Grace period for tourists with a foreign driver’s license: A quick update

Earlier this month, the Public Works and Transport Ministry (MOPT) announced that tourists who have been in Costa Rica for longer than three months will not legally be allowed to drive as of November 18.

Visitors to Costa Rica with a foreign driver’s license can use that document here for three months. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, MOPT had established a grace period extending the three-month limit. Per the MOPT announcement, that grace period ends November 18.

However, there are signs MOPT may backtrack on that decision and issue another extension for tourists:

• Outlier Legal reported the following: “We have received news that Transportation is considering a new extension on the driver’s licenses. … Please wait before making further arrangements to depart the country as it may be unnecessary.”
• In a Thursday morning Facebook post, MOPT said “the eventual extension for foreign licenses will be communicated before November 18.”

We’ll publish a story on the potential MOPT announcement if and when it happens.

Residents and citizens should homologate their foreign license by scheduling an appointment at this link. We wrote a pre-pandemic tutorial, which you can read here.