SJO to Jaco: the bus moved, and the last one leaves at 7 p.m.

Current Transportes Jaco timetables, the terminal almost every guide still gets wrong, and how your landing hour decides the mode

Article Dallas Rogers · September 30, 2026 · 7 min read

Short answer: the public bus from San Jose to Jaco runs seven times a day at most, the last departure is 7:00 p.m., and it no longer leaves from Terminal 7-10. It now leaves from Terminal Atlantico Norte in Barrio Mexico. The bus does not start at the airport, so if you land after about 5:00 p.m. your realistic options are a private transfer or a rental car.

Jaco is the closest Pacific beach town to Juan Santamaria International Airport (SJO), and that proximity is the whole reason people pick it for a first or last night. One road does most of the work. What trips travelers up is not the route. It is the departure point and the clock.

Almost every guide still in circulation tells you to catch the Jaco bus at Terminal 7-10, sometimes called the Coca-Cola terminal. That information is out of date, and following it will cost you an afternoon.

What still runs, by the time you land

Times are your landing time, not your scheduled arrival. Build in the queue at immigration and the wait at baggage claim.

Where the Jaco bus actually leaves from now

Transportes Jaco, the bus company that runs the San Jose to Jaco route, departs from Terminal Atlantico Norte, 600 metres north of the La Merced church, on Calle 12 in San Jose. The Jaco end of the route is the terminal at Centro Comercial Plaza Jaco. Both addresses come from the carrier's own contact page, checked on 23 September 2026.

The change happened because Terminal 7-10 stopped operating as a bus terminal. Portafolio Inmobiliario, which had run it, confirmed to CRHoy on 5 May 2025 that it no longer administers the site and that the building had been leased in full to a single tenant. From 1 May 2025 the routes that used it, including Jaco, San Carlos, Monteverde, Zarcero and Cobano, announced new departure points. Transportes Jaco moved to Terminal Atlantico Norte.

One thing worth knowing: several carriers described the move as temporary at the time. The Jaco address above is what the company publishes today, and it has held for well over a year, but if you are reading this months from now, open the carrier's own contact page before you go rather than trusting a blog post, including this one.

The current timetable, both directions

From the carrier's published schedule, checked 23 September 2026.

San Jose to Jaco

Jaco to San Jose

Read the midweek rows carefully. Tuesday through Thursday the service thins to five runs a day in each direction, and coming back from Jaco there is a long gap between 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., then nothing until 5:00 p.m. A Wednesday plan built on a Saturday timetable falls apart quietly.

The carrier puts the journey at roughly two hours, traffic depending. Its buses do not have air conditioning or an onboard toilet, and the company states it does not make meal or rest stops on the route, though it may pick up passengers along the way.

Tickets: the rules that catch people out

Tickets are sold online or at the ticket counters in San Jose, Orotina and Jaco. The company does not take phone reservations, and a seat is only yours once the ticket is bought. Seats are assigned at purchase, so you cannot choose where you sit.

The San Jose ticket office is open Saturday to Monday from 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and Tuesday to Friday from 6:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. An unused ticket loses its validity, but you can change the date or time, as long as you do it at least an hour before the original departure. Children from three years old need their own ticket.

The thing nobody says out loud: the bus is not an airport service

This is the part that turns a cheap ride into a long afternoon.

The bus starts in downtown San Jose, not at the airport. SJO sits in Alajuela, west of the capital. So the real journey is airport to downtown San Jose, then downtown to Jaco, with luggage, and then Plaza Jaco to wherever you are sleeping. The carrier's own route description confirms the bus leaves the San Jose terminal and runs out along the General Cañas highway (Route 1), joins the Bernardo Soto, picks up Route 27 toward Caldera at El Coyol in Alajuela, then takes Route 34 down to Jaco.

You will pass within a few kilometres of the airport you just left. You cannot get on there.

That is not a reason to skip the bus. It is a reason to be honest about the door to door time. If you are travelling light, landing in the morning and counting every dollar, the bus is a genuinely good ride on a genuinely good road. If you are landing at dusk with two suitcases and a tired six-year-old, it is the wrong tool.

Shared shuttle, private transfer, rental car

We have deliberately left prices out. Fares and transfer rates move, and a number written in September is a small lie by December. Ask us and we will give you what things actually cost the week you are travelling.

Flight day, in reverse

This is where the timetable matters most, and where it bites hardest.

The first bus out of Jaco is 4:30 a.m. Monday to Friday and 5:00 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. At roughly two hours, that puts you in downtown San Jose around 6:30 a.m. or 7:00 a.m. But you are in downtown San Jose, not at the terminal, and you still need to get out to SJO in Alajuela through morning traffic.

For a flight before about 11:00 a.m., the bus is not a plan. It is a gamble with your holiday attached. Take a transfer timed to your flight, or sleep near the airport the night before.

How we would actually plan it

Work backwards from one number, which is the hour your wheels touch the runway.

Land before lunch and you have every option, so pick on price and comfort. Land mid afternoon and the bus becomes a race you might lose, so a shared shuttle is usually the better trade. Land after dark and stop optimising. Get a driver, get to Jaco, and start the trip in the morning with the sea in front of you instead of a timetable.

And if Jaco is your last stop rather than your first, book the ride to the airport the day you arrive, not the night before you leave.

Tell us your flight number, your dates and where you are staying in Jaco, and we will tell you exactly what still runs that day and what we would put you on. That is a conversation, not a checkout.

Keep planning

• Up a level: Getting Around Costa Rica: rental car, shuttle, or bus?
• If you are thinking about driving: Renting a car in Costa Rica, honest advice from a local
• Landing late somewhere else: A late landing at SJO shouldn't cost you your first day in La Fortuna
• The other gateway: Liberia Airport to Tamarindo, transfer options compared
• Before you fly: Things to know before visiting Costa Rica

Sources: Transportes Jaco published routes, timetables, contact details and FAQ (transportesjacoruta655.com, checked 23 September 2026). CRHoy, "Estas son las nuevas paradas de buses tras el cierre de la terminal 7-10", 5 May 2025.