How do I become a permanent resident living in Mexico?
Richard Kemper
Mexico has recently changed the laws regarding permanent residency.When I got here, you could only stay in Mexico up to six months and then you had to renew. You had to pay your immigration lawyer for his or her time, especially if you do not know how to speak Spanish and need to depend on somebody who can take care of you.
Then, the government decided that they didn’t want temporary residents in Mexico. After living here four years, you paid around $412...
Mexico has recently changed the laws regarding permanent residency.When I got here, you could only stay in Mexico up to six months and then you had to renew. You had to pay your immigration lawyer for his or her time, especially if you do not know how to speak Spanish and need to depend on somebody who can take care of you.
Then, the government decided that they didn’t want temporary residents in Mexico. After living here four years, you paid around $412 USD to the immigration office, plus around $118 USD to your immigration lawyer. You did not have to prove your income, and you were done. You waited for your card and you were a permanent resident. I did that, and I am now a permanent resident.
I asked them if I could leave the country and how long I could go and still maintain my permanent residency. I’m leaving in two weeks and going to six countries in the next two years. I have to be back in Mexico before the 24-month period is up. If I don’t get back in time, I lose my permanent residency. From what I understand from my immigration lawyer, once I come back during that time period, I can leave Mexico for many years and never lose my permanent residence. As a result, I will be using Mexico as my home base to go to other places and travel and I’ll always come back here.
The advantage of having a permanent resident card is you do not have to go through the hassle every six months, go to the immigration office, paying the fee, and having to spend all day at the immigration office every six months.
Other countries make it harder for expats to become a permanent resident. Mexico does not do that. They changed the law and made it very easy once you’ve been here for four years.
(Immigration office in Corozal, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted October 12, 2015
Juan Eufracio Marquez Flores - LM&A Immigration and Legal Services
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There are three ways to become a permanent resident in Mexico. One is to go to the Mexican consulate directly and apply for a permanent status. There at the Mexican consulate they can ask for proof of an income and Social Security, and IRS form, and the form to make sure you’re paying your taxes to your country of origin. The second way is through a Mexican relative. That means through a son or through a parent. And when it’s a son they can do...
There are three ways to become a permanent resident in Mexico. One is to go to the Mexican consulate directly and apply for a permanent status. There at the Mexican consulate they can ask for proof of an income and Social Security, and IRS form, and the form to make sure you’re paying your taxes to your country of origin. The second way is through a Mexican relative. That means through a son or through a parent. And when it’s a son they can do it here in Mexico. They don’t have to go to a Mexican consulate. For example, let’s suppose that John come here and his wife is pregnant, and before the tourist visa expired the child was born here. In this case, the parents don’t have to leave the country. If the tourist visa is current because the child is now Mexican, automatically the parents are entitled to apply for the Residente Permanente.
The third way is if a foreigner has from 3 to 4 years with their Residente Temporal, automatically they will have to apply for the Permanente. Either that, or, if they want to keep their Residente Temporal, they have to give up the 3 years or 4 years they have already been here, they will have to leave, come back, go to the Mexican consulate, and get a Residente Temporal all over again.
About Richard Kemper's answer to this same question:
If a person has a perment resident status, that person cannot lose it if the person is out of Mexico longer than 4 months in a year.
The person can be more than six months out of Mexico with a residente permanente status. The only effect is if the person wants to get Mexican citizenship. Only if a person is interested in getting mexican citizenship, then for a period of five years or two years the person is only aloud to be no longer than 4 months a year out of Mexico.
And the only way to lose a permanent resident status is if a person gets a tourist visa to enter to Mexico, So the person must always enter as a residente permanente, because if a residente permanente getts a tourist visa, automatically the residente permanente is canceled. The reason is because the immigration law in Mexico does not allow a foreigner to have to immigration documents.
About the income requirement, since the immigration department of Mexico was created until today there has always been a requirement to prove income in order to get a permit to stay in Mexico more than 180 days.
(Celebration of Canadians in Mexico, Mexico, pictured.)
Posted November 17, 2016
Juan Eufracio Marquez Flores - LM&A Immigration and Legal Services
About Richard Kemper Answer.
If a person has a perment resident status can not lose it if the person is out of Mexico longer than 4 months in a year, out of the country.
