🇨🇷 Costa Rica vs 🇯🇵 Japan: Digital Nomad Visa Compared

Costa Rica offers Digital Nomad Visa (Estancia para Trabajadores Remotos, Ley N. 10.008). Japan offers Designated Activities (Digital Nomad) - Notice No. 53. Every figure below comes from each country's own sourced, dated fiche - compare income, duration, tax, family rules, fees and processing time before you decide. Costa Rica's initial visa period runs longer than Japan's: 12 months versus 6.

🇨🇷 Costa Rica🇯🇵 Japan

Minimum income

3,000 USD / month

Corroborated across 9 independent 2026 sources (Dentons, taxesforexpats.com, mismo.team, y-axis.com, citizenremote.com, rippling.com, aeroseer.com, hqsimple.com, remotetaxcalc.com), including a search-indexed echo of migracion.go.cr's own 'Nomadas Digitales' page - the page itself was not directly fetchable this pass (network egress block), so this stays 'reported' rather than 'official'. Demonstrated via bank statements, sworn declaration, or a certified public-accountant/notary certification. RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: USD 3,000 solo / USD 4,000 family thresholds reconfirmed unchanged by current sources.

source · verified 2026-09-24

10,000,000 JPY / year

Attributed to MFA/ISA (pages not fetched directly). Income must be from outside Japan; work for Japan-based entities is not allowed.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Visa duration

12 months, renewable

1-year initial permit, renewable once for a second year (2-year maximum total stay). Some sources report renewal requires having spent at least 180 days in Costa Rica during the first year - not independently confirmed against migracion.go.cr directly this pass. Corroborated across 7 sources (LexLatin, freakingnomads.com, mismo.team, taxesforexpats.com, citizenremote.com, Dentons, AG Legal). RE-CHECKED 2026-09-04: the 180-day mechanic is now better specified and further corroborated - no day-count requirement to hold status during year one, but renewal into year two reportedly requires having accumulated at least 180 days of physical presence in Costa Rica during year one, filed in person - corroborated by 2 additional independent sources (justworks.com, costa-rica-guide.com) beyond the original 7. Still not independently confirmed against migracion.go.cr directly (unreachable this pass). RE-CHECKED 2026-09-05: gained further independent corroboration (goldenharbors.com, expatden.com, citizenremote.com's '2026 Update' page) for the same mechanic - no change, still not an official migracion.go.cr page read. RE-CHECKED 2026-09-16: a DISCREPANCY surfaced - visitcostarica.com (Costa Rica's official tourism board, ICT), on its 'Digital Nomads Renewal' page, states renewal requires a minimum of 80 days of presence in year one, explicitly citing Article 15 of Ley N. 10.008 - the SAME article this fiche cites for the published 180-day figure. This is the first source to attribute a conflicting day-count specifically to Article 15 (versus prior conflicting figures that cited no article number), which meaningfully weakens confidence in 180 days without yet confirming 80 days either; migracion.go.cr itself remains unreachable to adjudicate directly. Published figure kept at 180 days (the better-corroborated count, 9+ sources) pending direct resolution, but flagged here as an open discrepancy rather than silently carried forward. RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-17: the discrepancy did not resolve, but a WebSearch-indexed excerpt attributed directly to migracion.go.cr's own 'Nomadas Digitales' page states renewal requires 'a minimum period of 180 days according to Article 15 of the Law' - the first time this fiche's research saw the government site's own content, not just secondary paraphrase, cited for 180 days specifically. The competing visitcostarica.com/ICT 80-day claim was not retracted. Tips the weight further toward 180 days, still pending a directly-fetched migracion.go.cr page. RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-20: the discrepancy still did not resolve. A fresh WebSearch again returned a summary attributed directly to migracion.go.cr's own page stating renewal requires 'a minimum period of 180 days ... in accordance with Article 15 of the Law,' while a separate, same-pass WebSearch of visitcostarica.com/digital-nomads/renewal again returned '80 days' for the same article - the identical two-source standoff as every pass since 2026-09-16, neither side retracted or newly corroborated. migracion.go.cr and a neutral control (en.wikipedia.org) both returned EGRESS_BLOCKED on direct WebFetch this pass, so this remains a search-snippet read, not a page fetch, on both sides. Published 180-day figure kept (deeper corroboration, 9+ sources vs. 1). RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: the discrepancy again did not resolve - the same two-source standoff (migracion.go.cr-attributed 180 days vs. visitcostarica.com's 80 days, both citing Article 15) reconfirmed verbatim; one aggregator (freakingnomads.com) explicitly flagged the conflict itself without adjudicating it, not a new data point. Published 180-day figure kept.

source · verified 2026-09-24

6 months

6 months, NON-renewable. A stay under 6 months generally keeps you a non-tax-resident of Japan.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Tax regime

Foreign-sourced income earned under the Estancia para Trabajadores Remotos is fully exempt from Costa Rican income tax (impuesto sobre la renta/utilidades); permit holders are not treated as habitual Costa Rican tax residents for this income, and it is not treated as Costa Rican-source income. Beneficiaries are also exempt from import taxes on personal computer/telecom equipment needed for their work. The visa does not permit providing services to Costa Rica-domiciled clients.

