How to Live on Bitcoin in Costa Rica, the Real Bitcoin Country

The short answer: In Costa Rica, you can pay for daily life with bitcoin, without a local bank account or a credit card. About 800 merchants accept it directly over Lightning, Bitcoin's instant payment network, through Bitcoin Jungle, the Costa Rican Bitcoin wallet and merchant network. Everyone else can still be paid from your bitcoin: the Bull Bitcoin exchange converts your sats to colones instantly, and the recipient gets an ordinary SINPE Móvil payment or a bank transfer.

Watch the video: We tried to get an ENTIRE TOWN to accept BITCOIN!

Costa Rica or El Salvador: which is the real Bitcoin country?

When people talk about a "Bitcoin country", they usually mean El Salvador.

In 2021, its government made bitcoin legal tender and required businesses to accept it. In January 2025, as part of a $1.4 billion IMF loan agreement, the law was amended: accepting bitcoin became voluntary. Adoption there is actually pretty low because it was imposed on the people by law, from the top, and the mandate was withdrawn less than four years later.

Costa Rica has no bitcoin law, no state wallet and no obligation for anyone. Merchants started accepting bitcoin by choice, one business at a time, because it solved real problems for them, and local Bitcoiners and visitors spend there on purpose, building a real grassroots economy.

The highest concentration of bitcoin merchants in the world

About 800 merchants accept bitcoin in Costa Rica through Bitcoin Jungle. About 300 of them are around Uvita, a small town on the southern Pacific coast where the network started in 2021. Others have grown in San José and Tamarindo, and Bitcoiners from all over the world now travel to the region every week of the year to see it for themselves.

Merchants on the Bitcoin Jungle map, October 2026. Source: maps.bitcoinjungle.app.

How to pay with bitcoin in Costa Rica: Lightning and SINPE Móvil

There are two ways to pay: Lightning at merchants that accept bitcoin, and SINPE Móvil for everyone else. Together, they cover a normal day: breakfast at a café and a surf lesson paid over Lightning, then a taxi or a market stall through SINPE Móvil, and larger bills such as rent by bank transfer from your Bull Bitcoin account.

Lightning, at merchants that accept bitcoin

Businesses that accept bitcoin are listed on the Bitcoin Jungle map, from hotels and restaurants to wellness businesses and tour operators. You can pay them with any Lightning wallet: scan their QR code, and the payment settles in a few seconds for a fraction of a cent.

SINPE Móvil: paying anyone in colones from your bitcoin

SINPE Móvil is the instant mobile payment system of the Banco Central de Costa Rica. A phone number is linked to a bank account, so paying someone only takes their number. It is part of everyday life for millions of people: central bank data reported by El Observador show more than 615 million transfers between January and October 2025.

SINPE Móvil is what extends bitcoin beyond the merchants that accept it. You pay in bitcoin, Bull Bitcoin converts it to colones, and the recipient receives an ordinary SINPE Móvil transfer on their phone number within seconds. A landlord, a taxi driver, a tour guide or a corner restaurant can be paid this way without ever touching Bitcoin.

To pay a SINPE Móvil number with bitcoin, you need the Bitcoin Jungle app, the Bull Bitcoin exchange, or BULL Wallet, Bull Bitcoin's self-custodial wallet, once you link it to your Bull Bitcoin account. In every case, Bull Bitcoin runs the conversion. In the Bitcoin Jungle app, you choose to sell, say, $10 of bitcoin to a phone number: a Lightning payment goes to Bull Bitcoin behind the scenes, and the colones arrive through SINPE Móvil. The app can also scan the SINPE Móvil number that most shops display at the counter, so you do not even have to type it.

Why it works: Bitcoin Jungle and passionate Bitcoiners

Bitcoin Jungle is an open-source community project co-founded in 2021 by Lee Salminen: a Lightning wallet, a point of sale and a merchant map, with a team that visits shops to onboard them. Lee tells the full story in our interview with him in Uvita.

It started with cash at a farmers market

Lee moved to Costa Rica during the pandemic. The ATMs had no cash after 10 a.m., the farmers market vendors did not take cards, and as a foreigner he had no access to SINPE Móvil. He wanted to buy food from local producers and could not pay for it.

