 3 they took four above-mentions items, put them in some order and stapled them together. They told me it would be about an hour and 15 minutes. It was now 9:45.

"We went to the coffee shop and had coffee, talked, read, and at 11:00 returned to Window three. After about five minutes, a person came out with a folder full of papers and began calling names. If you looked remotely like the picture on the cédula, they removed the cédula from the packet of papers and gave it to you. At 11:17 I had my renewed cédula in my hand and we were on our way to the parking lot. We got to the car before the sixth hour was up. So I paid for six hours of parking (3,000 colones).

"By around 9 a.m. all of the people in line were inside and I could and I could not tell if they were letting anyone else in. I have heard that they only accept 300 per day without appointments, and only on Thursday and Friday. I also heard that appointments were being made only in person, with a two to three hour window and were for three or four months in the future. Apparently someone else can make the appointment for you. But you have to go to get the renewal.

Costa Rica's Immigrations Building in La Uruca