Costa Rica Rental Car vs Shuttle: the Real Cost, Insurance Included

Verified on 26 August 2026 — on four rental companies’ own insurance pages, on Vamos’s and Adobe’s live reservation engines (quoted for 7-day rentals at San José airport, 12–19 October 2026 and 12–19 January 2027), on Interbus’s own booking engine (quoted for 15 October 2026), and on Tropical Tours Shuttles’ own route pages. Re-checked on 24 September 2026: the insurance pages, Adobe’s engine, Interbus’s engine and itineraries page, Tropical Tours and RECOPE’s fuel prices; Vamos’s engine could not be re-queried that day, so its figures below are the 26 August quotes.

The advertised daily rate is not the price. Every Costa Rican rental company we priced charges third-party liability cover as a separate daily line, and each describes that line as mandatory: Vamos US$15.95–17.95/day by category, Adobe US$13.56–23.73/day by category, Poas US$12–20/day by category. Those three figures are ranges, not single rates, and the tables below give the categories. On Vamos’s cheapest October car the line costs more than the car — Economy at US$13.95/day against US$15.95/day of liability. Fully covered, Poas’s own page puts insurance alone at US$41–49 per day, before the base rate of the car.

“Mandatory” throughout this page is the companies’ word, not ours. Four of them state on their own sites that Costa Rican law requires the cover. We did not obtain the statute, INS’s own page, or a regulator’s page, so nothing here is this page telling you what the law provides — the full qualification is at the bottom, and it applies to every use of the word above and below.

The season decides this before party size does. On Vamos’s own engine the same Economy car is US$13.95/day for 12–19 October 2026 and US$71.09/day for 12–19 January 2027, both quoted on 26 August 2026. Priced in October, the car beats three shuttle legs bought on Interbus from two passengers. Priced in January, it does not beat them until four — a party size neither company publishes a seat count for. The rate you are shown and the charge that can exceed it are published on different pages, which is why a rental only beats a shuttle once there are enough passengers to spread the insurance across. But how many passengers that takes is set by the month you travel. Which months are which, region by region, is set out on our best time to visit Costa Rica page.

The liability line the companies call mandatory, by company

All three checked 26 August 2026. Vamos’s booking engine states the charge outright: “The Third Party Waiver is a mandatory coverage in Costa Rica … SLI is offered between $15.95 to $17.95 per day.” Adobe’s results page files it under “View mandatory charges.”

Poas’s dollar limit is worth about 18% more than Poas says it is. Its bodily-injury cap is written in colones — CRC 150 million — and Poas converts it at roughly 536 colones to the dollar, a rate it attaches no effective date to. At the rate this site uses everywhere, the Banco Central de Costa Rica reference sell rate of 453.50 colones to the US dollar for 26 August 2026, the same CRC 150 million is about US$330,800, not US$280,000. We are not correcting Poas’s own published figure and we are not treating either dollar number as the cover: the cover is CRC 150 million, and the dollar equivalent moves with a rate that Poas does not state a date for. The US$330,800 is our arithmetic on the BCCR rate; the US$280,000 is Poas’s own.

The conflict we are not resolving

Poas and Adobe each describe their own product as the cover Costa Rican law requires, and the two publish limits that differ by more than an order of magnitude on property damage. Whether these are in fact the same product is not something either company’s page establishes, and we did not obtain the rule that would settle it:

• Poas: third-party property damage to US$280,000, renter carrying a 20% deductible.
• Adobe: third-party property damage to US$20,000, renter carrying a US$1,130 deductible.

Both figures are the companies’ own, read the same day. We are not averaging them and we are not picking one, and we are not asserting that a single statutory minimum sits behind both. Read the limits published by the company you are actually renting from — that is the number that decides whether the top-up is worth buying, and it is not the same number at both companies.

