hey everybody Qroo Paul here welcome to the channel you know lately i've
had a lot of questions from folks about the requirements to qualify for residency in mexico
um just so you know there are different paths to residency it just depends on your circumstances
for example maybe you married a mexican citizen that's one path or you're a student planning on
going down to mexico to study that's another path in this particular video i'm going to be talking
about the most common path to residency for folks and that is through economic solvency when i say
economic solvency i mean that you can show proof that you make a certain level of income or perhaps
have a certain level of investments or savings so you can support yourself financially in mexico
without obtaining employment in mexico this is the residency path for retirees digital nomads remote
workers and even people who commute back and forth to the us to work i'm going to start with what
everybody wants to know up front how much income and or investments will you have to show in order
to qualify for residency i mean if you don't even meet those levels what's the point in watching the
rest of the video right just so you know up front this video is directed primarily to my viewers in
the us i'm going to be making reference to the requirements of the mexican consulates located
in the united states and the monetary amounts i'm going to be giving are in u.s dollars all
right let's get started there are two types of residency options available through the consulates
temporary or permanent residency now the vast majority of folks will have to start at temporary
residency now i know that word temporary uh throws a lot of people off when i say temporary
residency people are often like does that mean i can only live in mexico part time what does that
mean exactly no it doesn't mean that although you can live in mexico part-time you can live
there full-time with temporary residency when we say temporary residency what we mean is that it's
going to expire at some time now when it expires you can renew it after four years as a temporary
resident you can transition a permanent residency without meeting any financial requirements at all
the cool thing about permanent residency is that it does not expire the financial requirements as
well as some other requirements are different for temporary and permanent residency so i'm going to
start with temporary residency because that's the one that most people are actually going
to be starting with there are two ways that you can qualify financially for temporary residency
the first one is to show a monthly income of approximately two thousand
five hundred dollars through employment or some type of retirement funds you're going to have
to provide bank statements for the previous six months as proof as well as any other supporting
documentation now i say approximately twenty five hundred dollars because the exact amount needed
will vary slightly from one consulate to the next to show you what i mean these are some amounts
quoted by some different consulates as you can see they're all very similar but they're not exact
the reason for the variations is that the original requirements for residency come from mexican law
and are based on pesos each consulate then has to determine how much of the local currency
in this case we're talking about us dollars would satisfy those requirements now since exchange
rates are constantly in flux and we're not changing the requirements every you know hours so
they just have to kind of set a level and make the requirements that for the whole year
now the question i often get from people is if in the case of a couple does each person have to show
that amount separately the answer to that could be yes or no it really depends on the particular
consulate if both of you can show that income then the consulate may just go that route but
if both of you cannot meet that requirement there is another option uh that was the case when linda
and i applied for residency i could show pension income but linda didn't have any income coming
in at all the way it works is that one person in the couple does meet the financial requirements
and is actually granted the residency visa now the other person in the couple is then
considered a dependent and can get a visa that way this is also the way it works if you're going
to bring a child or children along with you it's unlikely they're going to be making 2 500 a month
it all comes down to family unity you know keeping families together for couples who are married
you will need to bring a marriage certificate along with you the consulate you're going to may
require that it's apostle i have another video explaining how to do that and even what that is
i'll put a link in the description portion of this video so you can find it here's a little
side note here even if that particular consulate does not require an apostle marriage certificate
i still recommend you get one because it may come in handy once you're actually in mexico
that video about apostles will explain why that is now for couples who are not married um the
consulate may or may not use the whole family unity approach in your case i've seen folks
manage to get it done successfully to bring in their boyfriend or girlfriend but i've also seen
even more denied the fact is that the person who's reviewing your application at that consulate has
a lot of discretion when it comes to granting residency visas that's who you need to convince so
if this is the route you're going i would bring as much proof and supporting documentation as i could
to show how long this relationship's been going on what the nature of the relationship is etc just
so you know if you do go this route it's not going to be the same financial threshold of around 2 500
each dependent you add will change that threshold the amount added will be somewhere between 800
and 900 of additional income per dependent for example the san diego mexican consulate sets
their threshold at five hundred fifty two dollars and any additional dependent would
be an additional eight hundred and forty one dollars see how this works it's really just a
math game let's go to the second way that you can prove that you're economically solvent in
order to qualify for temporary residency and that is through investment income or savings
to get this one you're going to have to show 12 months of bank statements and or documentation
showing that you maintained a minimum of around 43 000 in investments and or savings during all
of those 12 months remember that first option it was six months of statements this is 12 months
that 4 300 is not a hard number that amount is going to vary a little bit by consulate and if
you're going to be bringing independence along with you that's going to add another eight or nine
hundred dollars per dependent now let's talk about permanent residency there is a fast track to jump
