Nearly everyone rents a car when they visit Costa Rica. It’s the only way to have freedom to go wherever you want and see the country quickly. Riding buses and taking an all-inclusive tour are other options, but aren’t ideal. Before you get carried away and jump at the cheapest rental car you find, take a look at these 7 things you must know before renting a car in Costa Rica.
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Remember Rental Car Insurance
Rental car insurance is the biggest trick the Tico rent-a-car companies have up their sleeves. More often than not, it’s the cause of a bad start to a vacation in paradise.
A happy family goes to the car lot to pick up their rental car and are astonished that the “good deal” they found online is only for the “rental portion” of the car. They have to pay a few hundred dollars more for the required insurance and taxes. Dad and mom aren’t happy, and their 2 teenager kids are getting grumpier by the minute… Not a great start.
We Americans aren’t used to those sorts of tricks because of online purchase laws in the US, but it’s a successful racket for these companies in Costa Rica. The required insurance and taxes are rarely included in the online prices, so it’s a good idea to email or call them for the additional “insurance” cost and the total amount you’ll have to pay.
Surprisingly, the “insurance” portion of the daily price can be anywhere from 70% to 210% of the “rental” portion. That’s right, the car insurance can be more than DOUBLE the car rental! That’s a lot, but it’s much better to plan for the insurance costs rather than being surprised with a huge additional bill when you first arrive on your relaxing vacation. It also helps to be able to compare car rental prices from different companies on an even field.
Basic Insurance or Premium Full Coverage Insurance?
How lucky are ya’ feelin’?
The minimum required basic coverage is pretty pitiful.
All it covers is 80% of the physical damage on the OTHER CAR in an accident if you are at fault. It doesn’t cover any damages to the rental car you’re driving or anybody’s medical bills. I wonder who wrote the law that required THAT sort of coverage?
Oops, I forgot to mention that there is a $1500 deposit/deductible they hold up front too.
Premium or Full Coverage varies for each company, but usually covers most of both vehicles in an accident, some sort of medical coverage, vehicle theft, etc. They also drop the deposit/deductible to $300.
I’d recommend the higher coverage because tourists are much more likely to cause an accident in an unfamiliar country with crazy drivers and very few road signs. It’s not that much more expensive than the basic required insurance and covers way more!
Some companies offer a third option that is in the middle, so be sure to ask about all the options they offer and see what works best for you.
Note: Many credit cards offer full coverage if you use that card to pay for the rental car. This is in addition to the basic Costa Rica required insurance that you’ll still have to pay for. It saves you from having to pay for the upgraded insurance, but doesn’t cover the entire insurance portion.
Rental Car Deposit
The deposit can be up to $1,500 if you choose the basic insurance, so they’ll freeze that amount on your credit or debit card for your trip duration plus a few weeks sometimes. Be sure your credit card has at least that much extra headroom or it’ll be useless on your trip.
The same goes for debit cards, except they’ll place a hold on that much actual money in your account, and you sure hope you have enough extra to pay for your trip
Research Multiple Rental Companies
Most of the popular car rental companies from the US are available in Costa Rica, and have websites to check prices and make reservations.
Check online for the best prices and then call a few with the lowest prices on the phone using Skype to see if they can offer you a better price or any last minute deals that aren’t online. All car rental companies speak English, so don’t worry if your Spanish is limited to “baño” and “hola!”
Remember that the online prices usually don’t include the required tax and insurance prices unless they specifically say so.
Reserve Your Rental Car Early
Don’t wait until the week or day before you leave to reserve your rental car. The prices vary depending on the tourist season and how many cars they have available for when you want it. Prices are guaranteed to be higher during the high season of tourists – from October to March, and they’ll also raise them if they only have a few cars left, hoping that someone will be desperate at the last minute and pay top dollar.
Double Check Reservation the Day Before & Confirm Pickup Plans
This one is classic – either you show up and there’s no rental car available, or the rental car shuttle is waiting around and their people don’t show up because they changed their flight. Save yourself some hassle and call or email them the day before you’ll arrive.
Verify the shuttle pick-up time, location, car size, price, and name on the paperwork. It’s also helpful to get their local Costa Rican phone number (or better yet, the cell phone of the shuttle driver) so you can call them if plans change or if you can’t find them.
Shuttle To and From the Airport
Most rental companies in San Jose offer a FREE shuttle to bring you from the airport to the rental car lot and back. Some will even stay open late if they know your flight will be delayed. Alamo mentioned to us that they do this, so clarify this detail with the company you choose if you get in before 5am or after 9-10pm.
Don’t ask them to pick it up at the airport because they’ll add a huge surcharge onto the total price – like 10-15%! The same goes for renting it right from the rental desk set up at the airport. You’ll pay top dollar if you don’t plan ahead.
Inspect It Good
Inspect the car before and after renting it, and take pictures of every bump and scratch to resolve disputes later. They typically don’t worry about dings and scratches smaller than a quarter, but pictures are much better than hand-waving and trying to explain that the bumper was loose when you picked it up.
Be sure the tires have air in them right before you leave. This was a popular scam tactic a few years ago where someone would poke a small leak in the rental car tire and follow you until you pulled over to scam you with a fake tire repair or rob your luggage. Unlikely, but keep it in mind.
You can also rent car seats for $5/day. Sure beats hauling your own on the plane for just a short trip.
The road signs are terrible, so think about renting a GPS for $10/day, or download the maps beforehand and use your smartphone.
Don’t forget your passport, drivers’ license, and credit card to pick up your rental car. You can drive with a foreign license for up to 3 months as a tourist, so no need to get an international drivers’ license for a short trip.
The driving laws are similar to most other developed countries, so stay on your guard. The fines are also pretty steep, but rarely enforced. Check out our 1 week itinerary for traveling in Costa Rica!
