Costa Rica: 2 schemes to know about before you drive in.
San José has 2 driving restrictions on our books: the Restricción Vehicular mediante el Esquema Hora/Placa en el Centro de… (number-plate driving ban) and the Reglamento para la Ordenación Horaria de la Circulación de Vehículos… (heavy vehicle ban). What is a number-plate driving ban?
Sources last read on 2026-09-15, from the authorities' own pages. The next scheduled check is 2026-12-08.
| Scheme | Kind | Fine |
|---|---|---|
| Restricción Vehicular mediante el Esquema Hora/Placa en el Centro de San José | number-plate driving ban | 26005.53 CRC |
| Reglamento para la Ordenación Horaria de la Circulación de Vehículos Pesados (Decreto Ejecutivo N° 38238-MOPT) | heavy vehicle ban | not in our sources |
Central San José closes to one pair of plate endings every weekday. Between 06:00 and 19:00, Monday to Friday, a car whose plate ends in that day's two digits may not drive inside the ring formed by the Circunvalación and two La Uruca routes — there is no charge that buys you in.
The exemption that matters most to a visitor is the one the decree spells out: cars owned by rent-a-car companies are exempt outright, and the driver proves it by showing the hire company's title to the traffic police. Motorcycles are exempt too, and any private car carrying four or more people is exempt between 06:00 and 08:00 and between 16:30 and 19:00.
MOPT suspends the whole thing by resolution over holidays and school breaks, which is why a date matters as much as a plate here: the resolution in force as we read the decree on 15 September 2026 lifts the restriction for the full 24 hours on three public holidays — 15 September, 1 December and 25 December 2026.
Costa Rica keeps heavy lorries off the six national routes into San José at rush hour. A goods vehicle heavier than the maximum allowed for a type C2+ (6 tonnes) may not use the named stretches of routes 1, 2-252, 3, 5, 27 and 32 between 06:00 and 08:00 heading into the capital, Monday to Friday — 05:00 to 07:00 on the Braulio Carrillo above the toll.
There is a matching evening ban leaving San José between 16:30 and 18:30, but since 13 February 2024 the ministry has suspended it on routes 1, 3, 27 and 32, so today it bites only on the Florencio del Castillo towards Cartago and on route 5 towards Santo Domingo de Heredia. Nothing here is a charge and nothing here touches a car: below the C2+ weight the scheme does not exist for you, at any hour.
If you are driving a lorry, note that this is a rule about specific segments of specific roads, not about a zone you can see the edge of.