right to permanent residency at the consulate but it is only available to pensioners and retirees
who meet a much higher financial threshold there are also two ways to get this the first one is to
show a monthly income and that threshold is around forty two hundred dollars u.s you're going to need
to show six months of bank statements as proof as well as any other supporting documentation
and you're going to have to show that you're making that every single one of those months
now our second option is to show investment or savings income in that case we're going to have
to show 12 months of bank statements and or their documentation showing that you're maintaining a
balance of around 168 thousand dollars since this is a fast track only for pensioners and retirees
some consulates may also set an age requirement it's not in the law but you'll see individual
consulates just set one to make things simple um a popular one is 60 years of age okay even if
the consulate that you're going to doesn't set a specific age you may still be denied for permanent
if you're well just too young or claim to still be working so there you have it those are the
general financial thresholds that you will have to meet if you hope to get a mexican residency visa
under the category of economic solvency so let's say you do meet these requirements what do you
do now how far in advance of your move should you apply for residency how do you make an appointment
what kind of things you need to bring other than what i already talked about those bank statements
let's start with timing once you're actually granted a residency visa at a mexican consulate
you'll have to go to mexico within 180 days to complete the process knowing that you're going
to be working in a six-month window might help you choose the right time to actually apply at
the consulate based on your needs for many people the most challenging part of the residency process
is actually just getting an appointment at a mexican consulate the consulates are notorious
for not answering emails or phone calls and most will not accept walk-ins my advice to you is to go
to the website of the consulate you're planning on visiting each one has their own website
at their site you're going to find additional information about the visa process and how to
make an appointment now some of the sites will say to email them directly while others will
tell you to schedule via site called me consolado now that site will actually allow you to make an
appointment at consulates across the world i know that sounds really convenient and efficient but
well for this particular purpose the site is very lacking and can actually end up hindering your
residency process that's why i recommend calling the folks directly at me consolado and the phone
number for the united states is on the screen now i know if i stop right here some people are
gonna be like well why don't you like the portal paul i use the portal and the portal was great
the primary reason why the online portal is not particularly useful for this particular purpose
is because it requires you to be very specific about the service you need done at the consulate
when you go into my consolado you're going to pick your particular consulate and it's
going to tell you what services are available well the majority of the us consulates that i
checked via mi consolado did not specifically list visas in their list of available services if you
choose the wrong service when you're making your appointment you may have to reschedule later the
san diego consulate actually warns about this in their written instructions now people often ask
me if they should make appointments as couples you should not each individual should have their own
appointment once you finally get an appointment you'll likely be asked to bring the following
number one a completed visa application form now you can normally find this on the consulate
page some of them are better than others so i'm going to go ahead and put a link to it
in the description portion of this video number two you're going to need to bring your passport
along with you and you're going to have to have photocopies of certain pages one of them is the
data page and that is the one with your picture on it and all the information you should also have a
photocopy of the last page even if it's blank and photocopies of any pages that have any seals or
visas on them if you are not a united states citizen you must also provide proof of legal entry
to the u.s the original document and a photocopy must be provided the next thing you're going to
need is one recent photograph not an american passport size okay you're going to have to check
the measurements carefully because they're very specific for the mexican consulate now the whole
photo thing stresses some folks i'll tell you that if you go to a place like walgreens just tell
them it's for the mexican consulate when we did that they actually had the specs for the mexican
consulate right in the walgreens photo computer they just went to it and did a white background
and they made sure it came out perfect we didn't have any trouble with our photos the next thing
you want to bring along are those documents to prove economic solvency that's what we talked
about in the beginning okay you should know what those are by now you might be wondering if there's
any cost for this there is um you're going to be charged a non-refundable fee of approximately 48
per application now just because you get all your paperwork together and you think you qualify there
is no guarantee that the consulate will actually grant your application they don't have an appeals
process and like i said it basically down to the discretion of the person you're talking to at
the consulate once you have your appointment the consulate has 10 days to review your application
but i'm gonna tell you they don't take 10 days in most cases you're going to know immediately if you
were granted a residency and you're going to know which one if it was temporary or permanent if you
were granted residency the folks at the mexican consulate are going to put a mexican visa inside
your passport it basically looks like a large sticker that takes up a whole page of the passport
sometimes they'll hold your passport and ask you to come back the next day or so
and pick it up and it has the visa in it and sometimes they'll do it while you wait
once you get your mexican residency visa you only have 180 days to get to mexico to do part two of
the process part two is going to involve more paperwork more appointments fingerprints photos
there's a whole thing about it but i have a video to tell you all about it and i'll post a link to
it in the description portion of the video well i hope you found the video informative
if you did just do me a favor and give it a thumbs up and until next time hasta luego