What full cover costs, once the optional layers go on

Two Poas details worth carrying: Full TPL costs US$5/day extra and removes the 20% third-party deductible, taking the liability line to US$17–25/day. And Accessories Protection Insurance, US$6/day, is the only product covering windshield, windows, tires, rims, antennas, sound system and tire tools against breakage and theft — it is sold only alongside CDW and is not covered by any other waiver.

A naming trap. Costa Rica Guide lists API as one of the names it says the liability product trades under, alongside SLI, TPL, SLC and PLI. Poas uses API for its optional accessories cover. Read what a line item covers, not what it is called.

The deposit ladder: liability-only carries the biggest hold

Poas and Vamos each publish the same three-rung ladder — identical at every rung except the higher hold Poas sets on Premium vehicles — and it falls as the cover rises. Buying only the liability line triggers the largest hold of the three.

Date the Vamos side of this. The Vamos page that carries the ladder is bylined “28 Jan 2007 – Updated 25 Mar 2022” — a page last updated in 2022, not a live 2026 quote. The SLI price printed on it was re-confirmed in the 2026 booking engine; the deposit figures were not. The Poas figures come from that company’s current insurance page.

Poas states holds are released 72–96 working hours after safe return, and that declining its in-house CDW requires official written proof of credit-card CDW naming the card number and the customer, before or at the counter. On whether a credit card removes the liability line, the companies say it does not — Jumbocar’s own page: “Regardless of the users’ credit card covers, liability insurance is compulsory in every car rental agency.” That is a rental company describing a charge it collects, and no independent source for it was obtained.

Poas also publishes a young-driver penalty: with any driver aged 18–21 on the agreement, full cover is unavailable and the Basic CDW deductible rises to US$2,000. Poas’s own wording is that the deductible “is doubled (USD2000)”, which does not reconcile with the US$750 Basic CDW deductible published on the same page; we take the figure, not the multiple. Failing to list any driver nullifies coverage entirely.

Two real 7-day quotes — and the same cars four months later

⚠ Correction, 24 September 2026. An earlier version of this page said the October Vamos rates sat inside a 20% discount Vamos was running. Re-read on 24 September 2026, the Vamos specials page carrying that offer is dated to the 2019 season, and its offer page applies it to rentals between 15 August and 20 November 2019 — it says nothing about October 2026. The October rates below are simply what Vamos’s engine quoted for those dates on 26 August 2026; no discount is shown to be inside them. The difference from January is season, and each table’s answer still belongs to its own dates.

Vamos, San José airport, 12–19 October 2026 — green season, quoted 26 August 2026:

On the Economy the insurance is 114% of the car. On the Intermediate SUV it is 76% — the insurance line did not move between the two cars, only the car did.

Vamos, San José airport, 12–19 January 2027 — high season, daily rates quoted 26 August 2026:

What Vamos quoted and what is our arithmetic. The engine published the January daily rates — Economy US$71.09, Intermediate SUV 4x4 US$88.81, Full Size SUV 4x4 US$101.24, for pickup “Tue, 12 January, 2027” at SJO. The 7-day subtotals, the SLI line and the tax in that second table are ours: we carry the same US$111.65 SLI because Vamos publishes one SLI figure per vehicle category with no seasonal variation stated, and we apply the 13% rate the October quotes themselves imply (US$27.21 on US$209.30; US$33.58 on US$258.30 — both exactly 13%). We did not run a January booking through to a checkout total, so those two totals are derived, not quoted.

The January car rate is 5.1× the October rate on the Economy and 4.2× on the Intermediate SUV. Adobe’s engine moves the same way, and shows which line does the moving: re-queried on 24 September 2026, its cheapest SJO daily rate goes from US$15.86 (October) to US$53.97 (January) while its liability charge stays at US$94.92 per 7 days in both searches. The car rate is seasonal. The liability line, at both companies, is not.

