Mexico: temporary residency remains popular with North Americans

Mexico grants temporary residency to foreigners who can show sufficient economic solvency, assessed by reference to regular monthly income or to a balance of accounts and investments.

The reference amounts are approximately about $4,300¹ of monthly income, or approximately about $73,000² in account or investment balances.

These amounts are indexed to a Mexican unit of measure revalued each year, and each consulate has some discretion. Two comparable applications may therefore be treated differently depending on the consulate handling them.

Temporary residency is granted for a maximum of up to 4 years³, after which permanent residency can be applied for.

Other routes exist in parallel and are often simpler when available: a family link with a Mexican citizen or resident, a job offer from a registered company, or investment in a local company. Each has its own supporting documents and thresholds.

The economic solvency route nevertheless remains the one most used by Europeans, because it requires neither family ties nor a local professional project: it only requires showing that one lives on outside resources.

The first is procedural: the initial application is filed with a Mexican consulate abroad, not in Mexico. A person who entered as a visitor cannot, in principle, change their status locally.

The mistake is common and costly: it forces the person to leave the country, apply at the consulate, then come back to finalise the exchange of the visa for the resident card, within a strict deadline after entry.

The second is tax-related. Immigration residency does not carry tax residency, which follows its own criteria, first among them the location of the home, then that of the centre of vital interests.

The Mexican income tax scale ranges from 1.92%⁴ on its first bracket to 35%⁵ at its top marginal rate, and gains on the sale of securities by resident individuals are taxed at 10%⁶.

Mexico is therefore not a low-tax jurisdiction. A Mexican tax resident is taxed there on worldwide income, which surprises applicants who see the country as a tax optimisation destination.

1. File the application at the consulate, from abroad, before settling.
2. Check the required amounts with the consulate handling the application, as they are indexed and assessed locally.
3. Exchange the visa for the resident card in Mexico within the deadline after entry.
4. Distinguish immigration residency from tax residency: the latter requires moving one's home.
5. Handle the departure from France according to its own criteria and under the France–Mexico tax treaty.

The third point is a timing trap. The exchange must take place soon after entering the country, and forgetting it means losing the benefit of the visa obtained, forcing you to start the procedure again.

We do not publish the exact multiples applied to the Mexican unit of measure, consular processing times or application fees: they vary by consulate and we were unable to verify them in an up-to-date official source.

Property purchases, on the other hand, are open to foreigners, except in the so-called restricted zone — a coastal and border strip — where they go through a bank trust. This is a point to check for any seaside project.

The Mexican passport gives visa-free access to about 159⁷ destinations, but naturalisation requires long residence and is not the purpose of these schemes.

Mexico should therefore be judged on what it actually offers: a cost of living far below European levels, an accessible residency procedure, ordinary taxation, and considerable differences in safety from one state to another, which no national average captures.