The person can be more than six months out of Mexico with a residente permanente status, it would only afect if the person want's to get Mexican citizen ship. Only if a person is interested in getting mexican citizen ship then for a period of five years or two...
About Richard Kemper Answer.
If a person has a perment resident status can not lose it if the person is out of Mexico longer than 4 months in a year, out of the country.
The person can be more than six months out of Mexico with a residente permanente status, it would only afect if the person want's to get Mexican citizen ship. Only if a person is interested in getting mexican citizen ship then for a period of five years or two years the person is only aloud to be no longer than 4 months a year out of Mexico.
An the only way to lose a permanent resident is if a person getts a tourist visa to enter to Mexico, So the person must always enter as a residente permanente, because if a residente permanente getts a tourist visa automatically the residente permanente is cancel, why?
Because the immigration law in Mexico do not allow a foreigner to have to immigration documents.
About the income since the immigration department of Mexico was created until today there is always to prove income in order to get a permit to stay in Mexico more than 180 days.
Posted November 23, 2016
Yolanda Martinez
If you want to be a permanent resident in Mexico and want to retire here, the first thing you do is go to a consulate. You take your bank statements with you for 12 months. You take a small photo, US $36, your American passport or Canadian passport, and you make an appointment. Get all your files together first. Let’s say you live in Sacramento, California. You call the consulate or you look on Google. There are some you can walk right in...
If you want to be a permanent resident in Mexico and want to retire here, the first thing you do is go to a consulate. You take your bank statements with you for 12 months. You take a small photo, US $36, your American passport or Canadian passport, and you make an appointment. Get all your files together first. Let’s say you live in Sacramento, California. You call the consulate or you look on Google. There are some you can walk right in to like in Vegas and you don’t need an appointment and there are some that are so overbooked that you need to make an appointment to get the visa. You’ll sit down with one of our external affairs agents and they will ask you questions why you want to retire in Mexico. They’ll see your documents and put the visa in your card. You’ll fill in a format.
Once you come into Mexico, you show that visa the first thing you do when you get off that plane in Mexican soil or when you drive across the border. Even if there’s no one there, you make a point to stop and you knock on the window depending on which entry you’re using to come in. if you’re coming in from Nevada, you pull over where you see migracion (immigration) and show them your passport where your picture is, you flip in your book and you show the visa that the Mexican consulate gave you. That is not your finished process. You’re finished with half the process. They will stamp that visa inside your passport and they will give you a quarter sheet that’s called the FMN document. They’re going to put a little check at the bottom of that document. That’s where you fill up how you came in Mexico-- plane, air, or by boat. And they’re going to put on the bottom 30 days for the visa and CAJE. As soon as you have that now you have 30 days to register your visa at your closest migration office.
Remember, external affairs Mexico, which is a SRE, is not the same as migration. They are two different entities or federal entities. They work together but they’re not the same agencies. When you get to migration you usually fill out a form. Immigration doesn’t fill it out for you. You have to do it online and it’s in Spanish. That’s why many people have attorneys or facilitators. Be very careful. Not all the people who do it are attorneys or know well the law because there could be accidents that happen and the customs agent put the wrong date in your passport and your facilitator doesn’t know the law. You have to be very careful whom you hire or you do it yourself.
Our migration agents are very nice. They will give you a format with everything that you need to go for a permanent residency. You pay around 4,000 pesos (about US $220) and they will give you a bank sheet that you paid and you submit all originals and copies to the migration agent.
Once you’re in the migration office, they will look at your passport. They’ll give you back your passport, take your documents, and give you a document that says you’re in process-- the famous NUT (numero unico tramite) document, which has unique number that you’re in transit. It’s your official number in our Mexican system.
This process, depending on their workload and on who does it, can take between 1 and 4 months.