Adobe, San José airport, 12–19 October 2026, re-queried 24 September 2026: 17 vehicles were offered “from $15.86/day per 7 days”. Kia Picanto AT or similar: base US$111.02 plus liability protection US$94.92 = US$205.94. Suzuki Vitara 4WD AT or similar: base US$165.20 plus liability US$94.92 = US$260.12. The same search on 26 August returned 16 vehicles from US$25.32/day, with the Picanto at US$272.16 and the Vitara at US$314.30 — Adobe’s cheapest October daily rate fell by more than a third in a month (our arithmetic: 37%), while its liability line did not move.

A conflict inside Adobe’s own checkout, printed as we found it on 26 August 2026. For that same Vitara, at that day’s US$219.38 base rate, the checkout read “Rental $219.38 / Protection $213.57 / Total with taxes $432.95” — but 219.38 + 213.57 = 432.95 exactly, which leaves nothing for tax. The results card behaves the same way: “Base rate $219.38 / Liability protection $94.92 / Total $314.30”, again exact to the cent. Either those components are already tax-inclusive and the phrase “with taxes” is loose, or the label is right and no tax is in the sum. Adobe’s page does not say which, so we do not treat US$432.95 as a verified tax-inclusive total and we do not adjust it. The Protection line itself does reconcile: liability US$94.92 plus Car Protection US$16.95/day × 7 days = US$118.65, and 94.92 + 118.65 = US$213.57.

Shared shuttle fares

Tropical Tours Shuttles, from the operator’s own route pages, read 26 August 2026:

Note the asymmetry: the same operator prices San José → La Fortuna at US$54 and La Fortuna → San José at US$57. On the Liberia run, pickups between 21:00 and 06:00 carry an extra US$20, and the vehicle waits outside the terminal by the mini market.

Two places this operator contradicts itself, printed both ways. Its San José–La Fortuna page states “4 hours” while its own timetable runs 08:15 → 12:30 and 15:00 → 19:30. Its Manuel Antonio page states “4.5 hours” against a timetable of 08:15 → 13:00 and 15:00 → 20:00, and its Monteverde page does the same — “4 1/2 hours” in the detail block, “a 4 hour ride” in its summary line, against the same 13:00 and 20:00 arrivals. We cannot reconcile them and are not choosing between them. Its hub pages and its route pages also disagree on price: the Liberia hub says shared shuttles start at US$45 per person, while its own Liberia–Tamarindo route page publishes US$30. The San José hub says from US$50 shared and US$200 private; the La Fortuna hub from US$54 and US$240. Quote the route page, not the hub.

Interbus, priced on the operator’s own booking engine for travel on 15 October 2026 (base fares; the engine adds tax at checkout):

All ten adult fares were unchanged when the engine was re-queried for the same date on 24 September 2026. The child fare was exactly half the adult fare on every departure pulled but one — the 15:00 San José → Monteverde, which showed US$30 against a US$62 adult on 24 September — and extra luggage was US$15 per bag on every one. Costa Rica’s own child-restraint decree — which exempts a taxi or a scheduled bus but not a rental car or a private transfer — is on our Costa Rica with kids page. Private transfers for up to 9 passengers: SJO → La Fortuna US$241, SJO → Manuel Antonio US$276, SJO → Puerto Viejo US$341. Liberia → Tamarindo returned no shared row at all on Interbus — private only, US$161 per vehicle. Tropical Tours Shuttles sells that same pair shared at US$30 per person.

The circuit price Interbus no longer shows

⚠ Correction, 24 September 2026. An earlier version of this page compared a packaged Interbus circuit — San José → La Fortuna → Manuel Antonio → San José, recorded from its itineraries page on 26 August 2026 at a “from” price per person plus tax — with the same legs bought singly, and used that circuit price in the break-even tables below. Re-read on 24 September 2026, the itineraries page displays no price for any circuit: that figure survives only inside commented-out code, and the page says the final price is confirmed during booking. A price the operator does not display is not one we can quote, so the circuit comparison is withdrawn and the tables below now use the single legs only.

