10 000 Colones

Costa Rica's shift to polymer began with this denomination, which entered circulation in 2019 as part of a broader effort to reduce counterfeiting losses on high-value notes. The substrate is produced by Note Printing Australia's Guardian polymer technology — standard now for many Latin American issuers, though Costa Rica came to it later than neighbors like Mexico. Orell Füssli, a Zürich printer with an unbroken run dating to the sixteenth century, handled production; their work on polymer has been more limited than their deep history in intaglio security printing on paper.