Temporary Residence as an Investor
Mexico has no separate investor status. What it has is an investor test inside the ordinary temporary residence procedure, and it can be met three ways: a shareholding in a Mexican company where the money actually paid in exceeds 45,850 days of the UMA, fixed assets of the same value used for business purposes, or - with no money threshold at all - proof that the foreign company employs at least three workers in Mexico. The third option is the one almost nobody mentions and the only one that does not move with the UMA.
At a glance
- Status granted
- Temporary residence, up to 4 years
The four-year limit on temporary residence is in article 52 fraction VII of the migration law, quoted in full under temporary residence on your own means.
- Shareholding test
- Investment actually paid in exceeding 45,850 days of UMAas of 2025-08-09
The Lineamientos write the multiple in words and in UMA, never in pesos. The digits here are ours; any peso equivalent is ours too and is marked as such.
- Fixed-asset test
- Assets exceeding 45,850 days of UMAas of 2025-08-09
The Lineamientos write the multiple in words and in UMA, never in pesos. The digits here are ours; any peso equivalent is ours too and is marked as such.
- Shareholding test in pesos
- MXN 5,378,663.50CALC (calculated by us, not published)as of 2026-02-01
Our arithmetic: the multiple from the Lineamientos times the daily UMA of MXN 117.31 published by INEGI in the Diario Oficial on 9 January 2026 and in force from 1 February 2026. It changes every February.
- Employment alternative
- At least 3 workers employed in Mexico by the foreign company, with no monetary threshold
The guidelines write the number in words - 'al menos tres trabajadores'. The digit is ours.
- What the test was before 9 August 2025
- 20,000 days of minimum wage
From the 2014 guidelines, abrogated by the 2025 guidelines, and denominated in days of minimum wage rather than days of UMA.
- Real estate alternative
- Property in Mexico worth more than 91,710 days of UMA
A different limb of the same procedure, not the investor test. The digits are ours; the instrument writes the figure in words.
- Separate investor status
- None - the test sits inside ordinary temporary residence
Figures marked CALC are our arithmetic, not a figure in any instrument. Where the law states a threshold as a multiple of something else, the amount shown is that multiple applied - and it moves when the underlying figure does.
Requirements
- A passport valid under international law and in force
- A notarised deed or certified corporate document showing participation in the share capital of a Mexican company, with the amount actually paid in exceeding 45,850 days of the UMA; or
- Title to movable property or fixed assets of the foreign legal person used for economic or business purposes, exceeding 45,850 days of the UMA; or
- Documents showing economic or business activity in Mexico - contracts, service orders, invoices, receipts, business plans, licences or permits - or a certificate from the social security institute that the foreign company employs at least three workers
- A consular interview, and the visa used within 180 days for a single entry
- An application to the Institute for the residence card within 30 calendar days of arriving
In detail
Three ways in, and only two involve a number
The investor limb of the temporary residence procedure can be satisfied by a shareholding, by fixed assets, or by showing that the foreign company actually operates in Mexico. The third is proved with contracts, invoices, business plans, licences - or simply a certificate from the social security institute that the company employs three workers. No amount is attached. For a small company already trading in Mexico that is a far shorter road than assembling proof of several million pesos paid into share capital.
Property is a different door in the same corridor
Owning real estate in Mexico above 91,710 days of the UMA qualifies for temporary residence on its own, with no business and no income test. It sits one paragraph above the investor limb in the same procedure and is often conflated with it. The two are alternatives: you need to satisfy one of the lettered options, not several.
Investment and residence are separate questions
The migration law says plainly that a foreigner may buy securities, make bank deposits and acquire urban property regardless of migration status and without any permission from the Institute. So an investor who does not want to live in Mexico needs nothing from this procedure, and an investor who does will find that what buys residence is the evidence, not the investment itself.
Country-level policy
No Mexican immigration threshold is written in pesos. They are all multiples of the Unidad de Medida y Actualización, a unit the statistics institute recalculates each January by the previous year's inflation and publishes in the official gazette, in force from 1 February. The unit exists because a 2016 constitutional reform forbade using the minimum wage as a unit of account and converted every such reference into the UMA - which is why the 2014 visa guidelines, written in days of minimum wage, were replaced in 2025 by guidelines written in days of UMA at about 2.3 times the multiple.
Mexican consular practice runs on a single administrative instrument, the General Guidelines for the issue of visas, issued jointly by the interior and foreign ministries. The version that stood from 2014 to 2025 is the source of almost every figure still in circulation, and it was repealed outright on 9 August 2025. New guidelines took its place, restating every money threshold in UMA, adding an electronic visa, and dropping the photograph and photocopy requirements. An amendment in May 2026 added an unpaid high-specialisation expert route, rewrote what a job offer must say, and told consulates in terms that they may not ask for more than the rules require.
A Mexican residence visa is not a residence permit. It gets you to the border once, within 180 days of issue, and the entry form you receive there is valid for thirty calendar days. In those thirty days you must apply to the Institute, at the office covering your address in Mexico, for the card that actually evidences your status. Miss it and the visa is spent: what remains is a regularisation procedure with its own fee. The same thirty-day rule is in the migration law, in the procedural guidelines and in the user information of every residence visa procedure.
