Immigration Expert in Costa Rica - Residency, Citizenship, Tax Incentives, Digital Nomad, More 2023

all right guys if you're thinking about moving to Costa Rica living in Costa Rica and especially if you're thinking about getting your residency we're back with Glenn or Glenn's back with us we're gonna be talking to Glenn him and his wife and his team help you get residency in Costa Rica and we're going to be going over a few things talking just having some conversation updating and all that in about 30 seconds hey guys I'm Michael Allen for travel Costa ricanow.com travel Costa ricanow.com the travel agency so go to travel Costa ricanow.com fill out the four minute for me be that much closer to the vacation of a lifetime we're like you having best friends who live in Costa Rica who know Costa Rica totally hooking up your Costa Rica vacation Please Subscribe I appreciate it YouTube doesn't care you want to see our next video you gotta hit the notification Bell Glenn thanks for coming back thanks for having me and do some updating all right first off has immigration caught up from the pandemic no they're still very far behind and that's been a problem for everybody um it's it's just gonna be that way for a while is it waiting to okay I don't really quite know the process is it waiting to file waiting to actually get the residency you can't even get your paperwork in or you get your paperwork in and that's the that's the lengthy weight well the honest honest the part is um the staff they are still on the pandemic mode and they get to call the shots for us now in the old days we just had to go to laruca to the main office to do all our work right now we have to go all over Costa Rica to make appointments to get people The Residency so things have changed and it's well okay wait just explain so why do you have to go all around the country well if we have to do a police report they might not be able to do it in one area so we have to go to wherever it can be done or whatever that whatever we're filing the papers for we have to make an appointment now and they'll make it in Le Mans they'll make it in um up here uh not super convenient not very super convenient for our clients or us so we're on the road a lot now compared to the old days so what's a typical um wait time now or well it's starting to get faster we actually had a client go through in one month that's unheard of I don't want to put that out there yeah you can just put that out there I just put it out there didn't he say a month but this is a very unique situation it happens every now and then the last time it happened we had actually a family go through one got um accepted in one week and the rest didn't so you just still have some kind of a more of a luck thing that's that's an exception of the rule normally it is an exception to the rule you're going to have to wait they're trying to say it's going to take three months um yeah and and that's not that means at least six yeah at least yes so they haven't caught up do you expect this to get better anytime soon or is this going to be a pretty long it's going to take a while but it is getting better it is it is slowly very very slowly all right so let's quickly go over we've done this in other videos but let's well maybe not quickly necessarily but uh let's just go over the types of residency real quick that people thinking about living here you know if they want to get the residency how they can apply and who maybe they don't okay well it starts off with if you are a pensionado if you're 65 or have a pension whether it's a disability a pension um that's the best category Bar None it's the lease paperwork and the less hassle wait a minute so disability yeah you can be 41 and yes actually it's a pensionado if you have a pension for life and that you can prove that you have a pension for life okay yeah okay so if you're disabled if you have a disability Yeah so basically it's just yours your social security check guaranteeing yes every month and that has to be how much it has to be a thousand dollars a month if you can prove that you have a thousand us a month then you're good to go does that include spouse or does they don't have it doesn't have to be 2 000 No 1 000 for the family so that's a great deal the next one for most people is probably investor category um it was two hundred thousand dollars uh now we're accepting applications at 150 000 it's still actually not uh through but it's in it's definitely talk about what's not through you know yeah well we're still working on how many cars you can bring and how all that's going to work and how much Furniture you can bring down they still haven't specified that to a t yeah let's talk let's just we're skipping around but let's just hit that real quick so about what a year and a half ago or so it was they were gonna they were trying to entice people to come down here and get residency they were going to make you bring your cars tax-free which is huge Container full household goods huge yep you change the investor from two hundred thousand to 150 that something else about maybe the real estate or something well yeah I mean you can just there the benefits are still being worked out so there's no use quitting getting into it too much but um the most important one is that you can bring down two vehicles whether it be yeah a car and a boat or and that you can bring down your possessions you know that's the thing that you weren't able to do before we were getting a lot of emails on that when it first came out because we made a couple videos and I think we even talked about it before but now they've been dragging their feet so long people aren't even really mentioning it to me anymore like whatever happened with that it's like I'm not even getting the question they're kind of oh well is anything moving on that at this moment just before I came here today we're now for our company we actually only accepted two hundred thousand dollars okay we told people at this moment you're better to do it out of 200 000 because if they accept you you're gonna have to buy a house for 200 000 you better do it now so but now they're um saying okay retroactive like if you're