$90 Find Cheap Flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica

This is the cheapest one-way flight price found by a KAYAK user in the last 72 hours by searching for a flight from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica departing on 1/7. Fares are subject to change and may not be available on all flights or dates of travel. Click the price to replicate the search for this deal.
1 adult
1 adult, Economy, 0 bags

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Cheap Flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica

Cheapest round-trip prices found by our users on KAYAK in the last 72 hours
San José
San José1 stop$229
Liberia
Liberia1 stop$265
San José
San José1 stop$229
Liberia
Liberia1 stop$265

Book Cheap Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica Plane Tickets

 
Here are some of the best deals found on KAYAK recently from the most popular airlines for round-trip flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica that are departing in the next months. While these flights were available on KAYAK in the last 72 hours, prices and availability are subject to change and deals may expire.
Discover the best prices for you by selecting your travel dates on KAYAK.

Recent round-trip flight deals from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica

Wed, Jan 7 - Sat, Jan 17
Frontier Logo
5:45 am - 1:48 pm
BWI
-
SJO
9h 03m1 stop
Frontier Logo
3:12 pm - 12:31 am
SJO
-
BWI
8h 19m1 stop
$229Frontier
Fri, Jan 9 - Sat, Jan 17
Frontier Logo
5:45 am - 1:36 pm
BWI
-
SJO
8h 51m1 stop
Frontier Logo
3:12 pm - 12:31 am
SJO
-
BWI
8h 19m1 stop
$230Frontier
Sat, Jan 31 - Wed, Feb 4
Spirit Airlines Logo
6:20 am - 12:22 pm
BWI
-
SJO
7h 02m1 stop
Spirit Airlines Logo
12:33 pm - 11:47 pm
SJO
-
BWI
10h 14m1 stop
$235Spirit Airlines
Thu, Jan 22 - Thu, Jan 29
United Airlines Logo
12:25 pm - 8:39 pm
BWI
-
SJO
9h 14m1 stop
United Airlines Logo
6:30 am - 4:06 pm
SJO
-
BWI
8h 36m1 stop
$236United Airlines
Wed, Feb 4 - Mon, Feb 9
American Airlines Logo
11:34 am - 10:30 pm
IAD
-
SJO
11h 56m2 stops
American Airlines Logo
6:38 am - 9:17 pm
SJO
-
IAD
13h 39m1 stop
$240American Airlines
Sun, Jan 25 - Wed, Jan 28
United Airlines Logo
5:18 pm - 1:15 pm
BWI
-
SJO
20h 57m2 stops
United Airlines Logo
6:30 am - 9:21 pm
SJO
-
BWI
13h 51m2 stops
$240United Airlines
Thu, Jan 22 - Tue, Jan 27
Avianca Logo
6:15 pm - 1:40 pm
IAD
-
SJO
20h 25m1 stop
Avianca Logo
4:15 pm - 12:10 am
SJO
-
IAD
6h 55m1 stop
$242Avianca
Wed, Jan 21 - Wed, Jan 28
Avianca Logo
4:15 pm - 11:40 pm
IAD
-
SJO
8h 25m1 stop
Avianca Logo
7:50 pm - 3:10 am
SJO
-
IAD
6h 20m1 stop
$243Avianca
Wed, Jan 21 - Thu, Jan 29
American Airlines Logo
6:36 pm - 7:44 pm
BWI
-
SJO
26h 08m1 stop
American Airlines Logo
1:51 pm - 11:21 pm
SJO
-
BWI
8h 30m1 stop
$243American Airlines
Sat, Jan 31 - Fri, Feb 6
Delta Logo
6:55 pm - 1:24 pm
DCA
-
LIR
19h 29m1 stop
Delta Logo
3:05 pm - 11:32 pm
LIR
-
DCA
7h 27m1 stop
$305Delta
Booking Insights

KAYAK's insights & trends for Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica flights

Get data-powered insights and trends into flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica to help you find the cheapest flights, the best time to fly and much more.

What is the cheapest Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica flight route?

Data is based on round-trip flight searches on KAYAK over the past month.

The cheapest ticket to Costa Rica from Washington, D.C. found in the last 72 hours was to San José, at $233 round-trip. The most popular route is from Washington, D.C. Dulles Intl Airport (IAD) to San José (SJO), and the cheapest round-trip airline ticket found on this route in the last 72 hours was $233.

Can I save money by flying with a layover from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

The average round-trip price for all non-stop flights, flights with one layover, and flights with two layovers for the route found by users searching on KAYAK in the last 2 weeks.

No, with an average price for the route of $404, prices are generally cheapest when you fly direct.

What is the cheapest month to fly from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

To calculate monthly average prices, KAYAK takes all prices for each month over the last year for round-trip flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica, removes the top 0.1% to account for outliers, and then takes the median of all values for each month.

