Mexico

As of 2026, the economic solvency thresholds are calculated against the UMA of MXN 117.31 per day. This follows a Diario Oficial de la Federación instruction from 25 July 2025 to use the UMA instead of the general minimum wage. Temporary residency requires one of two things. Either 680 times the UMA, which comes to MXN 79,770.80 per month of income, about USD 4,400, shown over six to twelve months. Or 11,460 times the UMA, which comes to MXN 1,344,372.60 in savings or investments, about USD 74,000, held unbroken for twelve months. Income and savings cannot be combined. You have to qualify under one or the other. The switch to the UMA actually worked in applicants' favor. The minimum wage rose 13% for 2026, while the UMA rose only 3.69%. Had the old minimum-wage basis stayed in place, the income figure would have landed closer to USD 5,100.

Generally, no. This is the single most consequential recent change, and it is still missing from most advisory material. Under guidelines applied from July 2025, only genuine retirees and pensioners can obtain permanent residency directly from abroad on economic-solvency grounds. Consulates now require you to document actual retirement, even if you exceed the thresholds (1,140 × UMA = MXN 133,733.40 per month, or 45,850 × UMA = MXN 5,378,663.50 in savings for 2026). A working-age applicant must instead complete four years of temporary residency first. So a 48-year-old who could have landed permanent residency in one appointment in 2024 now faces four years of temporary residency, four renewals, and four sets of fees.

No. There is no minimum-stay requirement to hold either the temporary or permanent card, though you must return to Mexico to renew a temporary card. The permanent card never expires. But watch a separate and consequential line. Spending 183 days in a calendar year in Mexico, or having your centre of vital interests there, makes you a Mexican tax resident on worldwide income at rates up to 35%. Many buyers of this residency do not intend that, and do not check. The structure that works is residency without tax residency. It requires disciplined day counting and a defensible centre of vital interests elsewhere.

No, and promoters routinely blur the two together. Immigration residency and tax residency are separate things. Holding a residente temporal or residente permanente card does not, on its own, make you a Mexican tax resident. Tax residency arises only at 183 days of physical presence in a 12-month period, or where your centre of vital interests sits in Mexico. That means your principal source of income or your principal home. Once you cross that line, worldwide income is taxed, including foreign dividends, interest and rents. Mexico is also a full CRS participant, and it exchanges account information automatically with your other tax residences.

It is the real product. It is now also the only route to permanent residency for anyone under retirement age. Four consecutive years of temporary residency convert to permanent residency inside Mexico at an INM office, with no new proof of solvency required. The four years of compliance are themselves the qualification. From there, five years of legal residency in total, with temporary years counting toward it, opens naturalisation. That drops to two years if you are married to a Mexican national or are a parent of a Mexican-born child. The catch for working-age families is simple. The clock now starts at temporary status and runs four years before permanent status is even on the table.

As of 2026, none of the three apply. There is no wealth tax and no deemed-disposition exit tax when you stop being a Mexican resident. Inheritances and gifts between spouses, and between direct ascendants and descendants, are exempt from income tax. Two caveats are worth knowing. A Senate initiative tabled on 22 April 2026 would tax inheritances above roughly MXN 14M at 10–18%. It remains only a proposal. It was introduced in the Senate even though tax bills must originate in the Chamber of Deputies, President Sheinbaum has disavowed it, and it is the fourth such attempt to fail in a decade, following 2016, 2018 and 2020. And although there is no exit tax, you must file a notice of change of tax residence with the SAT at least 15 days before departure. Skip that filing and you have not actually lost resident status.

No. Not by a single cent. US citizenship-based taxation follows you to Mexico, so you continue to file and pay US tax on worldwide income no matter your Mexican residency or tax status. Mexico is still attractive to US citizens for other reasons. It is the cheapest serious residency in the Americas, next door to the United States, with no wealth tax, no inheritance tax and no exit tax. But if you also become a Mexican tax resident by spending 183 days a year there, Mexican worldwide-income tax of up to 35% stacks on top. And Mexico's CRS reporting will surface your accounts to your other tax residences.

You have to apply at a Mexican consulate outside Mexico. You cannot convert a tourist entry into temporary residency from inside the country, aside from narrow family exceptions. After the consular interview, you have 30 days to enter Mexico, then another 30 days from entry to start the residence-card process, known as the canje, at an INM office. Miss that canje deadline and the visa becomes void. You start over from the beginning. Government card fees roughly doubled from 1 January 2026, though the government cost remains trivial next to the qualifying threshold itself. Consular practice also varies materially. The federal criteria are uniform on paper, but the consulate where you apply decides in practice, so confirm requirements with your specific consulate before booking.

The Mexican passport gives visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to roughly 157 destinations (Henley 2026, rank about 21). That includes Schengen and a Canada eTA, along with much of Latin America, but notably not the United States. Naturalising takes five years of legal residency, or two years if you are married to a Mexican citizen or are a parent of a Mexican-born child. You will also need to pass a Spanish language exam and a Mexican history and culture exam, with exemptions available over 60. There is a real tax consequence to weigh before taking the passport. Under Mexico's REFIPRE rules, a Mexican national who moves to a jurisdiction Mexico treats as a preferential tax regime is presumed to remain a Mexican tax resident for the year of the change plus the following five years, unless an information-exchange agreement or treaty is in force. That rule applies only after you naturalise. It does not apply to foreign residents.