in the system you will be able to uh do it for 150. oh really yeah that's good so that's good okay I know you can't really so what do you think the timeline on this is it could be literally another year I only want to say it's going to be quick quicker than it's been but what does that mean I mean bureaucracy you know I didn't know this at the time but it was interesting when they were trying to do this all these incentives I can't remember which was it the immigration people were trying to set things different make it real high and like and so it's like they were fighting against the government and the government kind of said no we're gonna We want to entice people and you're going to do what we do and now it seems like those people are probably kind of going well you and we'll take our time the different parts of the government will fight with each other they all have to get on the same page in in order for this to happen I mean if you're going to be able to uh bring a car in somebody has to allow that to happen so there's other entities that have to work together on all this and that's the part that I think that they're they're trying to figure out all the new rules to the to the government they can't keep up with it so just to be clear so if somebody did it now you can't the cars are not going to be tax-free and there there will be no way to make so you can't go okay that's passed I brought my cars in six months ago you know what I mean like yeah it's gonna go on with that because that's the sticky that's the sticky part and like I say right now um I didn't even up up till now we were still charging 200 we're still telling people it was 200 000. okay until it goes to 150 but in this last little bit they're saying okay take the take them at 150 000 because they will grandfather them in they're going to be in well I won't keep going with this but it seems like they're going to grandfather that in you'd be able to get your cars down here your household goods and they grandfather that in I'm not sure how to do it but well if I had my way I would wait to bring the cars down just to see what's going to happen because yeah you're going to be in limbo until they and it's kind of a big savings it's almost worth maybe waiting on that yeah all right so um let's go back to the uh The Residency type so we hit uh pensionado and uh an investor uh rantis is a good one if you have sixty thousand dollars that you want to put in uh it's going to be for a two-year period you'll end up taking out 2 500 a month until that's dry which is after two years and you have to repeat that process twice because to get uh your your permanent residency you have to be in the system for three years so I've I've got my residency the first time for two years I just re-upped It Whatever last year and it's another two years what's going to happen next so you once you're in the middle of that you can apply for permanent residency you have to pass a test not on permanent residency what's the test is for citizenship okay so what's the permanent residency do is it still all the same you have better first of all you can work that's what I mean how did is it do I have to do anything extra to get it no you just have to you just uh it's basically updating your file okay that's good to know I didn't know that yeah yeah I'm Glenn I'm glad you came today when you update your file do you have to get more like redo your paperwork cards your no you're now in this system as long as you meet the requirements you still are have been in Costa Rica long enough um and you know the rest of the requirements then you're fine so that's very good to know yeah all right so we got to go over this I know we have both have some thoughts on on this the digital Nomad uh passed and it's starting to happen first let's explain it just really quick what that is and then we'll get into it well you can come here and work as long as you uh are making your money in another country you can come here and work so it's great if you're I don't know working for IBM and and you can work remote you can come here or anywhere else in the work world and um You're Gonna Do The Nomad program so it's usually internet stuff people it's internet yeah it is um it again there was a lot of enthusiasm but now that it's here um we don't see the interest well let's let's go back and let's go just really quickly the uh qualifications for digital Nomad I think you have to prove you have health insurance or Travelers Insurance yeah yeah you have yeah you have to do you have to prove that you have to have the paperwork for that too um it's easier than the rest you should be able to do it here um but you have to just figure out the paperwork and you have to prove what three is it three thousand a month three thousand a month and then I think and you have to prove that and that's not always easy for everybody even though you make money online is it apostolized is it is it that well not again not all the rules are in but no it's not supposed to be apostolized um but it's supposed to be an easy process it's supposed to be yeah the whole thing and it's just not it's not easy enough so is it does that include family if you or does that have to it goes up yeah you have to pay more if you if you bring in extra okay so now let's I made more than one video about my thoughts on digital Nomad I think it's personally a waste of time it can work maybe maybe to me in certain there's certain exceptions to everything and it might work pretty good for if you got a family and you don't you know you don't want to go across things after all that and do that so um I'm not big on it because it's only good for a year and so you re-up but if you only want to be here a year just a lot of Nomads they want to spend a year in Costa Rica and then maybe move on to another country so that's what they do for you know a living and so they have to do things properly if you're just trying to move here and use that as your excuse to move here it's only a temporary thing you can do this for two years and you have nothing after three years you were just able to be here for two years it doesn't count for anything nothing nope are you okay