Santa Cruz de la Sierra

InfoCasas on 6 October 2026, all 83 pages of results for “sale of three-bedroom houses, Santa Cruz”: 1574 listings without duplicates. Median 123,000 dollars, middle half 87,900-180,000, a tenth cheaper than 64,500 and a tenth more expensive than 290,000. The median price is about 750 dollars per m² of built area. By district: north (Norte, 643 listings) median 117,000; east (Este, 227) 85,000; south (Sur, 172) 105,000; Urubó across the Piraí river (140) 228,000; Equipetrol (20) 323,000. Sales are in dollars: in 1100 listings dollars are named directly in the text. These are asking prices, not deals; we did not find official statistics of transactions.

InfoCasas on 6 October 2026: 278 listings for rent of three-bedroom apartments in Santa Cruz (all 14 pages of results). The site shows prices in dollars: median 790, the middle half of listings from 590 to 1200. But some owners state the price in bolivianos, and the site converts it at roughly the old fixed rate of 6.96 (for example, it shows 3000 Bs as 435 dollars), so we convert back to bolivianos at 6.96: median about 5500 Bs, middle half 4100-8400 Bs. Check: in 34 listings the price in bolivianos is written directly in the text, and their median is also 5500 Bs. By district: in the north (Norte, 84 listings) the median is 695 dollars on the site, about 4800 Bs; in Equipetrol (67) 1400 dollars on the site, about 9700 Bs. Another 97 owners ask specifically for dollars in the text; how much that is in bolivianos depends on the rate, and at the official 11.97 their price is noticeably higher than our conversion. These are asking prices, not deals.

Anticrético is a Bolivian way of renting: the tenant hands the owner a large sum for an agreed term and lives without monthly payments, and at the end of the term the money is returned. On InfoCasas on 6 October 2026 there were 25 listings of three-bedroom apartments in anticrético in Santa Cruz: median 40,000 dollars, middle half 35,000-50,000, from 10,000 to 70,000. There are many times fewer listings than for rent (278). The risk is that the sum is returned by a private person; we did not check the terms of the contract or its registration.

INE, poverty line table by city: in December 2025 the poverty line (the cost of a basic food basket plus non-food needs) for Santa Cruz de la Sierra was 1229.2 Bs per person per month. For a family of four this is 4917 Bs, our multiplication; at the central bank rate of 11.97 on 6 October 2026, about 410 dollars. A year earlier, in November-December 2024, the line was 946.1 Bs per person, so it grew by 30% in a year. For comparison: La Paz 1557.7 Bs, El Alto 1555.2, Cochabamba 1481.5, the urban average 1327.5. This is the official poverty threshold, not the budget of a newly arrived family: rent alone for a three-bedroom apartment by listings is about 5500 Bs.

INE, extreme poverty line table by city: the extreme poverty line is the cost of a basket of food only; in December 2025 for Santa Cruz de la Sierra it was 622.5 Bs per person per month, 2490 Bs for a family of four, our multiplication, about 208 dollars at 11.97. In November-December 2024 it was 457.9 Bs per person, a rise of about 36% in a year. This is a minimum basket calculated from the 2015-2016 household budget survey, not the real spending of a family in a supermarket; we did not check store prices.

ANH regulated price table (last row 31 August 2026): liquefied gas (GLP) costs 2.25 Bs per kilogram and has not changed since 2010, even when gasoline became almost twice as expensive in December 2025. A 10 kg cylinder is 22.50 Bs, about 1.9 dollars at 11.97: this is our conversion. Natural gas is piped in Bolivia by the state company YPFB, but we did not find its tariff for homes or the network coverage in Santa Cruz on its website. Before renting, it is worth asking whether piped gas reaches the building or whether the stove and water heater run on a cylinder.

Electricity in Santa Cruz is sold by the CRE cooperative. The 2024 yearbook of the regulator AETN (p. 128): the average tariff for residential consumers of CRE, Área Integrada, is 11.01 US cents per kWh without VAT, the same as in 2023; in 2016 it was 8.97. The regulator calculates it as revenue divided by energy sold, so it is an average price, not the tariff steps; the tariff structure is the same for the whole department and is approved for four years. At the rate of 6.96 used by the yearbook itself (visible from its paired price tables in Bs and in dollars) this is about 0.77 Bs per kWh, and 300 kWh a month is about 230 Bs before tax: this is our arithmetic on the average price, not a CRE bill. We did not find the current tariff schedule with steps on either the CRE or the AETN website; residential tariffs are set in bolivianos, and after the end of the fixed rate they became cheaper in dollars. There is a Tarifa Dignidad discount for small consumption; we did not check its conditions.

