Special Notice: If you are
planning to come to Costa Rica, we strongly
advise you NOT to bring US one-hundred-dollar
bills. Central America has been inundated with
false bills and you will find everyone,
including the banks, unwilling to accept them. Stick with smaller denomination bills,
traveler's checks or credit cards.
A further note about US bills in general--Be
sure the bills you bring are in good condition.
Small tears or missing pieces will render them
useless in this country.
Current
exchange
rates at the various Costa
Rican financial institutions can be followed on
the Central
Bank's
Web
site at
http://www.bccr.fi.cr. Scroll down to the
box that says "Tipos de cambio del dólar
anunciados en ventanilla." This link takes you
to a page where the day's exchange rates from
the various financial institutions are
published.
The buy rate is the amount of colones Costa
Rican
banks will give you for each
of your dollars. The sell rate is what dollars
cost you in a Costa Rican financial institution.
Check the latest exchange rates at the
Costa Rica Central Bank site.
OR
Go to
CambioDelDolar and use their easy to
read Flash tool to filter current exchange
rates by type of financial institution.
US Dollar Exchange Buy Rate -
Ten-year Trend
The evolution of the Costa Rican Colon
exchange rate against the U.S. Dollar can be
divided into four phases. (Source: "The Rate of
Exchange in Costa Rica" by Luis Carlos Peralta
and Johnny Alvarado)
- 1945-1979
- The exchange rate showed
minimal variations. It was protected by the
modified gold standard, adopted during the
implementation of the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), and was based
on the price of gold fixed by the United
States, with one exchange rate between all
countries. At the beginning of the 70s the
U.S. stopped converting dollars to gold
because of internal problems. The dollar
began to fall in the international markets.
Countries fixed an upper and lower limit in
order to try to control prices. The Colon's
value passed eight to the dollar in 1973 but
managed to remain below nine until 1979.
- 1979-1983
- Costa Rica saw an economic
crisis during this period. It adopted a
liberalization policy for the exchange rate
in the face of a failure of division of
power in the Central Bank, and free floating
currency. The exchange
rate quadrupled during this four-year
period.
- 1984-1992
- The
Central
Bank established a policy
of "mini-devaluations," which helped
economic decision making and price
calculations. There was a disadvantage in
that the setting of the rate was very
subjective.
- 1992-2006
- The exchange rate was
liberalized in 1992, causing a period of
instability. The Bank soon returned to the
mechanism of "mini-devaluations," which
remains in effect today. There [has been]
talk about returning to a scheme of a free
floating currency, with limits. However, no
surprises in the behavior of the exchange
rate policies [have occurred].
- 2006-present
- On Oct 17, 2006, Costa
Rica's Central Bank began a new "crawling
band" system of regulation where the bank
stipulates a range within which the various
money institutions are
free to set their buying and selling price
against
the
US
dollar. The bank indicates
this is to be the first in a series of steps
it is initiating in an effort to reach a
point where the Colon is fully liberalized
and free to fluctuate against the US dollar
as the market dictates.
-
- The Central Bank will
publish a daily reference rate that will be
the average of the previous day's public
buying and selling rates at the various
financial institutions. This will be used
for establishing exchange rates used in such
things as Customs duties, court
settlements and airport
exit taxes.
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