you were mentioning it before I was I've gotten a few emails on digital no matter I think we've even sent you a few people but uh so they they contact you what's what's happening with them is anybody biting are they excited about it or so what we did was we decided to do a few free right just to see the process we're still in the middle of the process it's taking a long time the paperwork's in um we don't even know how to price it um whether it's you know people are going to be interested so so far there's not a whole lot of interest they start with the interest so they see what the what the program is and they're like yeah I can do a border run a lot easier if you're far from the border maybe it's more important to you but if you live close enough to the Border or you just like to get out of town every now and then why not I mean it's only a year usually I don't have two years so exactly we've been asked about the digital Nomad is are they going to be able allowed to be part of the tax-free car import or the household goods import I try to tell them nope not knowing the right answer just because they're only here in a year and two why would they give them that privilege yeah yeah that's true right well again until we see what they're going to allow we don't know they we just don't know the government's not very helpful the new government came in and we're still waiting right like we were expecting this to roll fast the good news is he is enthusiastic about all this he shows it um and I think he's trying to help so that's a good thing you know what I like you know what I like or I think is interesting people want answers when they write me they want uh black and white answers yeah they have no understanding they'll go Michael but I saw at this I was watching somebody this lawyer said this and I go dude it's just not black and white here almost nothing is black and white here except that there's nothing black and white here you know what I mean it's like they really do they go well they said they're gonna do it what's do you know hold them and you know they they just don't understand that it just does not work like you know maybe wherever they're from well the one thing Costa Rica likes to do is study this situation and that can take a long time that they're big on that so they want to do their reports they want to analyze it they want to check it for a while and come up with their thoughts and that always takes a long time if somebody's looking for they don't really know Costa Rica they haven't seen a bunch of videos because like they saw in my video they you know they write me and get in contact with you but how do and they know that you're going to be good but how do people know when they're making the you know random email to you're looking for somebody to help them with the residency is there any kind of red flags or anything that they can tell that maybe I shouldn't use this person or or they don't know that until they're well first of all if it's too expensive be careful because it's you know it should be the the price to do residency should be the company is probably going to charge anywhere around a few few thousand dollars you know so I've heard people getting charged thirty thousand dollars for a residency and that's a little bit that's probably the biggest indicators of somebody I don't know if there's really unless you just try to check like a I think if you check with Facebook at xpac groups things like that see who's done it before how they've achieved it if it worked out for them if they still like the guy after the process was finished yeah that's the key if you're in the middle of it and you ask somebody are they good and you get the answer yes well wait till they're done ask people that have finished it how did you like the service all the way through yeah I forgot about the Facebook that's a pretty good yeah Facebook that's a pretty uh and they're brutal they're gonna they're gonna be blunt they're gonna be very very you can't even mess up well I tried to call them once and they didn't return yeah slow down yes and they're also fast they're going to be uh trolls out there saying oh they're just after your money but real estate you know residency companies all these companies are are legit they're just trying to make money doing this to help people to achieve their dreams of moving to Costa Rica um yeah I would say Facebook's probably a good indicator because yeah there are some there is some uh sketchy people doing it that's for sure oh there is for sure there is I've gotten those emails too um what was I gonna say oh I was wondering about this do you just can this might be a stupid question can you help people from Germany get residency is it the same or is it the same process it's the same process we're either dealing um uh if it's authentic right or Apostle so depending on the country it's going to be one of the other and that's specifically so it's basically it's all the same paperwork you can help anybody from anywhere basically yep yep certain countries are not going to do it as easy as others um you know just depending on where you come from yeah do you get many of those emails for people like I'm from the Philippines and I'm marrying this person and can you help this I've had people ask me if I can find them something to marry in Costa Rica no we sorry no we can do this we cannot do that we've had that I've been thinking about doing it for my permit now yeah we need to get a mail order bright Costa Rica style well now if you do marry somebody they're going to want to see pictures and Facebook social media and not just pictures you can't just go in with the same haircut and go look I've been with this lady for 10 years and both our hair are the same no you went to the photography studio and you had your pictures done a bunch of different ways and it looks like you know years have passed but they want to see winter pictures summer pictures Christmas pictures to show distance and time yeah right make it better when you could manipulate the system yeah without social media that's over yes it is that's only that's for two years too as well right yep you still have to re-up and