Annual report of the SAGUAPAC cooperative for 2025. The cooperative's income for the year was 492.7 million Bs, and 69.7 million m³ of water was billed, of which 53.4 million m³ to homes. Dividing one by the other gives about 7.06 Bs per m³ across all categories including sewerage, and 15 m³ a month at this average is about 106 Bs; this is our rough arithmetic, not a tariff: the income may include other receipts, and the report does not separate residential and commercial tariffs. There is no tariff table in the report or on the SAGUAPAC website. In December 2025 the cooperative had 249,373 residential connections, most of them (81,641) using 11-20 m³ a month. The report estimates the city's population at 1.86 million people, of whom 1.64 million live in the SAGUAPAC area; 94.8% of residents of the area have piped water and 67% have sewerage. The other districts are served by other cooperatives; we did not look at their tariffs.

INE table based on Ministry of Education data, regular education in 2025: the department of Santa Cruz had 822,082 students, 718,238 in public and 103,844 in private institutions, that is about 12.6% (our percentage). By level, private institutions have 11,952 children in kindergartens (inicial), 45,121 in primary school and 46,771 in secondary. Nationally the private share is about 11%. The figures are for the whole department, including villages where there are almost no private schools, so the private share in the city itself is probably higher, but the table has no such breakdown. We did not find the monthly fees of private schools in official sources.

INE table based on Ministry of Health data: in 2024 the department of Santa Cruz had 5131 hospital beds and 691.3 inhabitants per bed; in 2005 there were 2028 beds and 1148.6 inhabitants per bed. In Bolivia in 2024 there were 18,442 beds, 668.7 inhabitants per bed; the department of La Paz had 4294 beds and 723.8 inhabitants. The population in the calculation is based on the old projection from before the 2024 census, and INE warns that the figures may change. The figures are for the whole department, not just the city; we did not check specific hospitals or private clinics. For how free public healthcare (SUS) works, see the country fact.

INE table based on Bolivian Police data, crime reports (denuncias) in the department of Santa Cruz, 2018-2024 preliminary. In total there were 15,591 reports in 2024 (the peak was in 2013, 45,671). Against property 9633, of which robberies (robo) 5106 and thefts (hurto) 2113; against life and health 3149. Homicide reports in 2023 were 228, with no data for 2024; in the department of La Paz there were 69 in 2023. This is the number of reports, not of all crimes, and for the whole department, not the city; we did not calculate per capita. We did not confirm natural hazards (fires and smoke in the dry season, floods) with official figures.

In its section on Bolivia's geography INE names as the most important international airports of the country Viru Viru in Santa Cruz, El Alto in La Paz and Jorge Wilstermann in Cochabamba; the main axis of the national road network is La Paz - Oruro - Cochabamba - Santa Cruz, and to the east the network reaches Brazil and Argentina. The state airport operator NAABOL lists, under its Santa Cruz regional office, Viru Viru international airport and the city airport El Trompillo. We did not find flight schedules, the distance from the center or passenger traffic for each airport on the NAABOL pages. Gasoline and diesel prices are in the country fact.

INE table based on SENAMHI data, monthly precipitation for the city of Santa Cruz. Annual totals for 2016-2025 range from 983 mm (2022) to 1745 mm (2017), an average of 1372 mm, which is our arithmetic. Monthly averages over the same years: December 185 mm, January 180, February and March 147 each, April 143, and the least in winter: June 51, July 26, August 91 mm. So the dry season is short and uneven: in August 2020, for example, 313 mm fell. At the El Trompillo station there were from 91 to 156 days with precipitation a year (2005-2024).

Monthly mean temperatures for the city from the INE table based on SENAMHI data for 2016-2025: June averages 20.4 degrees, July 21.5, August 23.2, and the three months together 21.7, which is our arithmetic. The coldest month in the series is June 2016 (17.6); the warmest months of the year are December and January (about 27). According to the annual table of the El Trompillo station, the mean annual minimum is 19.4-21.4 degrees, the mean maximum 28.5-30.2, and the absolute minimum of the year in 2005-2024 ranged from 2.1 (2009) to 9.4 degrees (2006), 8.2 in 2024. The station at Viru Viru airport gives similar figures, but only from 2023.

Entel “Internet Fibra” page, Simple plans on 6 October 2026: 120 Mbps for 169 Bs a month, 200 Mbps for 229 Bs, 600 Mbps for 369 Bs, 1000 Mbps for 450 Bs. Installation fee 200 Bs, the ONT router is lent, billing is postpaid, and connection depends on technical feasibility at the address. At 11.97 the 200 Mbps plan costs about 19 dollars a month. The prices on the page are national; there is no separate price list for Santa Cruz. The Tigo website returned a 403 error to us, so we did not compare other providers.