Talking Expat Taxes #1

Good morning, Alex. Doing fine.

Yes, be glad to, Alex. I am a practicing attorney in Costa Rica, specializing in real estate and immigration law, particularly all of my clients tend to be people immigrating to Costa Rica from the US and Canada, in particular, and Western European countries as well. I'm originally from Canada myself. I practiced law in Victoria, British Columbia for 14 years before moving to Costa Rica in 1998. I had to return to university to obtain a Costa Rica law degree in civil law, which is the legal system used throughout Latin America. And I practiced PAH here for the last 21 years. Most of that time I did spend in the western suburb of San Jose. Over the last five years I've been on the northwest Pacific coast, Costa Rica, near the town of Brasilito, which is between two major beach towns of Tamarindo and Flamingo.

Yes, immigration has really taken off since the end of the pandemic. I think a lot of people discovered that it was possible to work remotely in many cases. And after the pandemic was over and freedom of travel was again allowed, they started looking for places they could carry on their business activities in a more relaxed atmosphere and a comfortable social setting as well. Costa Rica, in many respects, fits that description 100%. And accordingly, Costa Rica has absolutely boomed with immigration since the end of the pandemic. And in particular, the area where I am now, and part of the reason that I relocated, from San Jose to the northwest Pacific coast, is exactly because of that immigration influx and building boom that's been associated. And of course, this dovetails very closely with my practice being in real estate law and immigration law.

That's very much what's developed, exactly that. And of course with the immigration influx, there's also a huge building boom going on. And again, particularly in the part of Costa Rica where I am in the Guanacaste province. As a result, of course, this made sense for me to be located closer to where the majority of people who would most likely be my clients would be settling in Costa Rica.

Yes, there are two broad categories of residency, temporary residency and permanent residency. All foreigners moving to Costa Rica initially, except for some very unusual circumstances, will apply under the temporary residency application. And that residency category is divided into three subcategories based on differing financial components to each. The Pensionado temporary residency category, which is based on pension income, of a minimum of $1,000 USD per month for life by the applicant. There's the Rentista category, which is investment income of at least $2,500 USD per month for a two-year period. And there's the investor or Inversionista category, which requires either a property or a business interest purchase of at least $150,000 USD in value to qualify. Those are the three basic subcategories of temporary residency.

Yes, that's correct. It must be a pension for life. There's various ways to document that. If it's coming from Social Security, there's a pension letter that you can get from the Social Security Directorate in the United States that will suffice. It needs to have the apostille seal applied by the Federal State Department, and then it's ready to go for use in Costa Rica. Assuming it meets the minimum income amount.

If it is from a private pension source, again, a thousand a month for life, and it must be on a signed letterhead from the pension source that's notarized, and again, it would have to be apostatized, but in this case, it would be apostatized by the Office of the Secretary of State in the state where the pension source is located.

Yes, that's it. You do have to have the actual documentation from the pension source via social security or a private company source that has to be the actual documentation for the Pensionado residency application.

The temporary residency application, once it's been submitted to the Immigration Department, you will not have to leave Costa Rica again to renew your tourist visa.

Recently there's been a change for foreign driver's license privileges to be consistent with the time of the tourist visa that's granted. So if you're being 180 days in most cases, if you are able to get your residency application processed within the 180 days, you won't have to leave again to renew your foreign driver's license privileges. But if you don't, that would be the only reason to leave if you require foreign driver's license privileges. As far as the actual time for the temporary residency after it's granted? You do have to renew at the two-year point just for a new residency card, new photograph, update your contact particulars basically in Costa Rica. However, at the three-year point, you're entitled to change to permanent residency status.

And the difference between the temporary residency and permanent residency are significant, because under the temporary residency category, you cannot work for wages, a salary, or a commission income during the three-year period.

Legally, if you're going to be working for a foreign company, you need to apply for what's called a Nomad visa. There are many people in Costa Rica that do exactly what you've just described, that is work for a foreign company that caters to foreign clients only, pays the wages of the person in Costa Rica to a foreign bank account, and the person in Costa Rica merely imports the necessary funds to carry on living in Costa Rica. That is not strictly legal, but the bottom line is it's also illegal.

It's a technical rule, but I can tell you there are many, many people in Costa Rica doing exactly that. Technically speaking, if you're going to be working for a foreign company, such as internet-based, you have to apply for what's called a Nomad Visa, which caters to exactly that type of person. The problem with the Nomad Visa is that it doesn't lead to residency. It's a totally different category, and it's a maximum of two years. So if you plan to live in Costa Rica, you really have to tailor your application towards an actual temporary residency application, because otherwise the Nomad Visa will expire in two years and you'll have to leave the country. So, depending on what your long-term plans are, the Nomad Visa may work for you. If you're only looking at a brief interlude in Costa Rica.