prove all that same stuff yeah so is there anything I thought I saw you guys sent something out you know a couple weeks ago is there anything new going on with residency or immigration or some news of the day no just everything's everything's just plugging away um the only thing I can say is the government is trying to help the new president is trying to help I kind of like him so far so far he legalized marijuana or something like that right he's working on that yeah I got to study it again they're still studying it it's it's yeah it's it's being passed and they're still studying that go smoke a joint you don't don't have to do anything else all those poor medical uh you know yeah medical marijuana needs sir yeah uh so nothing really new everything's uh plug it along uh the same way so um hey guys if you've gone through the residency process or with anybody and they're just put them down in the comments let us know where the you know some issues that were uh were good or um you had a good attorney I don't know but if you want to get residency you want to talk to Glenn and his people just email me and I'll shoot it over to him real quick and he can definitely answer your questions and help you on your way to residency uh that brings up I mean we I always touch on this a little bit because we can't remember if we totally agreed but uh should they just should they get resonance before before even coming here people are but I don't recommend it there there is a flood of Canadians coming down right now um something about Trudeau they don't like and they're coming down in droves we were getting Germany and Canadians I mean you know they think they're for whatever reason their country's going south and they were like Michael just they want to get the car the house The Residency and sight unseen yes sight unseen they want to they're buying houses sight unseen and they're actually paying more for the house than needs to be uh that would be good for you Gringo pricing is a thing Gringo pricing um but they're buying them I've heard a fellow had a house for 600 he sold it for 700 sight unseen uh we yeah we just want to lock the price in case it went up more before they got down here and they couldn't come down for a couple months so they locked in the price see I would recommend even if you're from Germany I don't think you should really you know I don't think residency should be your first on your list to do but just so let me tell you something about real estate okay people come down and they're going to tell you oh you need to buy this house right away because right away because there's 10 people looking at it um there may be but there's also 10 other houses that are just as nice in the same area that nobody's looking at are half the price so you should come down and look to see what you want and make sure that you check out your prices I think they'll wear what section of the country you want to look at too because well it's so different that's the thing you know people always ask me where I should live I mean what an open question that is we got white sand pink sand you know we got everything we got every kind of beach um we have a video called that where to live in Costa Rica there's so many variables on that there's something you need to be by a hospital do you yes here you want culture you wanted to go to the theater well you're not going to do that in Fortuna that's so you know this beach you like humidity do you want to air conditioning to be a line budget item because for instance if you live in escazu it's 80 degrees all the time you know it's it's never hot never cold Central Valley is still the best you know you got everything there and you're close to the beaches close enough well I don't know which is worse trying to get your residence residency before or you've come here or try or buy a house I think buying the house might even be worse actually would be worse if you're going to do your residency and you know you're going to do your residency you should start from home get your paperwork get your stuff right yes because if you send it to us we can tell you what's wrong and you can have it fixed before you come down if you come down and we tell you you're missing a paper you're missing an apostle that has to go back and be Apostle um you're not going to be happy about that we say on every one of our documents remember you have to have all your papers they have to be a password and they cannot be older than six months people bring in the first couple documents and the next one eight months later well start over so as I think a lot of people know you can do residency by yourself I mean it's impossible to do it now would you have to know Spanish yeah I mean I think so yeah but I'm just they're not going to help you in English no they're not no and by the way if you do the citizen tests they're not going to help you in English either it's 100 Spanish the good news on that is if you're 65 and older you don't have to write the test when you go First Citizens really yeah that's the whole reason I wasn't going to do it because I there's no way I you just have to wait to 65. I'm right there are you okay well close enough close enough then it's worth waiting because yes the test is very very hard um I've had a couple friends do it yeah they said they said the same yeah it's very high first of all if you didn't go this to school here um you're not going to know all the things you know growing up and all the different presidents I mean sure you can study by growing up here you just know it all um trying to study that's a different thing if I can just make it to 65 I did not know that that's good info Glenn this has been a good day for me I've learned a lot of stuff that's that's the big one and this is what we tell people the other thing I want to tell you people don't understand when you go on kaha it's pre-existing conditions you have to know that that's the biggest reason that kaha works there's a lot of people that come to Costa Rica because they can't afford their products or drugs or whatever the case is in their country they come down here and go on kaha and it's pre-existing conditions if you are