For years, Costa Rica’s ban on extraditing its own citizens created an opening for foreign fugitives who managed to become Costa Rican nationals before facing justice abroad. The loophole was rooted in Article 32 of the Constitution, which long protected Costa Ricans from being forced to leave national territory.
Costa Rica’s extradition law also protected citizens by birth and by naturalization, meaning a foreign national who obtained Costa Rican citizenship could claim the same shield as someone born in the country. That protection became a concern in cases involving foreign nationals tied abroad to organized crime, especially drug trafficking.
Public debate in Costa Rica focused on people who allegedly used marriage, residency or investment routes to acquire nationality and then avoid extradition requests from other countries. Marriage to a Costa Rican citizen remains a legal path to naturalization, but it is not automatic.
Applicants must meet legal requirements, including time married, residence in the country and background checks. The problem raised by lawmakers and legal analysts was narrower: people accused of using marriage in bad faith as a tool to obtain nationality and block extradition.
Costa Rican law already allows authorities to annul naturalization obtained fraudulently. Under the Law of Options and Naturalizations, citizenship acquired through false information or fraud can be declared null after a formal process. Once naturalization is annulled, the person no longer has the same constitutional protection as a Costa Rican citizen and may face the ordinary extradition process as a foreign national.
Costa Rica then went further.
In 2025, the country changed Article 32 to allow the extradition of Costa Rican citizens in specific cases involving international drug trafficking or terrorism. The reform applies to citizens by birth and by naturalization, but only when extradition is approved by Costa Rican courts and the process respects constitutional rights, international treaties and due process guarantees.
The Constitutional Court had already reviewed the proposal in 2024 and found no constitutional defects. The court said lawmakers, acting through the constitutional reform process, could balance the rights involved against the state’s interest in prosecuting serious crimes, as long as the core of the right was not destroyed.
Costa Rica later updated its extradition law to match the constitutional change. The law now preserves the general rule against extraditing Costa Ricans, but removes the blanket protection in cases involving international drug trafficking or terrorism.
The result is a two-track response. Fraudulent naturalization can still be challenged case by case when citizenship was obtained through deception. The constitutional reform also creates a standing exception for the most serious cross-border cases, even when the person is Costa Rican by birth.
The change marks a major shift for a country that had long treated the non-extradition of citizens as an almost absolute protection. It also closes a path that foreign fugitives had allegedly used to place Costa Rican nationality, and Costa Rican territory, between themselves and criminal cases abroad.