You have to show income to go with the Nomad Visa of a minimum of $3,000 USD per month for a single person, or $4,000 a month for a family. So those are the basic requirements for Nomad Visa. But again, if your long-term plans are to live in Costa Rica on an ongoing basis, residency is really your only option. Technically, you won't be able to work for wages of salary or commission income during that three-year period until you're qualified to apply for permanent status, or permanent residency status. The other good thing about permanent status is that there's no financial component associated with it. So at that point, you no longer have to show that you're in fact getting pension income or have suitable investment income or own a property or business interest in Costa Rica. Those are the two main differences between temporary and permanent residency.

Yes. The same rules apply as far as not working for a salary in either of the three temporary residents and categories.

The only legal way to derive an income in Costa Rica during that three-year period prior to applying for permanent residency is to own and manage your own business that employs either Costa Rican citizens or permanent residents to do the actual work of the business, whatever that might be. For an example, if you owned a restaurant bar business, you could hire waiters, cashier, cooks, etc. that would have to be Costa Rican citizens or foreigners with permanent residency status, but you, the owner, would not be able to partake in any of those duties. But you could be the manager setting the duty roster for employees, ordering the actual supplies for the restaurant, that kind of a thing, but you wouldn't be able to partake in what would be considered the employee-type work of the business.

Yes, under the rentista status, the requirement is to show an investment income of $2,500 a month for a minimum of two years. The easiest way to meet that requirement is to place $60,000 USD in a Costa Rica bank account, and the bank will write the necessary letter that you require for the rentista application. $60,000 of course, equaling $2,500 a month for two years.

Yes, that's correct. The most efficient way to do it is to do it with the deposit to the Costa Rica bank. There's specific wording that's required in the letter that all the Costa Rica banks are very familiar with and have no problem signing the applicable letter once the deposit is made. So some people may not feel particularly comfortable with putting that amount of money in a Costa Rica bank. There are possible options to do it with a foreign institution. The problem there is that most foreign institutions don't want to sign the letter that's recorded by the Costa Rica Immigration Department because it requires certain obligations should the depositor decide to retire any of those deposit monies prematurely as far as giving notice to the Immigration Department. And most foreign financial entities don't want to get into that position.

Actually, no, when your resolution comes from the Immigration Department, granting your residency, depreciating the $60,000 by $2,500 a month, is actually what is required.

You can merely deposit it to a separate account or use it for living expenses, but you have to show that you're actually depreciating that $60,000. The catch is, at the two-year renewal point, you have to show another $60,000 on deposit with the bank and get another letter from the bank to renew your residency at the two-year point.

Exactly right. You can just put it into a separate bank account if that's the way you want to do it or spend it, but knowing full well that at the end of the two years, you're going to have to have another $60,000 to renew your residency under that category. Permanent residency doesn't kick in until year three.

Yes, year three and it takes probably four to five months to make the status change. But before your next two year renewal is required, you should have permanent residency. In other words, you should only have to renew once and have that requirement of redepositing $60,000. But by the time it would come around for your second renewal, at four years, you would be a permanent resident. You wouldn't have to meet that requirement anymore with permanent residents.

Yes, either, as you say, just transfer the $2,500 a month each month into a separate account and use that same $60,000 at the two-year point or come up with another source of $60,000 at the two-year point.

You can't do it on the basis of merely income, it would have to be from a guaranteed deposit, which would probably be in the range of $600-700,000 US to produce that kind of investment income on a monthly basis. If you showed that in either a Costa Rica or foreign institution that you had that type of a locked-in investment that would guarantee $2,500 a month from investment income, true investment income, then yes, that would be possible, but not a lot of people have that kind of investment lying around.

Yeah, the investor or Inversionista as it's called in Spanish. That status requires a $150,000 US property or business interest purchase. Most people, it's the property purchase that they qualify with.

The important thing to know if you're looking for a bargain property that just meets the requirements is that that $150,000 value has to be the property tax assessment value in the municipality where the property is located, not necessarily the cash purchase price of the property.

There can be quite a discrepancy. Quite often the municipal property tax assessment is significantly lower than the cash purchase price.

So part of the application process for the Inversionista status temporary residency is a certification by the municipality of the value of the property based on that property tax assessment value. That is one of the documents that has to be submitted. So that's important.

Yeah. It's all based on the municipality's property tax assessment value, not the cash value you put in. That's really what you have to be aware of.

