Veterinaria Clinica | Pet Services

November 19th, 2024 by Time To Time Out

Here is how we successfully took our dog from Nicaragua to Costa Rica.

1. Go to Veterinary (Veterinaria Vida Animal - “Veterinaria Clinica” in iOverlander). They make the health certificate with some copies and explain everything. Here you pay US$30
2. Go to the Bank (Banco LAFISE) pay US$13 for IPSA and C$550 for Cetrex. They only take cash.
3. Go to the copy center next to the veterinary and make 3 copies of your passport, 2 copies of the dog vacinations and 1 copy of each of the two bank receipts (ask the veterinary where the copy center is).
4. Go to Cetrex give them 1x copy of health certificate, 1x copy of passport, 1x copy of vaccination, 1x copy and original of receipt from bank. He will make some stuff in the computer and then give you a small note with the “Nummero de Tramite” on it. Keep this note its important!
5. Go to IPSA give them 1x copy of health certificate, 1x copy of passport, 1x copy of vaccination, 1x copy and original of receipt from bank. They will do some stuff and give you back a blue and a white paper. The blue one is for the border, the white one is for you.
6. You are now ready to go to the border. The whole process until here took us about 2 hours.

At the Nicaragua border:
1. Go to the border
2. Do passport and vehicle check out.
3. After that give the blue document from the dog to the people of “DGA”. (Enter the building where its written “No hay passo”). They do some stuff and give you back the blue paper.
4. Go to the big blue “IPSA Pet Export Office” building. Give them 1x original health certificate, 1x copy of passport, 1x copy of vaccination, 1x the note with the “Nummero de Tramite” of Certex, 1x the blue paper from IPSA. They will make some stuff on the computer and then give you the import permit for the dog.
5. Go back to the big building with the “No hay paso” entrance. Give the import permit to someone from the “cuarentena” on the left side. They need a copy of the document, the guy made one for us. He stamps and signs all the documents and gives you back the documents.
6. You are now ready to cross the border

At the Costa Rica border:
1. Cross the border into Costa Rica
2. Make passport check in. Then right below is the dog “office”.
3. Give the stamped dog import permit to the lady. They make some other samps on it and then give you back one document. Here you pay US$20.
4. Now you are good to go. The dog is now successfully imported.
5. The whole process at the border took about 2 hours.

July 9th, 2024 by Kimball Stone

Friendly and helpful. For reasons that I still don't understand, they told me that I needed to go to the local ipsa office for part of my export paperwork. Google doesn't have it listed. The cetrex people didn't know that it even existed. So the vet rode his moto to cetrex and escorted me from there to the ipsa office for the part of the process that needed to be done there.

May 17th, 2024 by Molly

Very well explained! It’s complicated but do-able. It’s really needed for Costa Rica!

November 17th, 2023 by laynetraveling

Fantastic and íknowledgeable as everyone has said. He makes the process incredibly clear. I wanted to add a picture.

November 17th, 2023 by conchscooter.blogspot.com

They charge $30 to do the health certificate and they’ll give you three copies.
They will give the two account numbers you have to deposit money in at the LAFISE bank.
You get in line and any clerk can do the deposits. Bring your passport and one copy and I used my driver license to give her my home address. I told her my Rivas address as a hotel and she was fine with that.
Take the receipts to the Cetrex-Vecun office near the Bomberos (fire station ) office.
Cetrex is upstairs in a yellow building behind the big blue and white monument near the bomberos. Give them the bank receipts and a copy of your pet passport and your own passport and the health certificate from the vet. They will give you the package of documents you have to give to IPSA at the border.
All this running around to export a pet! Ridiculous!

August 23rd, 2023 by chasing.vida

Super recommend this place! All the vets were very nice and patient with our Spanish. Got three copies of the health certificate.

They also carry NexGard Spectra (has been SO hard to find) and many other medicines like Bravecto and HartGard. We ended up buying a year’s supply and they gave us a little $5 USD discount on the health certificate. They even cut our dogs nails at no extra cost.

They gave us a paper with account numbers to go pay the $13 USD fee for Cetrex and $15 USD fee (in Cordoba) for IPSA at the bank. Went to Lafise and was super easy.

June 13th, 2023 by katja.roe

Everything as described BUT new cost for Cetrex: 546.35 Cordobas.

May 2nd, 2023 by PeterT

excellent service... tell you about what to do

February 17th, 2023 by nefertnour

as everybody says, very professional, still 30usd for the health certificate and he gives you all the instructions for the following steps (pay at banco lafise and then go to Centrex with your voucher, then at the border go to ipsa)

October 6th, 2022 by iguana.panamericana

Very friendly and professional. Did a proper health check and arranged the health certificate to exit Nica and enter Costa Rica. It's $30USD for the health certificate. They give out a paper to pay exit fees at the bank ($13USD for IPSA and 150 cordoba for Cetrex - paid in whatever currency). After going to the bank, go to Cetrex and after that go to IPSA at the border. We did it all in one day, good luck!

November 3rd, 2021 by hannokolvenbach

This place is in wrong location - it is located at 11.43754, -85.82865

February 27th, 2020 by andrew.couch01

very friendly and helpful vet. he knew all the steps we needed to cross the border from Nicaragua to Costa Rica. provided health certificate (2 copies), and written info with the 2 codes needed to pay at the bank for Cetrex and IPSA (must pay at bank first because neither establishment takes money) both are in Rivas, and IPSA (and another bank) is at the border. also had us follow one of the employees to show us the location of Cetrex, as it's not clearly signed. easy process and very kind. note: we weren't planning on crossing the border until the first of March, and were instructed to only do Cetrex in Rivas and IPSA at the border, because IPSA might give us problems with a February date on bank receipt. we did as instructed, and all went fine.

January 9th, 2020 by cooltouren.wordpress.com

health certificada, you will need this, if you are staying longer then 72 hours in Nicaragua for the CETREX-Form /IPSA

Very friendly staff, no English speakers 😑