Under what circumstances do I need a visa in Mexico?

With one exception, every foreigner needs a visa to be in Mexico whether it’s a tourist, temporary, or permanent visa. To do a will, to buy a property, or sell a property you need to prove you’re legally in the country, through a visa.  In addition, if you want to work you’re going to need to have temporary or permanent visa.

 

The exception is that, in the border areas are free zones where you can be in Mexico be for up to a few days without a...

With one exception, every foreigner needs a visa to be in Mexico whether it’s a tourist, temporary, or permanent visa. To do a will, to buy a property, or sell a property you need to prove you’re legally in the country, through a visa.  In addition, if you want to work you’re going to need to have temporary or permanent visa.

 

The exception is that, in the border areas are free zones where you can be in Mexico be for up to a few days without a visa. There are two limits. The exception lasts for three days or less, so, for example, you can go to Tijuana, to the border zones in Texas, you can go to Baja, California to the beach for a few days and you’re not going to need to have even a tourist visa in that zone. But if you go further south in the free zone or stay for more than 3 days then they’ll require you to have a tourist visa.

 

Also, it’s very important to that people who come in to Mexico with their cars and who go further south in the car free zone, to have a car temporary import, or else they can face criminal charges, fines, and confiscation of the car, because the car would be contraband.  It’s a car free zone in all of Baja, California and Baja, California Sur and most of the state of Sonora, but the belt is very narrow along Texas and in New Mexico. Often times they have checkpoints to remind people that you need to get a car permit. So people who drive further into the interior of Mexico can innocently break the law and be subject to Draconian sanctions.

  

Wherever you arrive by air into Mexico, there is immigration control where they’ll force you to get immigration documents. It’s people who cross on land via driving their own car and even by bus who have these problems. The largest problems that have been reported to me is when people come into Mexico by bus and maybe they’re the only American or foreign guy on a bus full of Mexicans so the bus service doesn’t stop at immigration, and then they find themself hours and hours in the interior of the country without the proper immigration papers. Or there’s a checkpoint from immigration and the bus didn’t stop because everyone’s Mexican except for you. That’s the most common scenario. In this case, you really need to be proactive with the bus driver.  Tell him, “Hey, I’m a foreigner and I need to get this immigration card and stop.”

 

People who drive to Mexico need to make sure they get the car import permit and at the same place an immigration module. And make sure to get the proper documents as a husband and wife because if the husband gets the car permit the he needs to make sure his wife gets out of the car and gets her immigration papers, too, so that way not only the husband will have his car permit and immigration card but the wife has hers, too, because for the visas it’s important because when you get the temporary or permanent at the consulate you have two time periods to comply with. With the consulate visa you have six months to enter Mexico and then once you step foot on Mexican soil, you have 30 days to get to immigration to finish the process here in Mexico and they want you to check in at Mexico and get the FMM form to show your visa and stick it in your passport. If you arrive here in Mexico driving and say, “Oh, here’s our consulate visa” and you don’t have an FMM (forma migratoria multiple) card, it’s the same as the tourist visa card but you don’t have that they’ll put 30 days on they will make you drive back to the border. It’s illogical that you have a visa issued on February 2nd and you’re here in Mexico on February 4th and it’s obvious you complied with the 30-day rule and six month rule but they will still send you back.  The FMM is technically what the tourist card is called because it is a card used for all foreigners entering and exiting Mexico. For tourist, it’s a tourist card, and for people who have a temporary or permanent residence.  It is for statistical purposes to track their entries and exits.  

 

(San Ysidro border crossing in California into Tijuana, Mexico, pictured.)