Now, the property, the assessment value, you're required as the owner of a property to declare the current supposedly fair market value of the property once every five years. So, depending on what time frame the last declaration was made in, it may be possible merely for the seller of such a property to declare a new property tax assessment value of $150,000 for that same property that's currently valued at 100 because possibly it has appreciated that amount over the five-year period. And in many cases, that would probably be the case.

Yes, all of the temporary residency categories carry a minimum three-year period.

Yes, yes, I understand it perfectly. The only requirement for you to be physically in Costa Rica would be when you renewed your temporary residency at the two-year point. So you have to be present in Costa Rica to attend the appointment at immigration to do the renewal. Other than that, your residency is valid even if you're living in the United States. At the three-year point, it can be changed to the permanent residency status and the same rules apply, you only have to be in Costa Rica on the actual renewal dates, physically speaking.

Yes, there's one important factor that would have to be considered in that scenario, and that is one of the requirements for residency in Costa Rica is that you join and pay into the social medical insurance program of the government.

Yes, temporary or permanent, you must be a member of Caja and pay in monthly to that, and that can be a significant amount. Based on your income, in the case of, say, Rentista, which is fixed at $2,500, you could be looking easily at around $400 to $500 a month in government medical insurance payment during all of that residency period when you were living in the United States. In other words, the fact that you're living in the United States doesn't change that requirement and they've included a a portion of that payment that also contributes to the Costa Rica pension fund, which you as a foreigner will probably never be able to avail yourself of, but it's all part of that $400 to $500 a month. A portion of that payment also contributes to the Costa Rica pension fund, which you as a foreigner will probably never be able to avail yourself of, but it's all part of that $400 to $500 a month. Payments that you will have to keep current in order to keep your residency current. So it does come with a bit of a price tag, but the scenario of becoming a permanent resident is certainly attainable, even though you're spending predominantly in your daily life, in the United States.

It varies according to your income for the Pensionado and the Inversionista status. For the Rentista, obviously, it's fixed at $2500, plus the pension amount. For the Rentista or Pensionado, it works out to approximately 14% for that amount.

Well, yes. When you apply for the medical insurance, you have to produce certain documentation showing monthly bank account statements, recent tax return, that sort of thing. So it's going to be based on that and it could generally be around that 12-14% of whatever that monthly income amount is payable to the government.

If you have a rental property, purely rental property, but you're living in the US and you want residency, you still have to meet the medical insurance requirements in order to obtain the temporary residency status. And of course, there is a tax on the rental income that you would derive from that property in addition.

If it's just a second home, then of course it would be just the annual property taxes would be payable to the municipality, which are minimum 0.25% of the assessed property value. If you fall under the luxury home tax, which requires an improvement value on the property of around $300,000 or greater, then there's an additional sliding scale tax to pay annually on that property starting at an additional 0.25%.

You're going to have to say that one more time...

The income that the Caja looks at is your income from the foreign source. In other words, your income in the US is what would govern your payments to the Caja.

They're not just looking at them. Because under the temporary residency status, of course, you're not allowed to work for wages, salary or commission income, and certainly there would be minimal income except the rental income you would get if you were renting the property. But what they would be interested in, what the Caja would be interested in would be your US income to base the monthly payments on.

Yes. In particular, the Pensionado and Rentista Temporary residency categories are quite quick to obtain once all of the documentation is in order and various financial components have been satisfied, from the application date with immigration to actually receiving the resolution granting. Residency status is usually around four months. The Inversionista, the property purchase or business interest purchase takes significantly longer because all of the documentation has to be presented personally by the applicant's lawyer at the immigration department by appointment. And usually that application takes between 16 to 18 months to complete. The other two applications are all done online with an immigration application platform called Tramadija. And all the documentation is uploaded online so it can be dealt with in a much more expeditious way.

I think the one piece of advice that sticks out in my mind, having lived here for 26 years, is that you have to be aware of the social compromises that you're going to have to accept between a US/Canadian society which is essentially based on British principles originally, the English common law system, and the Costa Rica Society, which is a Latin society, a different legal system, as I mentioned at the outset, civil law system, and based on the laws predominantly in Spain. There are significant social differences and compromises that really have to be appreciated. Most people concentrate on the things that we've been discussing, the material requirements to make the move, necessary for residency, what's necessary to buy a property, all of the logistics of the physical part of moving, say, from the US or Canada to Costa Rica, but in many cases, they won't appreciate the fact that the two societies, Costa Rica and either Canadian or US societies, are quite different in many respects. And people, after a period of time, decide that maybe they don't like the compromises they're being forced to make and pull up roots and go back to their home country. So that's something to be aware of. Obviously, it didn't happen in my case, but there are people that fit that category and you have to be open-minded and really understand that you are moving to a country with a different society.