Costa Rica CurrencyThe national Costa Rica currency is the Colon (¢1,00) The bills come in 500, 1000, and 10000 notes and the coins range from 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 colones. The US dollar is widely accepted in tourist areas but outside of that, the great majority of Costa Ricans buy and sell in Colones.
In the past the Costa Rica monetary policy was to regularly devalue the colon to manage the currency fluctuation to the US dollar. As a result, the value of the colon was falling steadily against the US dollar. On Oct 17, 2006, Costa Rica's Central Bank began a new "crawling band" system of regulation where the bank stipulates a range within which the various money institutions are free to set their buying and selling price against the US dollar. The bank indicates this is to be the first in a series of steps it is initiating in an effort to reach a point where the Colon is fully liberalized and free to fluctuate against the US dollar as the market dictates. The Central Bank will publish a daily reference rate that will be the average of the previous day's public buying and selling rates at the various financial institutions. This will be used for establishing exchange rates used in such things as Customs duties, court settlements and airport exit taxes. Check here for the
current currency exchange rate.
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