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«exceda de cuarenta y cinco mil ochocientoscincuenta días en UMA»Our translation - not official
exceeds forty-five thousand eight hundred and fifty days of UMA
The amount is the money 'efectivamente erogado' - actually paid in - for the foreigner's participation in the Mexican company, not the company's nominal capital. The Diario Oficial's HTML edition drops the space at some line breaks, which is why words run together inside this quotation. It is quoted as the publisher renders it rather than tidied.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Mexico's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here, and the visa guidelines, the acuerdos that amend them and the annual UMA values all appear here first and sometimes only here.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes instruments as enacted and never consolidates them. The 2025 visa guidelines and the 2026 acuerdo amending them are two separate documents with no merged text anywhere, so what the rule says today has to be assembled by hand. An article number inside an amending acuerdo - ARTÍCULO ÚNICO, Transitorio Tercero - is an instruction to amend, not an article of the resulting instrument. Its HTML conversion also drops the space at many line breaks, so stored text contains run-together words and, in preambles, whole paragraphs without spaces; a quotation carrying such a join is reproducing the publisher exactly and must say so. Note that www.dof.gob.mx fails TLS validation while dof.gob.mx works.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«es empleador de al menos tres trabajadores, en original»Our translation - not official
is the employer of at least three workers, original
The third limb carries no monetary threshold at all. It is proved by a certificate from the social security institute, and it is the only part of this procedure that does not move when the UMA moves.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Mexico's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here, and the visa guidelines, the acuerdos that amend them and the annual UMA values all appear here first and sometimes only here.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes instruments as enacted and never consolidates them. The 2025 visa guidelines and the 2026 acuerdo amending them are two separate documents with no merged text anywhere, so what the rule says today has to be assembled by hand. An article number inside an amending acuerdo - ARTÍCULO ÚNICO, Transitorio Tercero - is an instruction to amend, not an article of the resulting instrument. Its HTML conversion also drops the space at many line breaks, so stored text contains run-together words and, in preambles, whole paragraphs without spaces; a quotation carrying such a join is reproducing the publisher exactly and must say so. Note that www.dof.gob.mx fails TLS validation while dof.gob.mx works.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«con un valor que exceda de noventa y un mil setecientos diez días en UMA.»Our translation - not official
with a value exceeding ninety-one thousand seven hundred and ten days of UMA.
Real estate is a separate limb of the same procedure. Owning property in Mexico qualifies for temporary residence without any investment in a business.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Mexico's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here, and the visa guidelines, the acuerdos that amend them and the annual UMA values all appear here first and sometimes only here.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes instruments as enacted and never consolidates them. The 2025 visa guidelines and the 2026 acuerdo amending them are two separate documents with no merged text anywhere, so what the rule says today has to be assembled by hand. An article number inside an amending acuerdo - ARTÍCULO ÚNICO, Transitorio Tercero - is an instruction to amend, not an article of the resulting instrument. Its HTML conversion also drops the space at many line breaks, so stored text contains run-together words and, in preambles, whole paragraphs without spaces; a quotation carrying such a join is reproducing the publisher exactly and must say so. Note that www.dof.gob.mx fails TLS validation while dof.gob.mx works.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«veinte mil días de salario mínimo general vigente en el Distrito Federal»Our translation - not official
twenty thousand days of the general minimum wage in force in the Federal District
The repealed threshold, kept because it is the figure still in circulation.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Mexico's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here, and the visa guidelines, the acuerdos that amend them and the annual UMA values all appear here first and sometimes only here.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes instruments as enacted and never consolidates them. The 2025 visa guidelines and the 2026 acuerdo amending them are two separate documents with no merged text anywhere, so what the rule says today has to be assembled by hand. An article number inside an amending acuerdo - ARTÍCULO ÚNICO, Transitorio Tercero - is an instruction to amend, not an article of the resulting instrument. Its HTML conversion also drops the space at many line breaks, so stored text contains run-together words and, in preambles, whole paragraphs without spaces; a quotation carrying such a join is reproducing the publisher exactly and must say so. Note that www.dof.gob.mx fails TLS validation while dof.gob.mx works.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«Los extranjeros independientemente de su condición de estancia, por sí o mediante apoderado, podrán, sin que para ello requieran permiso del Instituto, adquirir valores de renta fija o variable y realizar depósitos bancarios, así como adquirir bienes inmuebles urbanos y derechos reales sobre los mismos»Our translation - not official
Foreigners, whatever their migration status, may, in person or through an attorney and without needing permission from the Institute, acquire fixed or variable income securities and make bank deposits, as well as acquire urban real estate and rights in rem over it
Investing does not require a residence status, and residence is not a reward for investing. The two questions are separate in Mexican law, subject only to the constitutional restriction on land near the coast and the border.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chamber of Deputies' law library, which maintains the texto vigente of every federal statute together with a reform history for each. It is where the Ley de Migración, the Ley de Nacionalidad, the Código Fiscal and the Ley Aduanera can be read as amended rather than reconstructed from the decrees that amended them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Nothing below statute level is here. The Lineamientos, acuerdos and administrative instruments are where almost all Mexican immigration practice actually changes, and none of them is published by this body - the Reglamento de la Ley de Migración it does carry has not been reformed since 2014 and is in places overtaken by instruments it cannot show you. It is also not an authority on when a reform took effect: the transitional articles of the amending decree live in the Diario Oficial, not here. And its standard pdf/ edition is not safe to extract: a reading of the Ley de Migración from it silently dropped 21 of 162 articles, including article 52, the one listing every migration status. Use the pdf_mov/ edition and check article numbering for gaps after any fetch.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Both monetary tests are set in UMA and move every 1 February. The peso figure here is ours.
