The Panamanian / Costa Rican border is in constant flux. The most recent change occurred quietly over the last few weeks. Panamanian border officials are now entering your ticket details into the computer to validate if your flight is a valid outbound flight. Due to perpetual tourism in Costa Rica (a practice where a person without residency lives in Costa Rica by renewing their tourist visa every 90 days by exiting and re-entering the country), the border has seen many fraudulent exit tickets. As of today, the border officials do not have access to passenger lists. They can however, confirm if your ticket is a valid flight. For example, if your flying American Airlines Flight 981 from Panama City, Panama departing at 12:50pm to Miami, Florida, the border official will confirm that there is indeed a Flight 981 departing on the corresponding date at said time. If you are traveling into Panama with a valid flight, this new practice will not effect you.

A frustrating truth is many tourists passing through Panama are on a Central American adventure, or taking a year to travel the world. Panama’s requirement to show proof of a flight back to the tourist’s country of origin seems unreasonable. I’m not certain why they are concerned with where tourists are going, instead of the fact they leave Panama in correspondence with their tourist visa.

As with all changes this may, or may not, stick. Also, no two border agents are alike. One border agent may require you to show the $500 in cash, your exit ticket, and proceed to validation. Others will simply stamp your book no questions asked. When interviewing perpetual tourists, they have shared that more often younger agents ask more questions than older officials. 

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