Q COSTA RICA — Nicaraguans make up 87% of refugee applications in Costa Rica, according to Cindy Molina, head of the Refugee Unit at the country’s Directorate General of Migration and Foreign Affairs. She gave the figure during a meeting with Costa Rican legislators, where officials discussed the unit’s workload and capacity.
Molina said applications rose sharply after the unrest and repression that began in Nicaragua in April 2018. Costa Rica went from receiving roughly 3,000 applications a year to a peak of 84,000 in a single year, she said.
Today, the unit receives about 25,000 to 30,000 new applications from Nicaraguans annually, with appointments scheduled according to its capacity. Cuba, Venezuela, and Colombia follow
Costa Rica grants refugee status under grounds set out in the 1951 Refugee Convention: persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. The country also recognizes gender as a ground for persecution.
The scale of applications has created a difficult balance for the system: officials must process a large backlog while determining which applicants qualify for protection. Molina cited a 537-day wait for a decision, based on a finding by Costa Rica’s comptroller. “The unit has worked to resolve older cases from other nationalities while giving priority to Nicaraguan applications because they make up the largest share,” she said.
The available figures underline the difference between filing an application and being granted refugee status. In 2025, Costa Rica received 23,044 new applications from Nicaraguans; 902 were approved and 1,048 denied that year. Those outcomes do not, by themselves, show what happened to all other applications, which may still have been pending or otherwise unresolved.
Capacity is another pressure point. Molina said the unit had 43 staff members before reductions brought its workforce to 36: 16 lawyers and 20 administrative staff. She also expressed uncertainty about whether the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, would be able to continue funding those positions. Costa Rica’s unit provides application forms in Spanish, English, French and Miskito, and relies on UNHCR support for interpreters.
What the numbers show—and what they don’t
The 87% figure makes clear that Costa Rica’s asylum system is closely tied to displacement from Nicaragua. The surge described by Molina, and the volume of new applications still arriving, point to a sustained demand for protection rather than a short-lived spike.
But the percentage needs context. It describes the nationality of applicants, not the share of Nicaraguans who qualify for asylum, nor the number of people currently waiting for decisions.
The 2025 approvals and denials are a snapshot of outcomes during one year; they cannot be directly compared with the number of applications filed that year without knowing how many decisions concerned cases submitted earlier.
The staffing figures also raise a practical concern. A system with long waits and a large, continuing caseload may struggle to provide timely decisions if its capacity falls. For applicants, delays can leave important questions about safety and legal status unresolved. For Costa Rica, the challenge is to maintain a fair process while ensuring that people with valid protection claims are identified and cases are handled efficiently.
The account is based on remarks made at a meeting with legislators. More detailed, regularly updated data—such as the pending caseload, processing times by nationality and outcomes by application year—would help clarify how well the system is keeping pace.