The investor limb leads to temporary residence, not permanent. Permanent residence comes after four years, or through family ties, or as a pensioner - the regulation's change-of-status list has no investor entry.
We found no fast-track, no reduced period and no citizenship-by-investment of any kind in the migration law, its regulation or either set of visa guidelines.
Constitutional limits on foreign ownership of land within 100 km of a border or 50 km of the coast are untouched by any of this; we did not read the instruments that govern them.
- issuesLineamientos Generales para la expedición de visas que emiten las secretarías de Gobernación y de Relaciones Exteriores, DOF 25/07/2025
Diario Oficial de la Federación
About this source
Mexico's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here, and the visa guidelines, the acuerdos that amend them and the annual UMA values all appear here first and sometimes only here.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes instruments as enacted and never consolidates them. The 2025 visa guidelines and the 2026 acuerdo amending them are two separate documents with no merged text anywhere, so what the rule says today has to be assembled by hand. An article number inside an amending acuerdo - ARTÍCULO ÚNICO, Transitorio Tercero - is an instruction to amend, not an article of the resulting instrument. Its HTML conversion also drops the space at many line breaks, so stored text contains run-together words and, in preambles, whole paragraphs without spaces; a quotation carrying such a join is reproducing the publisher exactly and must say so. Note that www.dof.gob.mx fails TLS validation while dof.gob.mx works.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- issuesLineamientos Generales para la expedición de visas que emiten las secretarías de Gobernación y de Relaciones Exteriores, DOF 10/10/2014 (abrogados)
Diario Oficial de la Federación
About this source
Mexico's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here, and the visa guidelines, the acuerdos that amend them and the annual UMA values all appear here first and sometimes only here.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes instruments as enacted and never consolidates them. The 2025 visa guidelines and the 2026 acuerdo amending them are two separate documents with no merged text anywhere, so what the rule says today has to be assembled by hand. An article number inside an amending acuerdo - ARTÍCULO ÚNICO, Transitorio Tercero - is an instruction to amend, not an article of the resulting instrument. Its HTML conversion also drops the space at many line breaks, so stored text contains run-together words and, in preambles, whole paragraphs without spaces; a quotation carrying such a join is reproducing the publisher exactly and must say so. Note that www.dof.gob.mx fails TLS validation while dof.gob.mx works.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- consolidatesLey de Migración (texto vigente, última reforma DOF 15-01-2026)
Cámara de Diputados del H. Congreso de la Unión
About this source
The Chamber of Deputies' law library, which maintains the texto vigente of every federal statute together with a reform history for each. It is where the Ley de Migración, the Ley de Nacionalidad, the Código Fiscal and the Ley Aduanera can be read as amended rather than reconstructed from the decrees that amended them.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: Nothing below statute level is here. The Lineamientos, acuerdos and administrative instruments are where almost all Mexican immigration practice actually changes, and none of them is published by this body - the Reglamento de la Ley de Migración it does carry has not been reformed since 2014 and is in places overtaken by instruments it cannot show you. It is also not an authority on when a reform took effect: the transitional articles of the amending decree live in the Diario Oficial, not here. And its standard pdf/ edition is not safe to extract: a reading of the Ley de Migración from it silently dropped 21 of 162 articles, including article 52, the one listing every migration status. Use the pdf_mov/ edition and check article numbering for gaps after any fetch.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- issuesUnidad de Medida y Actualización - valores vigentes a partir del 1 de febrero de 2026, DOF 09/01/2026
Diario Oficial de la Federación
About this source
Mexico's official gazette. An instrument takes effect on publication here, and the visa guidelines, the acuerdos that amend them and the annual UMA values all appear here first and sometimes only here.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It publishes instruments as enacted and never consolidates them. The 2025 visa guidelines and the 2026 acuerdo amending them are two separate documents with no merged text anywhere, so what the rule says today has to be assembled by hand. An article number inside an amending acuerdo - ARTÍCULO ÚNICO, Transitorio Tercero - is an instruction to amend, not an article of the resulting instrument. Its HTML conversion also drops the space at many line breaks, so stored text contains run-together words and, in preambles, whole paragraphs without spaces; a quotation carrying such a join is reproducing the publisher exactly and must say so. Note that www.dof.gob.mx fails TLS validation while dof.gob.mx works.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source