The cheapest month for flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica is October, when tickets cost $277 (return) on average. On the other hand, the most expensive months are December and April, when the average cost of round-trip tickets is $610 and $527 respectively.

What’s the cheapest day of the week to fly from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

The average price of all round-trip flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica clicked on KAYAK for each day over the last 12 months.

Your flight ticket price will generally be cheaper if you fly to Costa Rica on a Tuesday and more expensive on a Saturday. On your return trip to Washington, D.C., you should consider flying back on a Friday, and avoid Sundays for better deals.

How far in advance should I book a flight from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

To calculate weekly average prices, KAYAK takes all prices for each week before departure over the last year for round-trip flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica, removes the top 0.1% to account for outliers, and then takes the average of all the values for each week.

To get a below average price on the flight from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica, you should book around 1 week before departure. For the absolute cheapest price, our data suggests you should book 3 weeks before departure.

Good to know

Low seasonSeptember
Cheapest flight$90
Best time to beat the crowds with an average 31% drop in price.
Most popular time to fly with an average 29% increase in price.
Flight from Baltimore to San José

FAQs - booking Costa Rica flights

  • Can I rent a car at the Liberia International Airport (LIR)?

    You can make a rental car reservation with several companies that service LIR, including Budget, Enterprise, Avis, and Hertz, among others. All rental car companies that serve LIR have free shuttles to their nearby offices. Keep in mind that you need to purchase Costa Rican car insurance, which you can do at these rental car counters.

  • Can I find a non-stop flight from the Washington, D.C. area to San Jose, Costa Rica?

    From Washington Dulles International Airport, Avianca operates non-stop flights to San Jose. However, you are unlikely to find a non-stop flight that departs from Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. However, Spirit flies from BWI to SJO with one stop in Orlando, Delta with one stop in Atlanta, and American Airlines with one stop in Miami.

  • How much baggage can I take on a flight from Washington, D.C. to Liberia, Costa Rica?

    You should be able to find a cheap flight from Washington, D.C. to Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport that allows one carry-on for the cheapest fares available. Some examples are a Delta flight with one stop in Atlanta or an American Airlines flight that connects in Dallas or Charlotte.

  • Do I need a visa in order to fly from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

    Americans traveling from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica for purposes of tourism do not need a visa for a visit that lasts less than 180 days. However, when you enter Costa Rica, you need to show proof of return or onward travel. Your passport needs to be valid for the length of your stay in Costa Rica.

  • How does KAYAK find such low prices on flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

    KAYAK is a travel search engine. That means we look across the web to find the best prices we can find for our users. With over 2 billion flight queries processed yearly, we are able to display a variety of prices and options on flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica.

  • How does KAYAK's flight Price Forecast tool help me choose the right time to buy my flight ticket from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

    KAYAK’s flight Price Forecast tool uses historical data to determine whether the price for a flight from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica is likely to change within 7 days, so travelers know whether to wait or book now.

  • What is the Hacker Fare option on flights from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

    Hacker Fares allow you to combine one-way tickets in order to save you money over a traditional round-trip ticket. You could then fly from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica with an airline and back with another airline.

  • What is KAYAK's "flexible dates" feature and why should I care when looking for a flight from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica?

    Sometimes travel dates aren't set in stone. If your preferred travel dates have some wiggle room, flexible dates will show you all the options when flying from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica up to 3 days before/after your preferred dates. You can then pick the flights that suit you best.

  • What is the cheapest time of day to fly to Costa Rica?

    The cheapest time of day to fly to Costa Rica is generally in the afternoon, when round-trip flights cost $335 on average. Morning departures are around 103% more expensive than evening flights, on average. The most expensive time of day to fly to Costa Rica is generally in the morning, which is peak travel time and where the average cost of a ticket is $787.

Top tips for finding cheap flights to Costa Rica

  • When you fly from the Washington, D.C. greater metropolitan area to Costa Rica, you might depart from either Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) or Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI). Washington Dulles International Airport is located on the northwestern outskirts of Washington, D.C., while Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport is on the southern outskirts of Baltimore, towards Washington, D.C.
  • Washington Dulles International Airport serves as a hub for United airlines and SkyWest airlines, among others. Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport is a hub for Southwest Airlines, AirTran Airways, and others.
  • San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, tends to be the most popular Costa Rica destination for travelers from the Washington, D.C. area. When you fly into San Jose, you'll be landing at the Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO). This airport is a hub for Sansa Airlines, Volaris Costa Rica, and Avianca Costa Rica.
  • When you book your airline ticket to the capital city of Costa Rica, make sure you are going to the correct San Jose. The airport in San Jose, Costa Rica has the airport code SJO. The airport in San Jose, California, which is named San Jose Mineta International Airport, has the airport code SJC. Be careful not to mix them up.
  • If you want to fly into the north of Costa Rica, closer to the beaches on the west coast, Liberia in the Guanacaste Province makes an ideal destination. You will be landing at the Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport (LIR). Also called the Liberia International Airport, which is situated about 7 miles west of Downtown Liberia.