already have cancer they will take care of you here and I don't know I think that's one of the best reasons to join kaha in a slow way but they'll take care of it yeah in a slow way you might be in a long line but yes yes uh but if you don't have another choice if you're out of money in another country and you can't afford your pills or your surgeries we did have a a person come down here to get residency because they were in trouble in another country I know what I wanted to ask that whole thing about how they do the call I remember they were what was that now you've got to have those two insurances not just the one remember the you know what I'm talking about well where they changed it to where you also have to get the second one which is I think the death inch and I can't remember they before when they when you did pensionado that's why a lot of people get like at sixty dollars or whatever it was and now that's changed hasn't it because it's based on how much you make right so the pensionado is obviously the cheapest one that's why it's also the best yeah but pensionado I mean it does not have to it doesn't thousand right I mean right somebody if if your social security check is twenty six hundred dollars it's twenty six hundred dollars well is there any way around that well we have people come in and we'll ask them if they have a pension around a thousand dollars and they'll tell us they have three or two one is eight thousand a month and the other one's a thousand two hundred a month we don't use the thousand two hundred nobody cares about your other one okay because there was something about what they changed it kind of doubled the number like from if you were paying 90 now all of a sudden you're paying 180. I still kind of make the argument is like well I guarantee you're paying a lot more wherever you're from that's right so that's right don't don't well it's so expensive well you probably they pay four times this amounts and if you need it you're going to be happy you have it as soon as I got uh my kaha I ended up in the hospital and lucky me did you have a good experience I had a good experience I did and I was very I was very surprised but it was I was there for for a while we don't have to get into it was an emergency situation yeah it was emergency and I ended up there for for a few weeks which was unexpected and they did take very very very good care of me I was very very impressed more than I thought did you um do you have a hospital where do you live oh yeah I'm sorry so you've got access to good hospitals yeah if you if you can make it to a hospital Mexico that's a good one right their trauma Hospital see here though I tell people you know our closest house and we just have a bunch of urgent cares which you know unless you have just a cold you're kind of be in trouble and they've got to ship you to Cedar Casada which is an hour away and you know that can happen yeah a lot can happen yeah that's the thing what we talk about with people too that you know if you've got to be close to a hospital you really want to consider which hospital you're going to be close to for instance if you're in putinas do you want to be close to that hospital probably not it's not the best or Le Mans I'm not a big fan of Punta Arenas actually yeah all right huh or lemon yeah yeah I don't I don't like to say it too harshly but I yeah well the hospital there is um I I ended up having to take a person there and they didn't treat us well I was carrying this person in my arms and they made me stand in line up with this person what and I get to the front and they said you're not gonna believe it you're in the wrong lineup go stand in the other lineup I go stand the other I'm carrying this person I get to the front and say no you have to go back to the first lineup they never gave me a wheelchair that is so Costa Rica about the lines there's better hospitals in the city yeah there's quite a few actually there's like six solid SEMA when we went to biblio Teka what is Housley and we have we have good uh cosmetic surgery doctors here the best um I mean we get a lot of that we do that medical tourism with our guy Johnny and he's got access to some pretty good people so we'll get a lot of people asking okay I'm in again whatever a small little place Lamont or whatever is there any good dentist here depends on what you want if you want a filling there's a lot of good Baptists but if you want cosmetic stuff then you should probably go to a bigger area like San Jose escazu Santana um or anywhere else that's been recommended I'm sure there's some good doctors well we have a really nice one in uh agua circus now that's 50 minutes away but they do everything there you don't have to go anywhere else you do x-rays implants veneers you know all the whole thing yeah they did my braces actually not that that's a big thing but uh they do everything and I and they they try really hard to you know do a good job and you know even though their English isn't always that great they're trying and it's fun so well Glenn this has been uh good for me I don't know if it's been good for you guys but I learned some things anyway guys if you want to get a hold of Glenn and his people his uh Team import travel Costa Rica now I'll get it over to him very quickly and you're on your way to residency Glenn thanks a lot thank you all right guys I'm Michael Allen travel Costa ricanow.com things are going to pop pop up if you're thinking about living or traveling anywhere you should always do your homework and research and if it's Costa Rica I'm gonna put our videos up against anybody's ciao

Channel: Travel Costa Rica NOW

Views: 15,936

Keywords: How to get residency, Costa Rica, living in Costa Rica, FAQ, living abroad, immigration lawyer, how to become a resident, Costa Rica Immigration Experts, international living, expats, filing for residency, permanent resident, citizenship, perpetual tourist, Costa Rica Life, retire in Costa Rica, finding a lawyer, investor, tax Incentives, rentista, pensionado, michael alan, Travel Costa Rica Now, digital nomad

Id: 9HqKhzNyJpA

Length: 29min 8sec (1748 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 05 2022