Hey there Tangerineys!
If you're new to our channel, my name's Maddie, and I'm Jordan, and we are Tangerine Travels.
Just missing our trusty sidekick, Laska.
Where did mom go!?
Where is she?
No, you're not falling for it?
We are going to be talking today about how not to get deported in Mexico.
But more specifically - Visas, Residency, Temporary or Permanent Residency, bringing
a car in, customs, stuff like that.
So in this video, we're going to be going over the various kinds of visas, the free
zones, how to import a car, do you need a lawyer?
How much does it cost?
And in addition to those things, we're basically going to tell you everything we went through,
from start to finish, on how to live here legally.
Be sure to stick around for the end of the video, where we'll share with you a bunch
of tips and tricks that we've learned along the way, that's going to make your life easier!
And we're making this video because there's a whole lot of misinformation out there.
Some websites say one thing.
Others say another thing.
People in different Facebook groups are going to tell you one thing.
We're just going to share with you exactly what our experience was and hopefully, it
will help you.
We're not going to include every bit of specific information for our own safety and privacy.
But we will do our best to give you resources, especially since between consulates things
can be different.
At different offices it can be different.
And the whole experience might be different if you do it on your own versus using a lawyer.
So let's dive in.
First question we get asked "Can I have a passport card?"
Well, the US Government offers you two options for passports: a passport card and a passport
book.
We highly recommend getting the book because you can't get a visa with the passport card.
But, we did get the passport card because in case we lose our book, we want an extra
form of identification and it's only 30 extra dollars to do that.
Since we have been driving through Mexico, our first and one of our biggest concerns
was making sure our car is legal.
There are some free zones within Mexico which basically means you can drive without a temporary
vehicle import permit (TIP).
And that's within 15 miles of the US border, anywhere along the US / Mexico border.
The entire Baja Peninsula, and that's a huge area!
So, I mean, you could probably spend your whole life exploring the Baja Peninsula.
And also, most of the state of Sonora is a Free Zone.
Or maybe it's not most, much of it is.
And also Quintana Roo is, but in order to get your car to Quintana Roo, you need a temporary
import permit unless you're shipping it through the ocean, or driving it from Belize.
So as far as traveling through Mexico, there are a few different types of Visas you can get.
One is most commonly known as a Tourist Visa or FMM.
That's your 180-day Visa where you can travel about the country and it's pretty simple to get.
We'll go into more detail on that in a little bit.
The next one is Temporary Residency which is good, with renewal, up to 4 years.
Also, we'll go into more detail on this later.
And the Permanent Residency Visa.
Now, we're going to cover the various types of Visas you can get in Mexico.
The first one is the FMM or the 180-day one.
Some of the advantages to this is: Practically anyone can get it.
It only costs 500 pesos or a little more than $25 US Dollars.
With an FMM, you CAN bring a foreign-plated car into Mexico.
Of course, you still need the proper paperwork.
And a lot of people just never get temporary or permanent residency, and they do 180-day
border runs every 6 months or so.
A couple of the disadvantages are you can't earn income from a Mexican source.
And, they're starting to crack down on the people who are abusing the border runs and
just getting them repeatedly.
So, if you want to do that - I guess, it's an option.
But it is starting to be a little bit risky.
One of the big downsides of having a 180-day visa, especially for us, was that you have
to drive back the border to renew, not only your visa, but also your car permit every
180 days.
And that's a big trip if you're in the middle of the country or nowhere near a border.
The first time we came into Mexico, we didn't know if we were going to end up living here.
But, it turns out we loved it and wanted to stay longer.
So the route we ultimately ended up going was the Temporary Residency route.
And some of the advantages of this are you can still have a foreign-plated car, it's
lower income requirements than Permanent Residency, and it still lasts quite a while.
The financial requirements vary by consulate and they can vary daily with exchange rates
and the Mexican Federal minimum wage.
But there have been reports that people have gotten approved for Temporary Residency with
as little as $1,000 US Dollars a month income.
There's 3 different ways that you can get approved for temporary residency.
One is having a sufficient monthly income.
Number two is having sufficient savings.
And three is owning a house in Mexico over a certain value.
We're not going to go into specific details in this video (nevermind, yes we are)
but we're going to place a link
down below.
The lawyer we use, his website has all that financial requirement information, so just
look for the link chapalalaw.com.
In order to get Temporary Residency, you have to start the process off at a Mexican Consulate
in your home country.
So, for us, we ended up going to Laredo, Texas.
We made an appointment online and booked 2 days in advance.
We don't recommend that to insure availablity when you need it.
When getting temporary residency, you'll have to be preparred to pay some of the costs that
go along with in.
One pretty insignificant one is photos you have to get for your application and the consulate fee.
But, the more significant expenses are going to be paying the government fees once you
get into Mexico and start the process after your consulate appointment.