This is the best-corroborated finding of the pass: 9+ independent sources including EY's own Central America tax-alert page (cited as sourceUrl), Consortium Legal, GHP Abogados, El Financiero (Costa Rica's major financial daily), Dentons, taxesforexpats.com, ERP Lawyers, and Central Law. Strong candidate for promotion to 'official' the moment migracion.go.cr/Hacienda becomes directly fetchable.

source · verified 2026-09-23

A stay of 6 months (under 183 days) generally does not make you a Japanese tax resident, so foreign income is not taxed by Japan under the visa.

General rule tied to the 6-month cap; confirm your own residency position.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Family (spouse / children)

Spouse + children admitted (No per-dependent formula - the income floor simply rises from USD 3,000/month (solo) to USD 4,000/month (with any dependents) to cover the whole grupo familiar)

Promoted out of TBD 2026-08-23 (previously flagged as thin, 2-3 sources, on 2026-08-16). Article 11 of Ley N. 10.008 defines 'grupo familiar' as the spouse or common-law partner, children under 25 (including disabled adult children of any age), and elderly dependents. Corroborated across 6+ independent 2026 sources beyond the Y-Axis/Citizen Remote pair already on file - GHP Abogados (citing Article 11 by number), El Mundo (elmundo.cr), Revista Summa, Central Law, GLC Abogados, and a CELIG Costa Rica documentation guide - all converging on the same dependent categories and on marriage/birth-certificate documentation (apostilled/legalized as needed). One outlier source states USD 5,000 for family applications rather than USD 4,000; contradicted by the 9+ sources already corroborating USD 4,000 for the incomeMin field, so treated as a likely error, not acted on. Not marked 'official' - migracion.go.cr and the gazette text itself remain unreachable to direct fetch (blanket network-egress block this pass), so this rests on WebSearch-indexed secondary-source corroboration, not a primary-text read. RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-20: no change - income floor, fees and this Article 11 definition all reconfirmed unchanged this pass; see visaDuration for the still-open 180-vs-80-day renewal discrepancy.

source · verified 2026-09-23

Spouse + children admitted

Spouse or child of a digital nomad may accompany under the same Designated Activities category.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Application fees

100 USD

USD 100 government fee, paid as a deposit to Banco de Costa Rica in favor of the Ministry of Finance (net of a USD 15 bank commission if paid by international transfer). Corroborated across 9+ sources for the USD 100 figure (taxesforexpats.com, rippling.com, costaricavibes.com, y-axis.com, citizenremote.com, siliconvalleytime.com, visafreenomads.com, costaricaboard.com, diazyasociados.es) plus a search-indexed echo of migracion.go.cr itself. RESOLVED 2026-08-16: the separately-reported ~USD 90 DGME fee, previously flagged as unreconciled against this USD 100 figure, is not a competing number - three independent sources (Jaros Immigration Experts, Rippling, TaxesForExpats) consistently describe it as a SECOND, sequential fee (a document-processing/accreditation charge due at the biometrics/document-collection stage after approval, distinct from the USD 100 application fee paid upfront), bringing total first-application government fees to roughly USD 190. The same sources report the renewal fee is USD 90, not USD 100 - likely the source of the original conflation. migracion.go.cr not independently fetchable this pass (network egress block) to confirm the exact figures on its own page. RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: USD 100 government deposit + ~USD 90 DGME document/accreditation fee reconfirmed unchanged by current sources.

source · verified 2026-09-24

15,000 JPY

Japan's general visa issuance fee rose from JPY 3,000 to JPY 15,000 (single-entry) effective 2026-07-01 - the first revision since 1978. A consulate Digital Nomad checklist states the visa follows the general single-entry fee schedule. RE-CHECKED 2026-07-15: a search-indexed snippet of this exact MOFA fee page now corroborates "approximately 15,000 yen for a single-entry visa," but the live page still could not be fetched directly this pass either, so confidence stays "reported" pending an on-page read.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Health insurance

Required - Minimum USD 50,000 medical coverage for the full authorized stay, covering all included family members; travel insurance is explicitly not accepted. Policy may be Costa Rican or international.

Corroborated across 9 sources (Remitly, taxesforexpats.com, citizenremote.com, feather-insurance.com, americanvisitorinsurance.com, costaricaboard.com among others). RE-VERIFIED 2026-09-24: USD 50,000 minimum coverage requirement reconfirmed unchanged by current sources.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Required - Private health insurance covering the full 6-month stay with medical coverage of JPY 10 million or more.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Processing time

Approximately 15 calendar days for initial application review, then up to 90 days to enter Costa Rica and finalize documentation after approval

source · verified 2026-09-23

Reported ~5 business days when applying with a Certificate of Eligibility (COE); 2 weeks to 1 month without one

No single canonical MOFA-stated figure found; based on convergent consulate guidance (Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles). Confirm with your consulate. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-04: mofa.go.jp and moj.go.jp/isa still 403 on direct fetch. No source dated after the prior pass changes income, duration, tax, fees or processing time - all reconfirmed by convergent 2026 guides. No material change. RE-CHECKED 2026-08-11: the JPY 3,000-to-15,000 fee rise (2026-07-01) is now strongly corroborated by mainstream press (Japan Times, CNBC, Nippon.com, Euronews, all dated mid-to-late June 2026) rather than only consulate-checklist sourcing - confidence strengthened, figure unchanged. Income, duration and processing time all reconfirmed. No material change.

source · verified 2026-09-24

Figures marked TBD are not yet verified and are never shown as facts. Last full review: Costa Rica 2026-09-24, Japan 2026-09-24.