What is the Currency in Costa Rica?
The official currency of Costa Rica is the Colón (pronounced the same as "cologne" - plural: colones; sign: ₡; code: CRC). Even so, US dollars and Euros are accepted in many tourist locations at hotels, grocery stores and boutiques.
What is the current USD to CRC Buy Exchange Rate?
As of July 9, 2023 the exchange rate is 547 colones to the dollar. Here is a link to the Costa Rican Central Bank official exchange rates.
From February 1, 2022 up until July 9, 2023 the colón has ranged from a high of 691.76/$ on 24 June 2022, down to 529.06/$ on April 25, 2023. Over the past few months it seems to have settled around the 530 to 540 range.
Understanding exchange rates becomes quite valuable when it comes to making any type of purchase, especially for foreigners living in or visiting Costa Rica. When you have colones to exchange for US dollars, you BUY dollars, the bank will SELL you US dollars at the current exchange rate of the day. If you have US dollars and you need colones, you will instead SELL your dollars to the bank who will BUY them and give you colones in exchange. 
When purchasing real estate, you will notice that everything from verbal negotiations, listing prices and closing costs are expressed in US dollars. This becomes only a matter of interpretation and practicality when you realize that the value of an asset in Costa Rica and in the National Registry is always going to be represented in Costa Rican colones. However, even if big transactions are negotiated in USD, Colones is the currency we use in our daily life when we pay our grocery, gas, go to restaurants and bars and also to pay our utilities and all other regular transactions we make on a regular basis.
Therefore, it is important to be educated on how to work with the exchange of these two primary currencies (USD and CRC) that we use in Costa Rica to simplify the understanding of the amounts in any transaction.
Derrick Rowland, REMAX Administrative Assistant