"I would fly to the US and get cash and then come here and I would show up at the farmers market and offer to buy their Bitcoin. Any Bitcoin they received, I would just buy it from them, no fees."

After three or four weeks, something psychological happened: the vendors started to think that if a foreigner went to that much trouble every week to buy bitcoin from them, maybe they wanted it too. They went home, watched videos, and came back with questions, which Lee answered one by one at each stall. After a few months, most preferred to keep their bitcoin. Some merchants set up their own small exchange desks for the vendors who still needed colones, one of them run by a banana seller, and they replaced Lee.

Why a shopkeeper says yes

Most merchants are not won over by arguments about sound money. They accept bitcoin because it solves an immediate problem, starting with the cost of card payments. In Costa Rica, a card terminal costs a small business a couple of thousand dollars a year once you add the accountant, the monthly reporting, the lawyer and the registered company that the banks require. For a business with $20,000 in annual sales, that is 10% of revenue before the first transaction fee. A fruit seller we met in Costa Rica accepts bitcoin for exactly this reason: a terminal costs too much for her, and many foreigners and locals do not carry cash.

Bitcoin payments also cannot be reversed, which matters to rental businesses that lose money when customers dispute a card payment after a rental.

How a merchant gets set up

Onboarding takes about five minutes, with no hardware required.

Every business onboarded is added to the map, where tourists and residents look for places to spend bitcoin, which is free advertising in a tourist town. Bitcoin Jungle also adapted BTCPay Server so that a tip paid in bitcoin is split automatically between the Lightning addresses of all employees. When staff receive tips in bitcoin, they have a reason to learn how the payment works, instead of telling customers that the machine is not working.

Bitcoiners who spend there

The network grows because Bitcoiners and expats spend their sats at these businesses on purpose. Some come for a vacation and never leave, as Lee did after a two-week trip. The project runs free courses, and a local even opened a butcher shop in Uvita after noticing how much Bitcoiners like meat.

A ribeye from the butcher shop that opened in Uvita. Photo: Bull Bitcoin.

Why it works: Bull Bitcoin connects bitcoin to the local economy

For a long time, one question ended most conversations with merchants: "Can I pay my water bill with bitcoin?" The answer was no, and bitcoin was not very useful to a business that could not use it to pay its bills.

The missing piece came from a meetup in Uvita. Francis Pouliot, founder and CEO of Bull Bitcoin, had heard about the project from friends who were not sure whether it was serious, so he drove down one evening to see for himself. When he walked in, one of the co-founders was on stage in the middle of a twenty-minute speech against fiat money and banks. By the end of the evening, it was clear what was holding adoption back: Costa Rica needed an exchange where bitcoin could be converted to colones and back.

Bull Bitcoin built it. In 2023, it became the first Bitcoin exchange in Costa Rica to support SINPE Móvil, in partnership with Bitcoin Jungle. Today, Bull Bitcoin is the bridge between bitcoin and colones for everyone involved:

• You can pay anyone with a SINPE Móvil number from the Bull Bitcoin exchange or from BULL Wallet linked to your account, and Bull Bitcoin also runs the SINPE Móvil conversion inside the Bitcoin Jungle app.
• You can buy bitcoin with SINPE Móvil or a bank transfer in colones or dollars, and receive it in your own wallet (see the buying guide and how to increase your daily limits).
• Merchants can keep their sats, convert only what they need in seconds, or pay a supplier, an employee or a landlord directly from their bitcoin, without first moving the money to their own bank account.

Bull Bitcoin does the same in Mexico with bank transfers: see How to Pay with Bitcoin at Any Business in Mexico.

13 businesses in three hours in Santa Teresa

To show how fast adoption can spread to a new town, the Bull Bitcoin team went to Santa Teresa, a surf town on the Nicoya Peninsula, split into two teams, A and B, and competed to onboard as many businesses as possible with Bitcoin Jungle in three hours. We filmed it, and you can watch the full competition. After three hours, 13 businesses were set up to accept bitcoin.

What worked, if you want to do the same in your town:

• Start with owner-run businesses, such as a food truck or a small shop, where the owner can decide on the spot.
• Talk about their business: tourists who want to pay in bitcoin, a free listing on the map, no card fees and no chargebacks.
• Show the full cycle, receiving a payment and then sending part of it to a SINPE Móvil number, so the owner sees the colones land in a bank account.
• Expect "the owner is not here" and "I need to ask my partner". Leave a sticker, set a time and come back.

