Costa Rica has a wide variety of modes of transportation, but the infrastructure has been neglected and lacked new investment. Despite the fact that much of it is in disrepair, there is a vast network of over 30,000 kilometers of roads in the area; This also applies to water delivery systems, railways, and ports. "Projects stalled by bureaucratic and legal concerns" were the findings of an investment from China that attempted to improve the infrastructure, according to a report from the U.S. government from 2016.

The majority of the country can be reached by road. The main highland cities in the country's Central Valley are connected to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts by paved, all-weather roads, and the Pan American Highway connects them to Nicaragua and Panama. However, Costa Rica's ports are having trouble keeping up with the growing volume of trade with its neighbors to the north and south. Their equipment is in poor condition and they have insufficient capacity. Prior to the recent government effort to reactivate the railroad for city transportation, it was inactive for several years. This is a summary from an OECD report from August 2016: The roads are extensive but of poor quality, and the railroads are in disrepair and are only gradually being reopened after being shut down in the 1990s. The capacity and quality of seaports are inadequate. Due to the inadequacy of the public transportation system, particularly the railways, internal transportation heavily relies on private road vehicles.