The $1,500 Deposit Scam Costa Rica Renters Keep Falling For

In March a reader forwarded me a Facebook listing for a two-bedroom in Tamarindo. Furnished, pool, pets welcome, $900 a month. Real photos, real street. The house exists. I know because it actually rents for $1,800, and the owner had no idea her photos were circulating with a stranger's WhatsApp number attached. Three people had already sent deposits. That money is gone.

I moved here in 2014, I've rented, bought, and sold in this country, and I still see this exact scam every month. So let's talk about how to rent long-term here without becoming the fourth person on that list.

Why is renting long-term in Costa Rica such a mess?

There is no MLS here in the way North Americans mean it, and there is no central rental portal at all. Long-term rentals live in Facebook groups, WhatsApp chains, and hand-painted Se Alquila signs on gates. That fragmentation is the whole problem. Because renters can't see the full market in one place, they can't tell a real price from a fake one, and scammers exploit that blindness by cloning legitimate listings and undercutting them by 30 or 40 percent.

This is honestly why we built the rental side of this site the way we did. We put verified long-term rentals in the same bilingual search as everything else, so you're looking at the whole market with every home counted once, at current prices. When you can see that furnished two-bedrooms in Tamarindo actually run $1,600 to $2,200, a $900 listing stops looking like luck and starts looking like exactly what it is.

How does the deposit scam actually work?

It's boringly consistent. The scammer copies photos and text from a real listing, drops the price, and posts in expat Facebook groups. When you message, the "owner" is conveniently abroad. Toronto, Miami, sometimes Germany. There's urgency, three other people are interested. You can't view inside, but a "caretaker" might show you the outside, which proves nothing. Then comes the ask: wire the deposit via Western Union, Zelle, or crypto to hold it.

Stop right there. Nobody legitimate in Costa Rica asks for a rental deposit by Western Union. Nobody.

How do I verify the person I'm paying actually owns the house?

This is the part almost no renter does, and it takes 20 minutes. Every titled property in Costa Rica is recorded at the Registro Nacional, and you can pull the record online for a few thousand colones, well under $10.

Ask the landlord for the folio real number of the property. If they hesitate or don't know what that is, walk. Then check three things:

1. The registered owner's name matches the cédula of the person signing your lease.
2. If the owner is a corporation, which is extremely common here, ask for the personería jurídica showing who has legal power to sign. Registro Nacional issues that too.
3. If you're dealing with a property manager, ask for the written authorization from the owner. A real manager has one and shows it without drama.

And insist on seeing the inside, in person or through someone you personally trust. Not a video the "owner" sends. A video proves they have a video.

What does Costa Rican law actually give a tenant?

More than most renters realize. Residential leases fall under Ley 7527, the Ley General de Arrendamientos Urbanos y Suburbanos, and it's a tenant-friendly law.

The minimum term is three years. Even if your contract says one year, you as the tenant have the right to stay three, as long as you pay. The landlord can't just decide not to renew at month twelve because a higher offer showed up.

Rent increases depend on currency. If your lease is in colones, annual increases are capped by law and tied to inflation, which has been low. If your lease is in US dollars, the rent is fixed for the entire term. No increases. That's a real advantage right now, with the BCCR reference rate sitting in the low 500s per dollar, because a dollar lease gives you total predictability.

A verbal lease is technically valid under the law. Don't rely on that. Get it in writing, in Spanish, because the Spanish version is what a Costa Rican judge reads. Attach an English translation for your own comfort if you want.

What should long-term rent actually cost in 2026?

Rough current numbers so you can smell a fake price:

• Escazú or Santa Ana: $1,200 to $1,900 for a decent two-bedroom condo, more in the gated towers.
• Grecia, Atenas, San Ramón: ₡450,000 to ₡700,000 for a three-bedroom local-style house, roughly $880 to $1,370.
• Tamarindo and the Gold Coast: $1,600 to $2,500 furnished, and it spikes December through April.
• Uvita, Dominical, Ojochal: $1,200 to $2,000, with big premiums for ocean view and reliable internet.
• Puerto Viejo: $700 to $1,400, huge variance in build quality.

Anything 35 percent below those bands needs an explanation. Sometimes it's a genuine local deal with no washing machine and cold water. Often it's a clone.

How should I pay, and what goes in the contract?

Pay by bank transfer, ideally SINPE, into a Costa Rican account at Banco Nacional, BCR, BAC, wherever, as long as the account name matches the registered owner or the documented manager. That match is your protection. Cash gets you no paper trail, and foreign wire services get you nothing at all.

Deposit is customarily one month, sometimes two for furnished places. Do a written inventory with photos on move-in day, both parties sign it, everyone keeps a copy. Confirm in the contract who pays water, electricity, and HOA fees, because CNFL and ICE bills on a house with air conditioning can hit $200 a month and surprise people badly.

Should I rent before I buy here?

Yes. Emphatically yes. I bought too fast in my first years here and paid tuition for it. Rent for six to twelve months in the actual town, through green season, before you commit several hundred thousand dollars.

Renting also teaches you what your money buys when you do purchase. If you're renting in Guanacaste and like it, something like this main home plus guest house with pool in Tamarindo at $695,000 shows you the ownership end of the market you've been renting in, and the guest house is a built-in rental income angle. In the southern zone, a three-bedroom with a detached guest house in Barú at $639,000 is the kind of property people find after a year of renting in Dominical taught them which microclimate they can actually live in. And some renters go a third route, renting while they build, on something like this large parcel near the Zurquí in Heredia at $400,000.

Browse homes for sale across San José province or the Puntarenas coast while you rent, even casually. Watching sale prices for a year is the cheapest real estate education available.

Here's what nobody tells you

Even with an honest landlord, assume your deposit is gone. Not because everyone is a thief, but because deposit disputes here are settled by attrition. The landlord finds ₡180,000 of "damages," you're leaving the country or moving across it, and suing over $350 through the courts makes no sense. I've had deposits returned in full exactly twice in twelve years. Budget the deposit as a cost of the lease, and if it comes back, that's a nice dinner in Escazú.

Renting long-term here is genuinely one of the best decisions a newcomer can make. Just do it with the Registro Nacional record in one hand and a real market picture in the other, and never, ever wire a deposit to someone you haven't verified.

Frequently asked questions

Can my landlord evict me after one year if the contract says one year?

No. Ley 7527 sets a three-year minimum term for residential leases, and it protects the tenant even when the written contract says less. As long as you pay on time and don't breach the lease, you can stay three years.

How much is a normal rental deposit in Costa Rica?

One month's rent is standard, and two months is common for furnished properties. Anyone asking for three months up front, or asking for any money before you've seen the property and verified ownership at the Registro Nacional, is a walk-away.

Is it better to sign a lease in colones or dollars?

In 2026, dollars, in my opinion. Dollar-denominated rent is legally frozen for the whole term, while colones leases allow capped annual increases. If you earn in dollars, a dollar lease removes exchange-rate guesswork entirely.

Market data point: the median asking price in Costa Rica is $310,000 across 71,283 active for-sale listings (CostaRicaRealtor.com Price Index, September 2026).