Panama Forum

panamajames
Joined 2012
Posts: 5096

9 years ago

Perpetual Tourists in Panama

9 years ago

Some immigration border rules that had hardly been enforced for many years in Panama are now being asserted, and it’s making life on a tourist visa more expensive to do the 90 or 180 day border run to Costa Rica. For foreigners in Panama, leaving Panama for Costa Rica is generally not a problem. The Costa Rican Ticos like the business that it generates, such as motel, hotel and food services. The hassles are coming back into Panama. There are always individual exceptions — say when a bit of money privately changes hands — but there are rules now being enforced at the 3 Costa Rica/Panama legal points of entry, and not always consistently. The foreigner leaving Panama must be out of the country for at least one calendar day, and in some cases, three calendar days before coming back and getting a new tourist visa. A few months ago, you could stamp out of Panama and into Costa Rica, head to Burger King for lunch, then stamp out of Costa Rica and stamp into Panama. Not so much anymore. Here are things that people have been asked for lately:
To enter on a tourist visa, one need show the immigration people $500 in cash. Some people also report being asked to show bank passbooks with more than $500 in the account, credit cards, and credit card statements with a balance that does not exceed their limit by at least $500.
Also required for a new tourist visa is an airplane ticket back to the country on which the applicant holds a passport. For Canadian citizens, a ticket to Toronto would work, but not one for San Jose, Costa Rica, even if that is where you were travelling to next.
The perpetual tourist lifestyle in Panama has been widely advertised for years by various on-line crap magazines like International Liars who are told that this is a country without taxes or social responsibility. Some of the wealthier have been leaving because they fear tax information sharing between the United States and Panama. But people with sufficient resources and without recent serious criminal records (and even then, if the bribe is right) can become permanent residents easily enough, or can continue living on tourist visas and bear the extra cost. Some folks will alternate trips out of the country and take a cheap Spirit Airline flight in the wee hours of the morning, to Florida and stay there for a few days.
This new policy, while it lasts, and they do go away from time to time, ought to mainly affect the lower end of the perpetual tourist folks, probably most of all in places like Volcan and Bocas del Toro where some people have established themselves for the ease and short distance involved in the border run, and it is cheaper to live there versus Panama City. There are some folks who exist only on their Social Security checks of less than $1000. For those trying to live here on a Panamanian working class income and a tourist visa, it may end up becoming too expensive to manage if they change the rules even more. One day they may say that you just completed your 180 day stay in Panama 3 days ago, so you will be eligible to stay again for another 180 days, in 90 days, so find another place to live for the next 3 months. A decision like that doesn’t seem likely, but they are getting tougher on the perpetual tourist………

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