Moving between the US and Costa Rica means learning a shipping system nobody explains from your side of the border.

Who this is for

If you're planning a move to Costa Rica, shipping a car, or moving a container of household goods, you already know what you want to send. What's usually missing is knowing how the freight system works: which carrier does what, what customs will ask for, and what the trip is likely to cost.

Small businesses importing or exporting along the same corridor read the same guides for a related reason, working out Incoterms, commercial invoice requirements and duty bands before they commit to a shipment. Freight professionals based in Central America use the pages as English-language reference material for a corridor that doesn't always have it.

Why every figure carries a date

Duty rates, and the customs valuation duty is charged on, are set by Costa Rica's finance ministry, the Ministerio de Hacienda, with declarations filed through TICA (Tecnología de Información para el Control Aduanero, its customs platform), and carrier tariffs shift with fuel costs and demand. A rate that was correct last year can be wrong today. That's why any page with regulatory or tariff information carries a last-reviewed date and a link to the official source, so you can check the current rule for yourself before you act on it.