Those are not cheap at all.
Neither are the renewal fees you have to pay every year.
With Temporary Residency, you can bring in a foreign-plated car like you can with the
180-day visa.
But, the difference being, you don't have to return to the border every 6 months.
Or every year.
You do have to renew it every year, but the renewal can be done from within the country
and you don't have to go outside of the country to do that.
A couple downsides to temporary residency - also, like the 180-day visa, you can't earn
income from a Mexican source.
Also, although it didn't happen to us, there have been reports of younger people getting
denied temporary residency.
Basically, for a foreigner to get residency in Mexico, the Mexican Government wants you
to be able to show that you can financially provide for yourself.
And it can sometimes be a concern for younger people that you'll be able to do that for
the next 4 years or the rest of your life, in the case of permanent residency.
The general guidelines for getting temporary residency for financial purposes are about
$1,400 per month in income, or approximately $20,000 US Dollars, or owning a house in Mexico
that's worth at least $180,000.
Again, we're going to link to these numbers below.
The last option for residency is permanent.
And like the name implies, it's good forever.
There are a couple major downsides to this, though.
One, is that you cannot bring in a foreign-plated car to Mexico.
And the other is it's much harder to get approved.
To get approved for permanent residency, you have to show a monthly income of about $2,500
and it can only be from a pension.
No other source.
That's because, hey, you're becoming a permanent resident in Mexico and the government wants
you to be able to show that hey, this is going to be an income source for the rest of your life.
You can also show that you have a sufficient amount of savings.
And this is somewhere around $100,000.
If trying to become a permanent resident, if you're under 50 years old, it might be
a little more difficult for you to get permanent residency.
It varies by consulate, but there have been a lot of reports lately of younger people
getting denied.
I could be wrong about this but I've heard that, if you have permanent, then you get
a one-time exemption to bring a whole bunch of household goods in.
One trip, duty free.
If you're coming to Mexico otherwise, with a trailer full of stuff, you're probably going
to have to pay import taxes on those.
Fortunately for us, we haven't had to pay any import taxes when coming into Mexico.
But we entered with just a couple suitcases each.
If you want to get temporary or permanent residency in Mexico, we recommend using a lawyer.
We've been told by many people that you don't need one, but ultimately, it's not a cheap
process, and getting a lawyer isn't THAT much more.
It saves a lot of headaches, it saved us a lot of trips to government offices, and waiting
in lines and such.
We'd recommend doing that.
We used Spencer at Chapala Law and we recommend checking out his website.
That information is below in the description.
For us, getting a lawyer made us prevent misunderstandings
or filling out a form wrong (which we did before contacting Spencer.)
Or wasted trips because we don't have the right documentation.
It made the process super smooth,
and really easy, and allowed us to have time to do other
things - like making YouTube videos.
So now you have the options for the various kinds of visas.
Now, we're going to go into what the process was like for us to get temporary residency.
What was the appointment at the consulate like?
What was the process like after that working with an attorney?
And what kind of fees did we have to pay?
We book an appointment online at the Laredo, Texas consulate.
We didn't really know what to expect before we got there.
And we got there and everyone was speaking Spanish.
Thankfully, at this point we did speak some Spanish, so we were able to understand what
was going on.
But for those of you non-Spanish speakers, and there was at least one lady there while
we were there who spoke no Spanish at all.
They did accomodate English speakers.
Even for us, we didn't ask for an English speaker but they still gave us one despite
us talking to them in Spanish.
And this is what happened with this other English speaker in there as well.
She clearly didn't understand anything that was being asked of her and they sent her to
someone who could accomodate that.
We went into the consulate with 12 months of printed bank statements, separated by month.
And we handed them the first month, or the most recent.
And he looked that over.
It was as if he almost didn't want to see anything else to see proof of income.
I was like, do you want to see the next month?
And he like "Yeah, I better."
And then he looked at that one and then he was fine with it.
So people say that you need at least 6 or 12 months proof of income, or proof of savings,
or whatever it is that you're trying to prove.
But, in our experience, just showing them the one month, and then the next month.
That was it.
The whole appointment was pretty painless.
We ended up getting approved and there was a small cost to it.
It was much easier than we thought.
It only took about an hour from the time we walked into the door until the time until
the time we had the visa sticker in the passport.
There are some things you'll need for this appointment at the consulate.
You'll need your visa application totally filled out.
You'll need a passport-like photo with the correct measurements that fits into the box
that's on the application.
You'll need proof of financials and some consulates are more strict about this than others.
For example, some might want notorized copies or copies signed by a bank manager or something
crazy like that.
But fortunately, Laredo just wanted printouts, that was fine with them.
And you'll need your appointment confirmation form.
So we booked online, got a confirmation email, and printed that out.
