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▪ Costa Rica has the second largest share of foreign-born population in Latin America, with more than half of those requiring international protection. Migrants and refugees represent 10% of Costa Rica’s population.
▪ As of 2022, Costa Rica was hosting about 270,600 people in need of international protection: 5% of the population: including asylum-seekers (239,640), refugees (14,088), and 235 persons at risk of statelessness.
▪ 87% of asylum-seekers are from Nicaragua, and others come from Venezuela, Cuba, and northern Central America countries.
▪ Since 2018, Nicaraguans have been forced to flee from the socio-political crisis; others already living in Costa Rica were forced to lodge asylum claims to prevent refoulement, for fear of repression in their country.
▪ In 2022, in the context of Nicaragua’s presidential elections, Costa Rica was the world’s third-largest recipient of new individual asylum claims: over 100,000 were registered by nationals of Nicaragua.
▪ Contrary to other Central American countries, Costa Rica has more immigrants than emigrants.
• Costa Rica has also become a transit country for thousands of people engaged in mixed movements toward the north of the continent, the majority entering through the border with Panama.
• In September 2023, over 350,000 people presumably crossed the border in Paso Canoas in Costa Rica, 100 thousand higher than the record in 2022