Reviews of the top 5 airlines serving from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica

 
Need help choosing which airline to fly with from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica? KAYAK airline reviews give an overall score for each airline based on loads of factors, including comfort, boarding, in-flight entertainment and more, to make your decision easier. See airline scores according to verified KAYAK customer reviews.
7.9
DeltaOverall score based on 8008 reviews
8.1Boarding
8.5Crew
7.9Entertainment
7.3Food
7.9Comfort
Airline reviews

Lady Pilot was perfect in every way wheels up to wheels down communication, professionalism, excellent on time departure and on time arrival, excellent communication! Fantastic job with Superb attitude!!

10.0 ExcellentVenkata Krishna, Dec 2025
ATL - SDF
Read more Delta reviews

Lady Pilot was perfect in every way wheels up to wheels down communication, professionalism, excellent on time departure and on time arrival, excellent communication! Fantastic job with Superb attitude!!

The food is terrible. The staff is wonderful. Comfort is good.

Left on time, a bit delayed due to headwinds most of the trip.

I fly Delta all the time, have Platinum Medallion status. But this route seems to have major problems with delays and seems to never leave on time! Have only taken it twice in the last two weeks, and each time it had delays of more than 1 hour... very disappointed!!!!

Getting to the flight was arduous and lengthy. The flight itself was good but the food option wasn’t a good selection. I need to do a Kosher option on my return. Flight crew were nice

Good seats in Main cabin, excellent service and excellent landing

My flight was cancelled with no explanation after I had already cleared security. I was given 4 options to rebook, only one being non-stop like I had paid for. I grabbed it. It was 4 plus hours later and then took off even later. Biggest complaint is that I booked early and had an aisle seat. They gave me a "window" seat in front of the exit row, so the seat did not decline. I weigh all of 103 #s and it was tight for me! For what I paid, I feel I was kind of ripped off. I think they should have given me the empty comfort seat for the inconvenience. There was no apology nor any explanation as to why the flight was cancelled. My guess is it benefitted Delta in some way.

Very smooth, on-time, and pleasantly uneventful flight. The team at the gate and on board were professional and genuinely courteous. The pilot kept us well updated throughout, and both takeoff and landing were steady and enjoyable without any drama. Just a good, solid flight. Thank you! 💗

Staff was exceptional! Everyone was kind, professional and friendly making the trip very pleasant. Thank you!

No lunch on a x-country flight scheduled for 10:50 am departure, arrived 5+ hrs later. That requires a black box label before you pay for the tickets. Worst, when I checked in online, it's specifically said that lunch was served on his flight for economy Plus passengers.

Very strict carry on rules meant most of the plane had to gate check their luggage. As is often the case had things that were broken because of this, but I appreciated not being charged to gate check. Otherwise good flight and great crew once on the plane

Some of the Air hostesses are not that friendly. Need improvement

I liked the meatloaf the chicken was awful but the plane was on time and got there and the staff was nice.

They were super friendly bumped me up to exit row free of charge, All flight legs were on time

Boarding was quick & efficient; they gave boarding groups due priority; staff & air crew were very cordial and helpful, pleasant flight.

Very happy with my flight. I would definitely recommend it.

Did upgrade, travel in business it was great (more room I could sleep)

We paid extra with copa for seats near one another The plane was changed and we lost our seats We were all Separated. We have not received a refund for our seats despite emailing and calling.

Placed us in the last rear row of the plane so could not recline seats because of the rear wall, and also made it more of a tight space when the passenger in front reclined their seat. While understand seat assignments, every passenger should be afforded a reclining seat. The odor control scent from the restrooms was overwhelming strong. My wife and I could not deal with it, and she suffered a terrible headache as a result. I kept getting hit by the crew since I was on the ilse seat. No apologies, nothing. They made me feel like I was supposed to take the beating for a 3 hr flight.

There was no individual at the front check in when I arrived. I waited for at least 15 minutes and walked around asking security/janitors if they could help and they did not have a solution. So I had to take my checked bag through security and they threw away some of my items. I ended up making it to the gate only a few minutes before it closed due to my waiting for an agent at check in.