And you'll need your passport and a copy of your passport.
Make sure that copy is in black and white, never color photos.
We're going to touch a little bit more on that at the end of this video, be sure to
stick around for that.
There's some very important information there!
And you'll need $36 US Dollars in cash, or if you're in Canada, it will be $44 Canadian.
If you're getting a temporary visa like us, you'll get a sticker in your passport at the
consulate if you're approved.
But this is not your temporary residency.
This is just your pre-approval.
The process needs to be continued once you enter into Mexico.
And after you cross the border, you have 30 days to start that process.
So at this point, we got our pre-approval from the Mexican consulate but that's only
where the process begins.
And from there, we have to continue the process once we get into Mexico.
As soon as you cross the border, you stop an an INM office where you'll get an FMM.
This is the same as the 180-day visa but this one is only valid for 30 days.
There is going to be no cost for this at this point.
But it's only going to be valid for 30 days and you have those 30 days to continue the
process with INM, or Mexico immigration, in Mexico.
After hitting up the INM office and taking care of that paperwork, then, if you're taking
a car in, you're going to go to the Banjercito
where you'll get your Temporary Vehicle Import Permit (TIP)
And this is tied to the FMM that you just got, so that is also going to be valid for
30 days.
The cost of this import permit is going to depend on the age of your vehicle.
It will cost somewhere around $50 or $60 US Dollars plus a refundable deposit.
And the refundable deposit is what is determined by the age of your vehicle.
It can be as high as $400 US Dollars and as low as $200 US Dollars.
To get this permit, you're looking at between $250 to about $460.
Once you get into Mexico, start the process with your lawyer or INM office.
Earlier, we said stick around until the end and we're going to let you know some important
things you should know before doing this process.
We have a lot more information for you after this advertisement.
If you've been wanting to learn Spanish, one of the ways we recommend doing it is through
this program called Rocket Languages.
We've tried a lot of different language-learning programs, and software, and videos.
And this one is the most thorough we have found.
If you're interested in that, check it out and we'll have a link down in the description below.
A huge thanks to everyone who has purchased it already!
It really helps us continue our travels throughout Mexico and show you more of this great country!
Back to the video!
If you get any official documents from the Mexican government, you might be thinking
"Hey, I should make some copies of these!
Because what if I lose the originals?"
Well, be very careful making copies!
Because if you make a colored copy, you're a forger.
If you make a black and white copy, it's not valid because it's black and white.
How do you get around this?
You go to a public notary, they're all over the place in Mexico.
For a pretty reasonable price, we paid 50 pesos per document in an expensive city here
in Mexico.
So I'm guessing it's cheaper most other places.
They'll notorize a copy, and that black and white notorized copy is seen as a valid document.
This one is really important!
Once you have temporary or permanent residency, never ever enter mexico on an FMM!
Otherwise, your temporary or permanent residency will be cancelled and you'll have to start
the process all over again.
So again, FMM is a 180-day tourist visa.
Never get one of those if you already have residency!
If you're bringing a car into Mexico like us, be sure to always have the proper paperwork.
Stop at the Banjercito and get your paperwork there.
And then start the process within 30 days to make sure your paper is valid or continues
to be valid.
You need to notify Aduana, which is the Mexican customs agency, that you have a car and need
to extend it.
We didn't do this ourselves because our lawyer filed this paperwork.
But it is important to do this.
Something else you should know is that some consulates are more generous and more lenient
than other consulates.
So if you go to Las Vegas or Laredo, those have been places that have reported to give
approval for permanent or temporary residency with lower incomes being shown.
And not only do you need lower incomes for those consulates, they're also more lenient
in terms of what kind of documentation they'll accept, and how friendly they are in general.
One more thing you should know about getting a temporary import permit is that if you don't
turn it in, you can never get another one.
Ever.
You can never import another car into Mexico.
Be sure to surrender your import permit to the Banjercito booth when you're leaving Mexico.
We know this video has been packed full of information.
There's so much to remember here, there's a ton to know!
And it might not all be totally accurate.
It is accurate to the best of our knowledge, but we're going to link to some great resources,
some awesome blogs that have tons of information on this subject, so you know exactly what
to expect when you're coming to Mexico.
Getting some type of visa, importing a car, whatever it is.
And again, we used Spencer from ChapalaLaw.com.
He was great to work with, it made the process so much smoother!
Saved us a bunch of trips, and allowed us to enjoy our time in Mexico rather than always
stressing about "What do we have to do to get past this legal red tape and get through
this process?"
Thank you guys so much for watching!
If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, and subscribe to our channel.
But don't forget to gong that bell, so you get notified every time we put out a new video!
Most of them are showing you what daily life might be like in Mexico and some of the awesome
places you can visit here.
So, we look forward to seeing you in the next one!