Conversions

Currency

The Costa Rican currency is colones. During February 2007 the exchange rate between colones and US dollars hovered around 517: 1, meaning 517 colones = $1 US dollar.

Most Costa Rican banks will post the days exchange rate on the home page of their website, like Banco de Costa Rica . 

Many American's living in Costa Rica use a short cut to figure out an approximation of the US price when shopping. This approximation is based on rounding down to 500 colones = 1 USD.

• Take the colones amount
• Drop 3 zeros
• Double the number

Here are some examples:

1,000  =  $2
5,000  =  $10
10,000  =  $20
20,000  =  $40
50,000  =  $100
100,000  =  $200

 

Metric System 

Costa Rica uses the metric system of measurement. When talking about land, the common measurements are meters and hectares. For price comparisons, most people refer to price per square meter (in US dollars) .

This can be a bit confusing for Americans use to dealing in square feet and price per acre. Here is a conversion chart to help.

Metric to Standard Conversions