The three legs bought as singles on Interbus’s engine come to US$186 per adult — US$61 plus US$63 plus US$62, re-quoted unchanged for 15 October 2026 on 24 September — before the tax the engine adds at checkout. Two caveats, both ours: the third leg is priced with the San José → Manuel Antonio fare because the reverse direction was not pulled (Tropical Tours prices the same San José–La Fortuna pair US$3 apart depending on which way you travel), and the legs were quoted from SJO airport. A four-leg version of the loop, adding Monteverde and priced operator by operator, is on our Costa Rica 10-day itinerary page.

Where the car stops being cheaper — and in which month

Seven days on the San José–La Fortuna–Manuel Antonio–San José loop. The shuttle column is Interbus base fares before its tax; car columns are all-in, including the liability line and tax.

⚠ Every column carries a season. The first table uses the Vamos October rates quoted on 26 August 2026. The second uses its January rates, whose totals are our arithmetic on the engine’s January daily rates (method in the section above). The shuttle fares are identical in both tables — Interbus’s single legs were quoted for 15 October 2026 only, and no seasonal shuttle figure was pulled, so this comparison cannot show what a January shuttle costs.

Green season — Vamos rates for 12–19 October 2026:

High season — Vamos rates for 12–19 January 2027:

The answer moves between the two tables, on this page’s own figures:

• October, against the Economy: the shuttle legs win at one passenger and the car wins from two upward — by US$135.49 at two.
• January, against the Economy: the shuttle legs win to three passengers and the car does not win until four, by US$55.51.
• October, against the Intermediate SUV: the shuttle legs win at one and the car wins from two, by US$80.12.
• January, against the Intermediate SUV: the shuttle legs win to four and the car does not win until five, by US$101.35.

Both January crossovers land at party sizes neither company says these cars seat. Vamos published a passenger count for exactly one category in what we read — Premium SUV 4x4, 7 passengers. Whether an Economy takes four adults with luggage, or an Intermediate SUV five, is not published by either company, so we cannot tell you the January break-even is reachable in the car it applies to. What the two tables do establish is that the October answer — car from two — does not survive the January rates.

Interbus’s tax can move one of these answers, and only in one direction. Its engine adds tax at checkout and publishes no rate. That tax falls on the shuttle side only — the car columns already carry theirs — so it can only move a crossover to fewer passengers, never more. The one it could move is January against the SUV: four passengers’ legs (US$744) would pass the car’s US$828.65 if the tax exceeded about 11.4% of the base fare — our arithmetic.

Both sides of these tables are incomplete, in opposite directions:

• The car totals exclude fuel, tolls, parking, any one-way drop-off fee, and the US$2,000 hold carried by anyone taking liability only.
• The shuttle totals exclude tax, and US$15 for each extra bag.
• The Vamos figures are 26 August 2026 quotes that could not be re-run on 24 September 2026, while Adobe’s October rates for the same dates fell over that month (see above); a lower October car rate would only strengthen the October answer.
• Party size is not seating — see above.

Fuel, and what the season does

The prices in force are RECOPE’s, published in La Gaceta No. 170, Alcance 120 of 9 September 2026 and effective from 10 September 2026: gasolina Súper CRC 726.00 per litre, gasolina Plus 91 (regular) CRC 707.00, diésel 50 CRC 688.00. They come off RECOPE’s own Precios Vigentes table, read on 24 September 2026. The prices are set nationally, so these are the prices at every filling station in the country.

They replaced the August prices on 10 September. The set in force from 11 August 2026 — Súper ₡704, regular ₡758, diésel ₡606 — is the one this page printed until 24 September 2026. The ordering flipped with the change: in August regular cost more per litre than Súper; from 10 September it costs ₡19 less (our arithmetic). We publish the colón figures as published and do not convert them. The component breakdown behind the pump prices — pre-tax price, single tax and station margin — is in the same RECOPE table.

