hey everybody Qroo Paul here welcome to the channel a few days ago i did a video
about the financial requirements to qualify for mexican residency if you missed that video you
can watch it after this one from the comments and emails that i received i know that some
people were really disappointed because their monthly income from either employment pension
or some other source fell short of the minimum of approximately 2 550 u.s dollars required to
qualify for temporary residency in mexico i use the word approximately when i mention the dollar
amount and that's because each one of the 50 mexican consulates located in the united states
determines the limits for financial solvency based on their interpretation of the applicable mexican
laws and regulations as well as determining which exchange rate they want to use to determine how
many dollars you're going to have to have to satisfy those requirements that are actually
in mexican pesos because there are different variables that go into actually determining
these economic requirements and there's a clearly a lack of uniformity when it comes to how the
consulates do business this is why you're going to see different financial requirements from
one consulate to the next but although they're different they're normally in the same ballpark
but there are exceptions we're going to talk about one of those exceptions today after that
video came out i heard from several people who reached out to me to tell me there was at least
one us-based mexican consulate that had set their financial limit for temporary residency at 1
735 u.s dollars instead of the standard 2 550 u.s dollars that's a difference of around 800
of income a month so where can you find this consulate well you're going to have to head
to the city of macallan texas located on the mexican border those are the folks that are
using this lower standard you know when i got this information i spent a few days confirming
that the information that i was receiving was timely and accurate normally i could just check
the consulate website to confirm the financial requirements each consulate actually has their
own site but the mcallen consulate doesn't list any financial requirements at all on their website
nevertheless i was able to confirm this week that the economic minimum for temporary residency is
currently one thousand seven hundred and thirty five dollars at the mcallen consulate of course
like everything else dealing with the mexican government this could be subby to change without
notice if you're one of those folks who's thinking about going to mcallen to apply for your residency
the next question we have is if the consulate is only serving people who reside in that geographic
area of the united states many mexican consulates have adopted this unofficial policy perhaps to cut
down on consulate shopping which is clearly what people are doing now but it does not appear that
the mcallen consulate has i heard from people who traveled there from other states in the u.s
and they were able to obtain their residency visas without any problem if you do choose to
apply a macallan i recommend that you review the document requirements on their website carefully
they do differ a little bit from some of the other consulates i've seen i'm going to put a link to
that particular site in the description portion of this video i know some folks will stop the
video at this point and just head to the website for the mexican consulate mcallen that's okay if
you're one of those folks look i get it you know you want to get the ball rolling but i suspect
that some of you are still hanging around because you're curious why these numbers are so different
you're clearly the kind of folks who like to know how the sausage is made so why are these numbers
so different is the consulate mcallen having some sort of clearance sale on visas or something this
week and this week only all residency visas must go no i don't think it's anything like that it
most likely comes down to how the folks at the mexican consulate in mcallen texas are calculating
the economic solvency requirements you see the legal guidelines actually use formulas that are so
many times the minimum wage for example the income requirement to qualify for temporary residency
according to guidelines is 300 times the minimum wage in mexico city that would be 300 times 172.87
pesos that comes to 51 861 pesos that seems pretty straightforward right the local consulates then
decide how much of the local currency that would amount to in this case we're talking dollars
if we chose a 20 to 1 exchange rate which is an exchange rate we have been seeing this year
it would come out to 2593 i'm sure you can see how the exchange rate that the individual consulate is
using can really impact that final number still they're all in the same ballpark we're not seeing
an 800 difference between the consulates so what happened here why is the number
mcallen so much lower poor math skills well maybe but it's more likely that they have
replaced the minimum wage in that equation with another number known as unidad medida
or uma for short i'll explain what uma is and where it came from in mexico many laws
set fines and other monetary obligations based on formulas like this so many times the minimum
wage well the problem with writing laws in this manner is that if the minimum wage increases
dramatically as it has been doing every year over the last several years then it throws
off these formulas and you end up with final numbers that are way more than what was ever
intended when the law or rule was created now this fact did not escape the mexican government
and in 2016 under then president enrique pena nieto a new standard came out called la unidad
or uma for short that would be used instead the goal being that the final totals will be
where they were intended to be they'll keep up with inflation but you're not going to get some
crazy high number now the uma is established for an entire year the uma for 2022 is 96.22 pesos
so you're probably wondering why in 2022 are the consulates still using the minimum wage standard
instead of uma that is an excellent question that people keep asking themselves all the time
because it really doesn't make sense even within mexico the immigration authorities are using uma
and the mccallum folks are apparently using it however the majority of consulates around the
world are still applying this antiquated minimum wage standard i don't know why i also don't know
why there's no consistency or uniformity in how the consulates do business these are all great
questions and well i don't have any answers in january of 2022 the minimum wage in the majority
of mexico increased by 22 in a single year with that big a jump i really anticipated that all
of the consulates would switch over to uma this year but so far that just hasn't happened maybe
by 2023 it'll happen we'll have to see well that's it for the video hopefully this information helps
out some folks who are watching they're probably already you know making their appointments and
checking flight information down at mcallen if you like the video please remember to give it a
thumbs up just helps me with that whole youtube algorithm thing and until next time hasta luego