How do you pay online in Costa Rica?
Mostly with a Visa or Mastercard credit card, which PCMI estimates at 68% of e-commerce volume in 2024, followed by debit cards at 16% and bank transfers at 10%. Local gateways such as Tilopay and ONVO also confirm SINPE Móvil payments automatically and offer Tasa Cero installments at checkout.
In detail
Mostly with a Visa or Mastercard credit card, which PCMI estimates at 68% of e-commerce volume in 2024, followed by debit cards at 16% and bank transfers at 10%. Local gateways such as Tilopay and ONVO also confirm SINPE Móvil payments automatically and offer Tasa Cero installments at checkout.
How people pay in Costa Rica in 2026
Costa Rica is one of the most digital payment markets in Latin America, and the central bank built the rail that made it so. SINPE Móvil, the Banco Central de Costa Rica's phone-number transfer service, settled 747.5 million transfers worth more than ₡12 trillion in 2025, up 15% in volume, and 4.5 million phone numbers were registered on it by December.
Payment by digital wallet and X-Pay in Costa Rica
Online, wallets stay small: PCMI puts digital wallets at 3% of e-commerce volume in 2024. Merchants should still enable Apple Pay and Google Pay, which gateways such as Tilopay and Banco Nacional terminals support, since they ride on the same regulated card fees. Unlike in Colombia, where Nequi and Daviplata hold tens of millions of accounts, Costa Rican wallets are an extension of the bank card.
More detail in our #PayWorldTour guide Payment methods in Costa Rica.