There are two ways to get a temporary residency. I had a friend who came from Calgary. They wanted to be permanent residents but the external affairs agent was in a bad mood and gave them temporary. They’re buying a house. They wanted a permanent. They fill out the information, they came into Mexico and they applied to become permanent. The day after you have that in your hand, you’re allowed anytime to change if you meet the Mexican requirements. The Mexican requirements are the following:
You have to have enough in your pension to live here in Mexico. Your pension needs to be 3,700 pesos a month so that is roughly around $2,000 from your pension. Show the Mexican government that you’re retired or have investment accounts in your private banking over $115,000 roughly. The numbers change because of we base everything on our minimum wage. You have them translated. I know it sounds silly. You take your bank statements and you print it from home. And have them translated by a certified court interpreter from the state where you’re living. if you’re living in Jalisco that will have a little stamp from the state of Jalisco. If you’re living in Baja, California, it will have to be someone from Baja. It can’t just be in Spanish. You take the originals, the translations, your passport, your temporary card, 1,124 pesos and you write an affidavit saying why you want to change. In my friend’s case, in Calgary they do not get authorized permanent. “Could you please authorize me? I have the means that the Mexican government requires.” They will study it. It usually takes around 3 weeks. They’ll answer back positively or negatively. If it’s positively, then you pay 4,270 pesos. You do finger printing again and pictures, and you’re a permanent resident.
The other way is to be on a temporary residency for 4 years and when your visa will expire you submit all your documents again, an affidavit stating that you’ve lived here for 4 years and now you would like to be a permanent resident. And you pay 4,270 pesos.
To renew your temporary visa, you go online on the Mexican webpage, do your application and you put that you’re going to renew for 3 years. First up, go to immigration, ask for the requirements or to make sure that there were no changes in the Mexican law within that year that you were here. They will give you the format and they will tell you where you need to go again. So you’ll fill in the format, you’ll put in that you’ll want to be a temporary resident for 3 years if you can afford it because it is more expensive, or 1 year or 2 years. And then you go to the bank, pay, take pictures again, and right the date that you were allowed to be a temporary resident for 2 years since you have been legally here for a year. “Thank you. Sign John Smith (or whoever you are)”
You don’t have to prove that you have the means to be in Mexico because you already did all of that in the consulate that you went to when you were in the US or Canada. You’re already in the system. It’s much more simple in the succeeding years than in the first year. It’s just a renewal process. As soon as you have that visa in your passport, the process is very simple. I hope you speak Spanish because everything is in Spanish. If you do not, my recommendation is hire someone and know what’s going on. Or if you don’t want to hire someone or you can’t afford to hire someone stop at your local migration. They’re very, very nice people and they will try to help you in English as much as they can. They can’t offer legal advice nor recommend any facilitators. I call them facilitators because not all of them are attorneys.
(Mexican consulate in Sacramento, California, pictured.)
Posted July 23, 2017
SONIA DIAZ - Sonia Diaz
The process for becoming a temporary or permanent resident in Mexico begins outside Mexico where you apply at the Mexican consulate in your country through an appointment, a phone call or walk in, depending on the consulate office. Before applying, you will need to print an application form available online, fill it out and take with you together with two passport-size photos when you go to the Mexican consulate. The consulate will charge you $36.00 if in the US or $44 if in Canada....The process for becoming a temporary or permanent resident in Mexico begins outside Mexico where you apply at the Mexican consulate in your country through an appointment, a phone call or walk in, depending on the consulate office. Before applying, you will need to print an application form available online, fill it out and take with you together with two passport-size photos when you go to the Mexican consulate. The consulate will charge you $36.00 if in the US or $44 if in Canada. You also will be required to present photos and passport and proof of income. For the permanent resident application, you will need to prove a pension or Social Security income of $2,500 per month, or 12 monthly bank statements showing $100,000 in assets.
For temporary resident application, the income requirement is $1,500 per month, or 12 monthly bank statements demonstrating $25,000 in assets each of the 12 months.
The consulate issues a pre-approval, stamped in your passport. Once pre-approved you have up to 6 months to enter Mexico. Once you enter Mexico you have 30 days to start the process at your local Inmigracion office. That process on average takes 6 weeks and includes several steps including photos, on-line application, bank payment, finger prints etc. Your visa has no bearing on your citizenship.
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There are many Americans and Canadians who have dual citizenship in Mexico. They do not have to give up their original citizenship.
You may live in Mexico under a tourist visa up to 180 days, or a temporary residence for up to 4 years, or a permanent residence for as long as you wish. A temporary resident visa wil be issued in Mexico for 1 year after which you may renew for 3 more years.
For a permanent resident visa, you will have to apply only once, as there is no need to renew.
With either visa, you may be outside Mexico as much as you want.
(Pictured: Life Magazine picture of San Miguel de Allende with parroquia in the background.)
Posted March 5, 2018