Dollars vs Colones: How Property Pricing Actually Works in Costa Rica

A house in Escazú lists at $285,000. Clear enough. Then the seller's attorney hands you a transfer tax bill in colones, the municipality mails a property tax notice in colones, and the moving truck driver wants cash, colones obviously. By the end of closing week you've done mental math in three currencies and you're still not sure you got the rate right.

I moved here in 2014. I've bought two properties, sold one, and walked maybe forty other foreigners through a purchase without letting them make an expensive mistake. The dollar-versus-colón confusion is, I promise you, top-five for tripping people up.

So let me just lay out how it actually works.

Why Is Almost Everything Listed in USD?

Because Costa Rica never formally dollarized, but the real estate market runs like it did. This goes back decades. Tourism and foreign money poured in, most deals moved in dollars, and the convention stuck. Browse properties for sale today and the vast majority of residential listings are in USD, from a $95,000 apartment in San José to a $2.4M beachfront lot in Guanacaste.

The law allows contracts in any currency. Article 46 of the Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Costa Rica (Law 7558) technically makes the colón the only legal tender for domestic transactions. But in practice the Sala IV and decades of commercial habit have let private real estate contracts run in USD. Nobody's going to prison for writing a purchase agreement in dollars. It's been the norm my entire time here.

The catch: a dollar price doesn't mean you pay zero colones anywhere in the deal.

What Actually Gets Charged in Colones?

Several things, and none of them optional.

The transfer tax (impuesto de traspaso) is 1.5% of registered value, paid to the Registro Nacional in colones. Stamp duties, the timbre fiscal and the timbre de educación y cultura, in colones. Your notary often quotes fees in colones. And if the property was registered at a low fiscal value (many older ones were, for historical reasons), the registry value and the real sale price can be wildly different numbers. That gap drives your tax math.

The ongoing costs are colón-denominated too. Municipal property tax (impuesto sobre bienes inmuebles) from the municipalidad, in colones. Water from ASADA or AyA, colones. CNFL or ICE for electricity, colones. So even after you close in dollars, your carrying costs hit in local currency every single month.

How Does the Exchange Rate Work and Where Do You Check It?

The Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) publishes official reference rates daily at indicadores.bccr.fi.cr. As of mid-2026 you're looking at roughly ₡510–₡530 per USD, depending on the day and who's selling to whom.

Banks and exchange houses (casas de cambio) take a spread. Convert dollars at Banco Nacional or BAC San José and you'll get a rate maybe ₡8–₡15 worse per dollar than the BCCR reference. On a $5,000 wire for closing costs, that's ₡40,000–₡75,000 lost to the spread, around $75–$145. Not catastrophic. But it's real money, and most buyers never plan for it.

The worst rate in the country is at the airport. Don't convert at the airport.

A "₡ price" on a listing should make you pause. Some sellers, often Ticos selling to Ticos, or someone who listed years ago and never updated, post a colón price. Convert it at the current BCCR rate before you compare it to dollar comps. A listing at ₡180,000,000 sounds enormous until you divide by 520 and see it's $346,000. Whether that's good value for what it is, where it is, is a separate question. But you have to do the arithmetic first.

On encasacr.com you can flip the display between USD and CRC, so the math is already done.

Can Foreigners Get a Mortgage Here?

Here I have to be blunt.

Cash is king in Costa Rica real estate. Not because the law demands it, but because the alternatives are genuinely hard for most foreigners.

Local banks (Banco Nacional, Banco de Costa Rica, BAC, Scotiabank) will lend to non-residents, but the process is slow, the documentation is heavy (cédula de residencia, Costa Rican tax returns, proof of local income), and the rates aren't competitive by North American or European standards. INVU, the national housing institution, serves lower-income residents. You're not their customer.

As of 2026, colón mortgages from local banks run roughly 9–11% annual interest. Dollar loans from the same banks run 7–9%. Stack that against what you're used to back home and you'll see why nearly every foreign buyer I know either showed up with cash or brought financing from elsewhere. A HELOC on a US property, a home equity line, a portfolio loan from a US credit union.

Seller-financed deals exist too, more often than people expect. A Tico owner might carry 30–40% of the price for two or three years at a negotiated rate. I've seen it work well. I've also seen it go sideways when the terms weren't properly papered through a notary.

Short version: don't assume you can finance here the way you would at home. Plan for cash, or line up financing before you board the plane.

What Nobody Tells You About the Fiscal Value Gap

This one catches buyers every time.

Properties register with the Registro Nacional at a declared fiscal value. That value is supposed to update every five years off assessments, but enforcement has been patchy, and plenty of older properties (especially outside the GAM, the Gran Área Metropolitana) carry fiscal values 30–60% below market.

Why do you care? Because when you sell, the capital gains tax (introduced in 2019 under Law 9635) is figured on the gain above your acquisition value. Buy at $400,000 with a fiscal value of ₡90,000,000, about $173,000 at current rates, and the "gain" the government sees when you sell for $500,000 isn't $100,000. It's the spread between $500,000 and whatever your registered acquisition value ends up being after the transfer. Getting it right at purchase, with a notarized deed that reflects the real sale price, protects you on the way out.

Plenty of attorneys will float under-declaring to shave the transfer tax now. False economy. You save 1.5% today, then pay 15% capital gains on a fatter base later. Do the math.

Does It Matter Which Province or Canton You Buy In?

On currency, not really. The same rules apply in Guanacaste as in San José. What shifts is how many listings are dollar-priced versus colón-priced. Beach towns like Tamarindo, Nosara, and Jacó skew heavily USD because the buyer pool is international. Rural Central Valley and Cartago properties often show colón prices because the sellers expect local buyers.

Neither is better or worse. Just know which one you're staring at before you make an offer.

The Practical Checklist Before You Wire Money

Before any deposit or transfer, nail down: the BCCR rate that day, the spread your bank is charging, the colón total for transfer taxes and stamps (your notary should hand you this), whether the fiscal value in the Registro matches what you expect, and whether any seller financing is properly structured.

None of it is hard once you know it exists. The trouble is that most buyers arrive having researched the neighborhood, the commute, the schools, everything except this layer. Then a ₡1.2M stamp duty bill lands the day before closing and they're blindsided.

Get a good notary. They double as your real estate attorney here. Make them walk you through every colón-denominated cost before you sign a thing.

Still just browsing? Start with the full sale listings. The currency toggle is right there. Use it.