Tobacco — Costa Rica
What travelers need to know about tobacco in Costa Rica. What is legal at home can be a serious crime here — each rule links to its official source.
Tobacco in Costa Rica: restricted — there are real limits travelers must follow.
Each adult traveller may bring in 500 grams of manufactured tobacco duty-free as part of their baggage, alongside 5 litres of wine or spirits. The law measures tobacco BY WEIGHT, not by pack or carton count - check the weight printed on your product, not the number of cigarettes. Going over is not an offence: a customs officer opens a declaration on the spot and you pay import tax on the excess.
No fine is stated for exceeding the tobacco quantity - the consequence is tax, not a penalty. Customs declarations for goods a traveller brings beyond their baggage are processed DE OFICIO (art. 272 a) of Decreto 44051-H: "Importacion de mercancias distintas del equipaje, realizada por viajeros"), so duties are simply assessed and paid. A DIFFERENT trigger - concealing goods rather than exceeding a limit - does carry a consequence: art. 374 b) provides "Si detectare mercancias no declaradas se procedera a su decomiso y se seguira el procedimiento correspondiente." Note precisely: art. 366 is headed "Clases de equipaje" and its ex officio mechanism is triggered by a VALUE threshold on non-baggage goods, not by this 500 g quantity - do not cite it as the excess-tobacco rule.
§ Sistema Costarricense de Informacion Juridica (SCIJ/SINALEVI), Procuraduria General de la Republica - Decreto Ejecutivo N. 44051-H, "Reglamento a la Ley General de Aduanas", 18 May 2023, La Gaceta N. 107, Alcance 113; in force 15 June 2023; arts. 365 j), 272 a), 374 b), 597. Read with Ley General de Aduanas N. 7557 art. 114.