Not great experience - we were super late boarding due to issues with aircraft. Then when we finally all got onboard and seated and they started taxiing out to the runway they just stopped then turned around and went back to the airport. Apparently the crew “ran out of time” to legally fly us. They mentioned that they were about 2 minutes away from taking off. I understand the rules and safety but kinda wonder why they would have bothered boarding us in the first place? Had to go all the way back and de plane and then wait in a HUGE line to get a hotel (this is somewhere around 2:30am) finally got to hotel by Uber (no shuttle after 20min so gave up) and they ended up putting us all back on the same aircraft at 10am next morning so got about 2.5 hours sleep. They did give us. $250 credit, but it was a São Paulo Brazil flight out of Dulles. The flight and everything was fine.

Starlink wifi on the Embraer E175 is an excellent experience. I was able to connect and work from IAD all the way to approach into BTV.

7 hours delayed due to operational issues on United’s end. Basically laziness.

Short flight but an "eager to help" crew made the journey more enjoyable!

During booking, I kept trying submitting my payment from the Mexican website and it didn't work. After I had the idea to change it to the Canadian website, it worked but I had to be charged the equivalent of 50 CAD more. I received the clear instruction that I would only be able to check-in at the airport and that it was impossible to select a seat 24 hours before departure, that I had to pay 144 CAD to do so, although not only was I able to check-in 24 hours before departure, but I could have selected my seats for free then. All in all, I almost threw $200 out the window due to misleading information. Besides, the app kept crashing, the information to get to the gate on the app was inaccurate, my gate was switched and I was only informed once in the air (luckily I had noticed the departure pannel), I was not addressed in my language beforehand and even if I tried I was immediately answered in English (which meant the crew understood but didn't want to answer accordingly), there was only one snack & beverage service on my medium haul flight and no beverage service on my short haul flight. To be fair, the planes were comfortable, the crew apart from the language issue was helpful, dynamic and engaging, the plane was clean and the directions were clear and direct. United has a lot of potential to be one of my favourite airlines, but the devil is in the details and a lot of them missed the target.

Better WiFi. I cannot understand that in 2025, United is so behind on a technology that is now a necessity and still painfully unreliable, slow and keeps disconnecting.

Great service on board. Boarding a bit slow due to process. Food was pretty average.

Very small cramped plane for an international flight. Everything else was good, but it was maybe the smallest comfort-wise I've ever been on for longer than 3-4 hours and the trip was 7.5

Flight was delayed 3 hours. No food and drink vouchers was provided. They offered a mini pretzel bag and water .

Staff was rude. Didn’t give water for 2 hours. Worst service

it was fine, decent flight... dont get food besides cookies or pretzels so not sure why you ask about food. same for entertainment..

I got sick nothing contagious but distressing and the care I received by Kayla? Keighly the flight attendant will be memorable for ever. Thank You

I got sick nothing contagious but distressing enough and the care I received on the flight was astounding.

Waaay too small plane. They also need to up the size of the overhead bins. I would love to keep me 3k with of camera equipment in my hard case baggahe instead of it being thrown into the belly of the plane

Attendants were pleasant and the flight was smooth and relaxed.

A little late at the start but all worked out well.

It was fine. No drinks nor snacks offered though. I thought that was unusual.

I liked the humor of the captain and crew on the flight from Flagstaff to Dallas. They were humorous.

We were told the flight was delayed 5 times, then it was moved to the next day.

Flight delay was communicated before leaving for airport which caused it to be a non-event. Great flight and crew!

No free snacks nor drinks on very short 30min flight. Entertainment system is over wifi to your own phone or tablet, which is good but often a show or movie just stops and refuses to continue

I like the crew they're very friendly. I don't like. on five hour flight they not offered snacks. Any drink. Not even coffee

Not even water is offered on the flight. You cannot lean back on the seats and the seats are so narrow you can’t avoid rubbing elbows with the person next to you.

I couldnt recline the seat. Other than that crew was very attentive and helpful. Thsnk you

I had to go to the boarding counter for them to enter my return flight as it’s not with Avianca. There was a long queue as there were lots of people being called to the counter.

This low cost airline looks and fells more like a local bus. In a 6 hour flight not being able to recline a seat is torture. The only thing available with no charge is a glass of water provided by, mostly, rude staff. Our luggage didn’t arrive

Did not fly with Pakistan International Airlines. Have never flown with Pakistan International Airlines.

Boarding, crew were excellent, food was ok and entertainment need to improve

The usb plugs for charging your phone didn’t work, the seats were coarse and hard. Not very comfortable. No inflight WiFi

The seats were uncomfortable and barely reclined at all. Very little leg room despite being business class. The crew was friendly and the food was good. Had to use my own phone for in-flight entertainment.

Everything you need to know for your flight from Washington, D.C. to Costa Rica

Cabin class types available on flights to Costa Rica

Cabin classes available on flights to Costa Rica. Prices are the lowest found on KAYAK over the last 7 days. Price and availability is not guaranteed.