San José Guide for Digital Nomads

Weather in San José by month

The warmest month is April, at about 88°F (31°C) in the afternoon, and the coolest is October, at about 82°F (28°C).

The most rain falls in October.

From NOAA's monthly station summaries for Juan Santamaria International, Cs (15.1 km away), averaged over 2011 to 2025.

Internet in San José

In M-Lab's open speed tests within 25 km of San José, half came in above 60 Mbps download and 22 Mbps upload, and the fastest quarter of lines above 119 Mbps.

That's 123,357 download tests from September 2025 to September 2026.

The typical figure counts every line, cheap and mobile ones too; a fiber line in a good apartment or coworking space is closer to the fastest quarter.

Test yours when you get there with my internet speed test.

Cost of living in San José

One person spends about $1,604 a month in San José, with a furnished place to stay:

The rent is estimated from Costa Rica's housing prices, as Inside Airbnb doesn't cover San José.

The rest is what a one-person US household spends (the Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2024 survey), at Costa Rica's prices for each (the World Bank's 2021 price comparison).

Coworking, insurance and flights come on top.

Air quality in San José

By an estimate, the air in San José carries about 11 µg/m³ of fine particles (PM2.5) over a year, 2.2 times the WHO's guideline of 5 µg/m³.

The cleanest month is January, at about 8 µg/m³, and the haziest is May.

No open air quality station is within 25 km of San José, so these are estimates from Copernicus's CAMS air model for the surrounding area (an 80 km grid, 2023 to 2025, CC BY 4.0), adjusted to what stations measure elsewhere.

Take them as a guide: the model can be well off in big cities, and a measured figure replaces it once a station opens.

Is San José safe?

The US State Department rates Costa Rica Level 2 ("Exercise increased caution", updated 2026-04-02), the same level it gives France, Germany, the UK and Spain.

Levels 1 and 2 are both everyday travel; the US only asks you to reconsider a trip at Level 3.

Some advisories raise the level for parts of a country, so read the full advisory before you book.

Work and stay in San José

Where to work and live with other remote workers, from each finder:

See them all on a map, with hours, photos and directions, in the coworking space finder and free Wi-Fi spots.

Visas, taxes and residency in Costa Rica

Before you plan a long stay, check what your passport allows and what staying does to your taxes:

• Can you stay? – see where your passport goes without a visa on the visa-free countries map, and whether Costa Rica has a visa for remote workers in the digital nomad visa finder
• Tax – compare Costa Rica's income tax with other countries in tax rates by country
• Foreign income – Costa Rica taxes only income earned inside the country, not income from abroad; see the rule and its exceptions on the territorial tax map

Each tool reads the official rules, so the answer is for your own passport and income.

Money in San José

A card with no foreign fee and an account that holds several currencies make a stay much cheaper:

• Accounts – the best bank accounts for digital nomads, by where you live
• Cards – what a card costs you abroad in the card fees abroad calculator
• Sending money – the cheapest way to move money there in the money transfer comparison

The finders show only accounts and cards you can open from where you live.

Time zone

San José runs on Costa Rica time (America/Costa_Rica).

See how many working hours you'd share with your clients or team in the time zone overlap calculator.