For whatever reasons, Costa Ricans like to put everything in writing, on paper. When you purchase something moderately significant – a blender, shoes – your name goes on the receipt. Officials at state institutions all have a whole battery of rubber stamps (sellos) on their desks that they use to approve things, and at some point you will probably spend several hours of your life seeking one of these stamps on a document, whether it be at the National Registry, immigration, a public bank, INS (insurance), the Caja (social security) or the Public Health Ministry. Until recently, businesses were required by the Finance Ministry to keep paper copies of all their receipts and invoices going back five years, for tax auditing purposes. And it seems like anywhere you go, they want you to put your cédula (state ID) or passport number on just about everything.

Remember, therefore, to get absolutely everything you agree upon in business dealings in writing, with the date and cédula or passport number of the contractee, and signed with at least initials on every page of the document and a full signature on the final page. Oral agreements in Costa Rica have the same legal weight as written ones, but of course they are much harder to prove in court. To give you an idea how important documents are in Costa Rican culture, consider that a civil lawsuit is conducted entirely in writing.

Ironically, just because you get something in writing doesn’t mean Costa Ricans will honor it. The reason for this goes back to those civil lawsuits that are conducted entirely in writing and take a decade or more to sort out. No one would really go through that for a few thousand dollars, and lawsuits are more effective as a threat of bureaucratic paralysis than as a tool of justice.