Step by step

For visitors: pay with bitcoin in Costa Rica

Step 1: Install a Lightning wallet. Any Lightning wallet works at merchants that accept bitcoin. The Bitcoin Jungle app is free on iOS and Android.

Step 2: Find merchants on the Bitcoin Jungle map and pay them by scanning their QR code.

Step 3: Pay everyone else through SINPE Móvil. In the Bitcoin Jungle app, open the SINPE Móvil option in the settings, scan the phone number displayed in the shop or type it, enter the amount, and send. You can do the same from the Bull Bitcoin exchange at app.bullbitcoin.com, or from BULL Wallet once you link it to your Bull Bitcoin account, by typing the phone number. To buy bitcoin locally, see our guide to buying bitcoin in Costa Rica.

For merchants: accept bitcoin and use it

Step 1: Download the Bitcoin Jungle app and create a username.

Step 2: Receive a payment. Type the amount, show the QR code, and the payment arrives in seconds.

Step 3: Get on the map and put a Bitcoin sticker at the counter, so customers know they can pay in bitcoin.

Step 4: Convert or pay through SINPE Móvil from the app: to your own number, to a supplier or to an employee.

Step 5: Keep your savings in self-custody in a wallet such as BULL Wallet, and back it up properly.

FAQ

Can you live on Bitcoin in Costa Rica?

Yes, for most daily expenses. About 800 merchants accept bitcoin through Bitcoin Jungle, mostly on the Pacific coast and in tourist towns, and Bull Bitcoin pays any other person's or business's SINPE Móvil number in colones, so rent, taxis and restaurants can be paid from your bitcoin even where it is not accepted.

Is Bitcoin legal in Costa Rica?

Yes, using it is allowed. According to the Banco Central de Costa Rica, bitcoin is not legal tender, but its use is not prohibited. No business has to accept it, and many choose to.

Can tourists pay with bitcoin in Costa Rica?

Yes. Visitors can pay merchants that accept bitcoin with any Lightning wallet, and pay anyone else's SINPE Móvil number or bank account in colones or dollars through Bull Bitcoin, without a Costa Rican bank account.

What is SINPE Móvil?

SINPE Móvil is Costa Rica's instant mobile payment system, run by the Banco Central de Costa Rica. It links a phone number to a bank account, and Bull Bitcoin uses it to deliver colones from bitcoin in seconds.

Does the person I pay need to understand Bitcoin?

No. If they do not accept bitcoin, you pay their SINPE Móvil number and they receive an ordinary transfer in colones. If they accept bitcoin through Bitcoin Jungle, the app works like any payment app: they type an amount and show a QR code.

How many businesses accept Bitcoin in Costa Rica?

About 800, including about 300 around Uvita, on the southern Pacific coast. Bitcoin Jungle publishes a map of them at maps.bitcoinjungle.app.

Is Costa Rica more of a Bitcoin country than El Salvador?

In daily life, yes. El Salvador required businesses to accept bitcoin by law in 2021 and made acceptance voluntary in January 2025. Costa Rica has no bitcoin law: merchants and Bitcoiners built adoption themselves, business by business.

What does it cost to pay with bitcoin through SINPE Móvil?

Lightning payments cost a fraction of a cent. Bull Bitcoin's only revenue is a spread on the bitcoin rate, published at bullbitcoin.com/rates, with no hidden commissions or deposit and withdrawal fees.

Can I buy bitcoin in Costa Rica?

Yes. With Bull Bitcoin, you can buy bitcoin with SINPE Móvil or a bank transfer in colones or dollars, and receive it in your own wallet.

Start today

Bitcoin Jungle app: the wallet and point of sale used by Costa Rican merchants, with the merchant map and SINPE Móvil built in. Get Bitcoin Jungle

Bull Bitcoin account: buy bitcoin with SINPE Móvil or pay anyone in Costa Rica from your bitcoin. Create my Bull Bitcoin account

BULL Wallet: Bull Bitcoin's self-custodial, open-source wallet, for the sats you want to keep. Download BULL Wallet