After spending most of 2026 near record lows, the U.S. dollar has clawed back a little ground in Costa Rica over the past two weeks, reviving a question with real consequences for the thousands of expats, retirees and remote workers who earn, save or spend in dollars: is the era of the cheap dollar finally turning?
The short answer from economists is: not yet, and probably not on the strength of one move.
The dollar’s weighted average on the Foreign Currency Market (Monex), the wholesale market the Central Bank uses as its main reference, rose from about ₡457.55 on May 29 to a peak near ₡461.30 in early June before easing back to ₡458.70 on June 5, according to El Observador. That is a swing of roughly a colón and a quarter over the period — modest, but the most movement the currency has shown in months. The Central Bank did not intervene in the market to smooth the change.
At bank counters, where most foreigners actually buy and sell, the dollar sold for roughly ₡464 at state banks and between ₡465 and ₡468 at several private banks on June 8, with buying rates near ₡447 to ₡451.
Let’s put that into context, the dollar opened 2026 at all-time Monex lows, closing near ₡487 in mid-January, and averaged around ₡515 as recently as 2024. A foreigner converting $2,000 of monthly income today receives well over ₡100,000 fewer colones than they would have two years ago. The recent uptick trims that gap slightly, but the colón remains historically strong.
Economists have been reluctant to call a turning point. Earlier in June, the dollar’s largest weekly gain in months, a jump of about ₡5.49, yet analysts quoted in that coverage cautioned it was premature to declare the end of the low-exchange-rate cycle.
This points to continued, if slowing, inflows of dollars: free-trade-zone exports grew 7.4% through April, down from 12.3% a year earlier, alongside tourism receipts and foreign investment that have kept the country awash in dollars and pushed the colón up for four straight years.
The strong colón has had knock-on effects across the economy. In its 2026 Article IV report, the International Monetary Fund pointed to the firm exchange rate as a main driver of the deflation Costa Rica has experienced, with the consumer price index running below the Central Bank’s 3% target for roughly 11 consecutive months through March, according to a summary of the document. The Fund also linked the strong colón, together with public-safety concerns, to a slowdown in tourism and services exports during 2025.
For residents paid in colones, the cheap dollar and low inflation have eased the cost of imported goods and dollar-denominated debt. For the foreign community living on dollar income, it has had the opposite effect, quietly raising the real cost of rent, groceries and everyday life across popular expat hubs. Whether the early-June rebound marks genuine relief or a brief blip is, for now, an open question the market has not answered.
The exchange rate changes daily; current buying and selling rates are published by the Central Bank of Costa Rica and at every commercial bank.
