Imports & Customs — Costa Rica

Goods you bring that are NOT personal baggage - gifts, duty-free purchases, a new device for someone else - enter tax-free only up to 500 Central American pesos (treated as roughly US$500) of customs value. You qualify only if you have been outside Costa Rica for at least 72 hours AND have not used this benefit in the previous six months; both are proved with your passport. Every arriving traveller must file a customs declaration covering anything beyond their baggage.

Exceeding the threshold is a TAX consequence, not a fine: Decreto 44051-H art. 366 has the officer open a declaration de oficio - "En caso de que el valor de las mercancias exceda el monto establecido en el citado articulo, el funcionario aduanero procedera a efectuar de oficio la declaracion de mercancias, para el pago de los tributos que resulten" - so duties are paid on the excess. Notably the old fixed 100-peso fine on a traveller who failed to declare NO LONGER EXISTS: Ley 7557 art. 235 now reads "Articulo 235.-Multa de cien pesos centroamericanos. (Derogado por el articulo 3 de la ley N 10271 del 22 de junio del 2022)" - this repeal is still widely missed online. What remains is seizure of undeclared goods (art. 374 b), and, only where fiscal harm exceeds 1,000 Central American pesos, the general customs infraction of Ley 7557 art. 242, a fine of twice the duties evaded.