On season: Poas, Vamos and Adobe each publish a single liability figure per vehicle category, with no seasonal variation stated, and both live engines confirmed it — Vamos’s SLI stayed at US$15.95/day and Adobe’s at US$94.92 per 7 days across an October and a January search. The car rate is a different story, and the size of the difference is the finding: Vamos’s Economy went from US$13.95/day to US$71.09/day between those two searches, and Adobe’s cheapest car — re-queried 24 September 2026 — from US$15.86/day to US$53.97/day. That is what moves the break-even in the tables above from two passengers to four. Jumbocar’s own published weekly totals — which it says “include the basic insurance that is mandatory in this country” — run about US$250 a week in low season and about US$850 a week in high season, with San José bands of US$300–600 for a mid-size SUV, US$420–650 full-size SUV, US$437–582 minivan and US$483–700 sedan or compact, and Liberia bands of US$430–700 premium SUV, US$350–650 economy, US$450–650 family and US$500–800 4x4. Those bands carry no date on Jumbocar’s page; treat them as the operator’s indicative figures, not a live quote.

The line items that are not in the advertised rate

Costa Rica Guide records a government licence plate fee of US$1.50 per day added on top of most quoted rates, online booking-site fees of US$12–32, and insurance at US$15–75 per day. It also states that the Car Rental Association of Costa Rica says there is no airport tax and no airport concourse fee — neither international airport has on-site rental lots — yet some agencies still charge an airport fee of 12–18%.

That US$15–75 band does not contradict the tables above; it is a labelling difference. It covers all insurance including optional cover, where Poas’s US$12–20 is the liability line alone, and Poas’s own full-cover total of US$41–49/day sits inside the wider band.

Dated illustration, not a price. The same site publishes a screenshotted quote in which an advertised US$43.30 per week became US$673.18 per week, itemised with “Environmental Fee $0.40/day”, “Licence Plate Fee $1.50/day” and “SLI – Primary Liability Insurance – REQUIRED BY LAW”; with credit-card CDW accepted the minimum actual cost was US$197.20 per week, without it US$287.85. A daily-rate spread on the same page ran US$55.59/day (Alamo, using credit-card coverage) to US$95.90/day (Vamos) to US$207.92/day with full insurance coverage. That site states these quotes were for a March 2020 trip. They show how the bill is itemised. They are not 2026 prices, and nothing else on this page derives from them.

About the legal requirement itself

Four rental companies state on their own sites that this cover is required by Costa Rican law. Poas: “TPL coverage is mandatory in Costa Rica and, if alternate coverage cannot be validated, acceptance of TPL will be a condition of rental.” Adobe: “Costa Rican law requires third-party (PLI) coverage for all rentals.” Solid Car Rental, in Spanish: “Obligatorio para cubrir el 100% de los daños a terceros en Costa Rica.” Jumbocar: “the laws compel you to pay minimum insurance for all autos that you rent.” Costa Rica Guide describes vehicle insurance as a state monopoly of INS (Instituto Nacional de Seguros), with the mandatory liability providing only minimal coverage and agencies selling supplemental products on top.

We did not obtain the statute, INS’s own page, or a regulator’s page. A rental company is not a primary source for the existence of a legal requirement — it is not a neutral source on a rule that produces a charge it collects. Everything in this section is what those companies publish. It is not this page telling you what the law provides.

What the operators don’t publish

These are gaps in the companies’ own published information, not ours.