Have fun exploring Costa Rica! Leave a comment if you have any advice for travelers before renting a car in Costa Rica!
I am genuinely glad to read this blog posts with plenty of helpful facts, thanks for
all the information!
Thanks monserrate! There’s a lot to think about renting a car in another country. Hope your trip goes well!
Wonderful website. Plenty of useful info here.
Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you penning this post plus the rest of the website is really good.
Heya i’m for the first time here. I came across this board and I to find It really helpful & it
helped me out a lot.
Great! Hope your trip goes well!
I like the valuable info you provide in your articles.
I will bookmark your blog and check again here regularly. I’m quite certain I will learn plenty of new stuff!
Thanks for the comment! Check back often for more articles.
Nice article! You guys have really posted a good one. Keep sharing.
Thanks Peter!
Greawt post, Landon! I’m glad that I stumbled upon your article because I’ve been thinking about renting a car when I go on vacation next month. I think you’re absolutely right: it’s important that you remember to purchase car rental insurance. I’ll be sure to follow your suggestion by purchasing some before I rent the car. Thanks for the great tips; you’ve been very helpful!
You’ll have a great time with your own car knowing you have the freedom to explore where ever you want! Have a nice trip! Thanks for stopping by!
It’s me often depend on rental cars for my family and other trips but I never thought of so many things. Saying honestly, there is nothing wrong to check out these things, in fact these are the mandatory to be done. Not having rental car insurance and getting an accident, how the situation going to be? I guess, you can imagine. So, it’s better to keep track of these things. Not just in Costa-Rica but in other cities also we need to stay alert of these things. Thankful to read all these! Keep updating.
The only Costa Rican experience I have had was as a student at a language school there. I stayed with a wonderful local family and their advice was to always take public transporation. A group of us did that and it was great. Bus, van and plane, easy and affordable. The insurance coverage is as important as renting the car. If you involved in an accident then your strong coverage covers your loss. So make sure you take strong coverage plans.
I totally agree! Public transportation is great in Costa Rica! That’s what we mostly traveled by as well. Since Costa Rica has a lot of tourism, we always get questions about renting cars so we had to have the experience :) Sounds like you had a great time in Costa Rica, that’s a great experience!
Just wanted to leave a comment about my experience renting a car with Alamo in Costa Rica (Liberia Airport). Watch out for these guys!! They will charge you for insurance that you DON’T need! All you need is the government mandated 3rd party liability…they will try and charge you for a ton of shit you don’t need.
I would highly recommend NOT renting with ALAMO! They were terrible! (But honestly…give any car rental place you are renting from a call ahead of time and confirm the TOTAL price with insurance!
Great David! Thanks for the heads-up!
I like your blog is veri nice.
It’s good to know that when it comes to getting a rental car that there are some things that we can do to help make the process go smoothly. I am glad that you mentioned that one thing we need to do is make sure to reserve the one we want early. We will have to look into getting it way beforehand so that we are not having to pay more for it later.
You shared a lot of useful information. Before taking on a car rental, we do not know many things. I read your blog and got the important info on your blog. Thanks for sharing the great information. Good Luck!
Great points and thank you for sharing them. My boyfriend and I are planning to go on a vacation on Costa Rica by November. And I am so glad that I got the chance to read because it could really help us a lot. Cheers!
Hello!
I wanted to leave a little update on here, and luckily help someone with some additional information in the future.
Companies in Costa Rica are also forced to disclose every detail of their charges and requirements and you should be able to see it all whenever you go to their official Costarican web page, although some of the offer all the details from the international website, you only need to be a bit patient and read through it to get all the info you need and call them straight if you have any further questions, since the ones that belong to big rental car chains might offer costumer service on a 1(800) USA number but don’t always have the exact answer to your doubts it’s way better to get in touch with the Costarican teams to get all the do’s and don’ts.
Now, in regards to insurance this will vary from one company to the other but I would recommend to always go with the ones that tell you exactly what you’re being charged for, since as you mentioned before it’s, sadly, a common thing that for example you’ll find someone at the airport giving you a car at a “pretty good deal” and not saying that you at least need to add to that the required protection.
The security deposits will vary from one company to the other and depending on the protection plans you choose to go with, also, so it might start from around $500 for full protection up to even $3000 with the bare minimum thing. So ask around beforehand.
Very important, not all of them will take your debit card since sometimes the holds done to your debit card might take longer than you’re used to, to be released back into your account, so they might offer instead to go full and not leave a security hold to help you out if you don’t have any credit cards with you, or they might even do it under the regular rental conditions (with holds) but remember it is always a chance that it might take you a bit longer to see your money back.
I hope this helps a bit on planning your trip to Costa Rica!!!
Thanks for the post, must read before going to rent a car in fact any were not specifically in costa rica.
My family and I want to go on vacation out of the country, but this means we would need to rent a car, which we’ve never done before. Your article had some great tips for doing something like this, and I liked how you said that its important to know the insurance for the car can be more than double the rental itself. Thanks; we’ll keep this in mind when renting a car on vacation.
Also note that the insurance, premium or not, doesn’t cover “tires, accessories or roll over” at least with Budget. I’m in the middle of a fight where my rental flipped because the brakes failed on a hill and rolled backwards off a cliff, and Budget is not honouring the Premium Insurance I purchased. Also be careful not to have too much headroom on your credit card, because again, with Budget, they just maxed out my card with zero communication. I had to chase them for weeks to find out why. Be careful.
That’s crazy! I hope you can get it all figured out soon! Let us know how it goes!
Really happy to read your blog post, we are planning a trip soon and these tips are really helpful, it will help us a lot in along the way, thanks!!