8 Ways to Get Your Holiday Goodies into Costa Rica Easily or Safely

My post about how to receive packages in Costa Rica while avoiding having them snagged by Customs, which requires a trip to San José and a couple hours of bureacratic SNAFU to retrieve said package, continues to be one of my more popular articles.

Still, I often get asked the question: "Just how do you get stuff shipped into Costa Rica?"

Attack of the Drones - CC-SA-3.0

Unfortunately, Amazon drone delivery does not seem to be on the horizon anytime soon.

So, to supplement the original article, here is a list (probably incomplete) on the various methods that I've either used or have learned second-hand from others who have found them to be successful.

Eliminating the Worry of Shipping Your Car to Costa Rica

Are ready for an extended stay or retirement to the Land of Eternal Spring and have already decided you prefer to enjoy the freedom and convenience of driving your own vehicle while living in Costa Rica?

Buy a Car Inside Costa Rica or Bring Your Own?

Always check the tire quality!

We'll assume you already hashed out the pros and cons of vehicle ownership in Costa Rica. The next question is whether it’s wiser to buy a vehicle in-country or ship your current vehicle from North America. From my experience, if I had to do it over again, I’d bring in my own car without hesitation.

Why? Well, if you add up all the costs including shipping and import fees, you probably come out about even, but you’ll have one overriding advantage, which is complete confidence in your vehicle. That is something not available when purchasing a used car in Costa Rica.

How to Mail Stuff to Costa Rica and Bypass the Customs Zoo at Zapote

Click Here for a more recent post on 8 Ways to Send Stuff to Costa Rica.

 

The question of how to ship things here to Costa Rica gets asked a lot on various forums. I just answered a query on Expat-Blog.com about this and felt like I was doing it for the umpteenth time, so thought I would post it here for later reference. I earnestly welcome any locals here to leave comments about their experiences or best methods for getting stuff into the country without too much hassle. 

  

Sharpie2 wrote:

I understand that bring a shipping container is prohibitive cost wise.

It seems that starting from scratch wouldn't be so cheap either.  I'd appreciate some comments and hearing about people's experiences about that.

Is is then possible to mail some things to yourself or someone else in Costa Rica or will all mail be opened?

My Reply:

Active member

From: San Isidro de El General

Registered: 2010-04-10

Posts: 36

Re: Mailing to Costa Rica

Well, it all depends on what you are trying to ship down here. If you're shipping a whole household, then a container is really the only way to go. There are also partial load services (see my blog post here: How To Have Christmas in May about two companies that do that). The drawback is that you'll probably wait 2-3 months to get your packages.

All mail will not be opened. In fact, probably none of it will be opened without you present, but that is not the main problem.

Using Partial Load Shippers in Costa Rica Saves Money

Recently, I ran across an article about how Costa Rica Customs are enforcing the collection of import/sales tax on items mailed to Costa Rica from outside the country especially purchases via Internet. If your stuff gets caught in their ever-tightening net, you will receive a notice of "Aviso Mercadería" in your local Post Office, but no item. They hold all such packages in the main P.O. in Zapote on the southern edge of San José. 

No matter if you happen to live a 6 hour drive from Zapote. If you want your stuff, you must go there in person and suffer through an almost comical procedure of visiting 5 different windows, waste at least an hour and a half, and for the privilege you'll pay handling, storage, sales tax and duty.

There are alternatives, most of which are better than the Zapote trap. Ex-pats quickly learn about these alternate shipping methods, or give up and buy locally if they can find what they want here. 

In the article, the list of options to get stuff into the country went like this:

• U.S. Postal service to a local post office box or “Apartado Postal” in Costa Rica (but you see what can happen)
  
• Ship via mail, parcel service or courier to a private mailbox in the U.S. that exports to Costa Rica
• International courier service, such as DHL or FedEx to an address in Costa Rica
• Ask a friend or associate to bring a package in a suitcase on their flight