• Vamos’s coverage limits. It publishes the price of its SLI, not what the cover pays out.
• How Adobe’s Extended Protection relates to its Car Protection — whether the zero-deductible product replaces the US$16.95/day line or adds to it.
• Poas’s base vehicle rates. We read its insurance chart; no current base rate was obtained from it.
• Toll tariffs for Ruta 27 (San José–Caldera) or Ruta 1. No primary toll page was obtained, so this page carries no toll figure and the car totals above are short by an unknown amount.
• One-way and inter-city drop-off fees at any of the four companies.
• Whether a US credit card’s CDW is accepted at each company. Poas publishes that it accepts written proof; Wild Rider is reported not to, but no primary Wild Rider page was reachable.
• Interbus’s tax rate. Its engine adds tax at checkout and publishes no rate, which is why the January SUV crossover above could still move to four passengers.
• Any seasonal shuttle fare. Interbus’s single legs were quoted for 15 October 2026 only, and Tropical Tours publishes one fare per route with no dates attached. Both season tables above therefore hold the shuttle side constant, which is an assumption we could not test.
• A January checkout total from Vamos. Its engine published January daily rates; we did not run one through to a quoted total, so the January car figures are our arithmetic and are labelled as such wherever they appear.
• An Interbus circuit price. Its itineraries page displayed none on 24 September 2026 and says the final price is confirmed during booking.
• ARESEP’s own live fuel tariff table. It is a Power BI embed that could not be read programmatically. RECOPE’s Precios Vigentes table did return, and the current per-litre prices above are read from it.

How we researched this

Scope: this page reports source research, not an on-site test. We checked the booking systems, timetables and official sources named below on the date shown; calculations, unresolved disagreements and information we could not verify are labelled explicitly.

On 26 August 2026 we read the insurance pages of Poas Rent A Car, Adobe Rent a Car, Solid Car Rental and Jumbocar and recorded their published charges, limits, deductibles and deposits. The Vamos and Adobe October totals are live quotes from those companies’ own reservation engines, run the same day for a 7-day rental at San José airport, 12–19 October 2026, read from the engines’ own quote pages and embedded result data rather than an aggregator. To see what the season does, the same engines were queried again for 12–19 January 2027; Vamos returned January daily rates and Adobe a January results page, and the January 7-day totals in this page’s tables are our arithmetic on those daily rates using the 13% tax rate the October quotes imply. Shuttle fares, departure times and durations come from Tropical Tours Shuttles’ own route and hub pages. The Interbus fares come from that operator’s own booking engine, queried for travel on 15 October 2026 and pulled for this cohort’s trip-budget research on the same day. On 24 September 2026 we re-read the insurance pages, Tropical Tours’ pages and Interbus’s itineraries page, re-ran Adobe’s October and January searches and Interbus’s engine for the same dates, and read RECOPE’s Precios Vigentes table for the fuel prices now in force; Vamos’s engine rejected scripted searches that day, so its figures stay the 26 August quotes. ARESEP’s own live fuel tariff table is a Power BI embed and could not be read. The itemised quote screenshots come from Costa Rica Guide and carry that site’s own March 2020 date.

Every total, percentage and passenger-count comparison here is our arithmetic on those published figures, and is labelled where it appears. Where two sources disagree we print both. Where nothing was published we say so.

Figures on this page labelled our arithmetic are calculated by us from the sourced inputs cited below — comparisons, percentages, multiples, differences, per-night and per-person conversions, running totals and currency conversions. Every other figure is reproduced as its named source published it. Where an operator or authority publishes a per-person or per-night rate directly, that is their figure and it is attributed to them at the point it appears.

Sources

• Poas Rent A Car — Insurance — TPL daily charges by category, coverage limits and the 20% third-party deductible, Full TPL, Basic CDW, Accessories Protection Insurance, the US$41–49/day full-cover total, the deposit ladder and release window, credit-card CDW proof, young-driver terms.
• Vamos Rent-A-Car — reservations engine — the US$15.95 and US$17.95 SLI lines and their mandatory wording, the October Economy and Intermediate SUV daily rates and both 7-day quote breakdowns, the January 2027 daily rates (Economy US$71.09, Intermediate SUV 4x4 US$88.81, Full Size SUV 4x4 US$101.24), the Premium SUV 4x4’s published 7-passenger designation, and Basic and Full CDW pricing.
• Vamos Rent-A-Car — specials and its 20% offer page — read 24 September 2026: the specials page is headed for the 2019 season, and the offer page applies its 20% discount to rentals between 15 August and 20 November 2019, which is why this page no longer treats it as covering October 2026.
• Vamos Rent-A-Car — car rental insurance explained — the same SLI figures on the company’s own explainer, and the US$2,000 / US$750 / US$100 deposit ladder.
• Adobe Rent a Car — insurance coverage — the statement that Costa Rican law requires PLI, and Adobe’s published third-party limits and deductibles.
• Adobe Rent a Car — checkout — the US$13.56/day Liability Protection line, Car Protection US$16.95/day, Extended Protection US$20.34/day, and the US$432.95 “total with taxes” whose components sum to exactly that figure.
• Adobe Rent a Car — results, 12–19 January 2027 — the January from-US$53.97/day figure (US$61.95 on 26 August) and the unchanged US$94.92 liability line. Re-queried 24 September 2026.
• Adobe Rent a Car — results — the “View mandatory charges” label, the Kia Picanto and Suzuki Vitara breakdowns, the from-US$15.86/day figure across 17 vehicles (from US$25.32 across 16 on 26 August), and the US$19.21 and US$23.73 liability tiers. Re-queried 24 September 2026.
• Solid Car Rental — insurance — the Spanish-language statement that the cover is obligatory.
• Jumbocar Costa Rica — car insurance — the INS statement and the credit-card quotation.
• Jumbocar Costa Rica — how much is a car rental — the weekly bands by city and class, the low and high-season figures, and the statement that they include the mandatory basic insurance.
• Costa Rica Guide — rental car insurance explained — the INS monopoly and the SLI/TPL/SLC/API/PLI naming list.
• Costa Rica Guide — extra costs of renting a car — the licence plate fee, booking-site fees, the US$15–75/day insurance band, and the Car Rental Association statement against the 12–18% airport fee.
• Costa Rica Guide — rent-a-car cost comparisons — the itemised advertised-versus-actual quote and the daily-rate spread, both dated by that site to March 2020.
• Tropical Tours Shuttles route pages — SJO to Arenal, SJO to Manuel Antonio, SJO to Monteverde, La Fortuna to SJO, Liberia to Tamarindo — shared and private fares, departure times, the stated durations that conflict with the timetables, the night-pickup surcharge and the pickup point.
• Tropical Tours Shuttles hub pages — San José, La Fortuna, Liberia — the operator-wide “starting at” floors that its own route pages undercut.
• Interbus — booking engine — all single-leg adult fares, the child fares, the US$15 extra-bag charge, the private-transfer prices, and the private-only Liberia–Tamarindo result. Re-queried for the same 15 October 2026 date on 24 September 2026.
• Interbus — multi-destination itineraries — on 24 September 2026, no displayed circuit price, its statement that the final price is confirmed during booking, and the circuit figure recorded on 26 August surviving only in commented-out code.
• RECOPE — Precios Vigentes — the ₡726.00, ₡707.00 and ₡688.00 per-litre prices in force, and the La Gaceta No. 170, Alcance 120 / 10 September 2026 effective date. Read 24 September 2026.
• ARESEP — combustible tarifas — the regulator’s fuel-tariff page, whose live table is a Power BI embed; ARESEP’s open data recorded the replaced August set as resolution RE-0039-IE-2026.
• Banco Central de Costa Rica — reference sell rate — 453.50 colones to the dollar, dated 2026-08-26, the basis for our restatement of Poas’s CRC 150 million cover; the ~536 rate beside it is Poas’s own and undated.

Last verified: 24 September 2026 — except Vamos’s engine quotes, which date from 26 August 2026. Rental rates, insurance charges, shuttle fares and fuel prices all change without notice. The October and January car rates on this page are different seasons — every table says which it is using, and the break-even answer is different in each.

Written by Estuardo Enriquez. This site is independent, has no affiliate relationship with any rental company or shuttle operator named here, and is not connected to any previous owner of this domain.