Entering Mexico as a Visitor
This replaces the general rule for you
Border Cards for Belizeans
Mexico issues two documents at its southern land crossings that exist for nobody else. The regional visitor card goes to Belizean nationals and to permanent residents of Belize, is valid for five years, and allows unlimited entries to the designated border region. The border worker card is for Belizean nationals only, lasts a year, and carries permission to work for pay in the job it was issued for, with unlimited entries and exits. Neither is residence, and neither reaches beyond the border states the ministry designates.
Mexico's visitor permission runs up to 180 days, and two things about it are routinely misreported. The 180 days are a single uninterrupted stretch counted from the date of entry, not a quota you can spread across the year - nothing in the law counts days cumulatively the way Peru and Colombia do. And since the paper entry form stopped being issued at airports, the number you actually get is the one an immigration officer writes on the passport stamp as an estimated departure date. The instrument that governs the border says the authorised period is 180 days; the Institute's own page says the officer sets it. Where you land, and the reason you give, now decide the answer.
At a glance
- Maximum visitor stay in the law
- 180 uninterrupted days from the date of entry
- Counted how
- One continuous period from entry, not a cumulative allowance across the year
- Period actually granted
- Whatever the immigration officer writes on the stamp
The Institute's own page describes the stay as 'la temporalidad otorgada' set at the border, while the procedural guidelines say the authorised period is 180 calendar days. We found no published rule setting a shorter standard grant.
- Paid work
- Not permitted
- Entry fee paid by air passengers
- MXN 983.00as of 2025-11-07
Ley Federal de Derechos art 8 fr I, as reformed DOF 07-11-2025. Collected by the airline and normally included in the ticket.
- Consular visitor visa fee
- MXN 990.79
Ley Federal de Derechos art 22 fr III d). Consulates charge the equivalent in local currency.
- Electronic visitor visa fee
- MXN 197.65
Ley Federal de Derechos art 22 fr III g), for a visa applied for by electronic means.
- Alternative to a Mexican visa
- A valid visa or permanent residence from Canada, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom or a Schengen state; permanent residence in Chile, Colombia or Peru also counts
Requirements
- A passport or travel document valid under international law and in force
- A visa, unless your nationality is covered by a visa-waiver agreement or a unilateral waiver - the Institute publishes the list of nationalities that need one
- No paid or profit-making activity of any kind under this permission
- At a land crossing, a completed Forma Migratoria Múltiple; at an airport there is no form, and the stamp carries the information instead
- The officer may ask for a hotel booking, return ticket, itinerary, your means of support, where you will stay and how long, and how you will leave
In detail
180 days in one piece, not 180 days in a year
Mexico writes the visitor period as a single uninterrupted stretch counted from the date of entry. There is no annual pool, no 365-day window, and no arithmetic that adds separate trips together. That is a real difference from most of South America: Peru counts 183 days cumulatively inside a year from the first entry, Colombia 180 days in any 365. In Mexico, leaving and returning starts a fresh period - and that is also why the officer at the second entry has every reason to ask what you are doing.
The number on the stamp is the number that counts
Since the paper entry form stopped being issued to air passengers, the period of stay is whatever the officer writes on the passport stamp as an estimated date of departure. The procedural guidelines in force say the authorised period for a visa-waived visitor is 180 calendar days, with exceptions only for air and ship crew. The Institute's own page says the period is the one granted at the filter. We found nothing published that sets a shorter standard grant, so there is no source for 'you will get 30 days' or 'you will get 90 days' - only the fact that the two statements do not fit together, and that the stamp wins at the exit gate.
Whether you need a visa, and what stands in for one
The Institute publishes the list of nationalities that need a visa for any entry. Four things substitute for a Mexican visa: a valid visa from Canada, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom or a Schengen state; permanent residence in any of those, or in Chile, Colombia or Peru; an APEC Business Travel Card approved by Mexico, for business travel by air only; and crew documents. A Mexican visa is not an entry permit in any case - the Institute is explicit that the visa only entitles you to present yourself at the border and ask.
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.
What applies to you
Border Cards for Belizeans
Mexico issues two documents at its southern land crossings that exist for nobody else. The regional visitor card goes to Belizean nationals and to permanent residents of Belize, is valid for five years, and allows unlimited entries to the designated border region. The border worker card is for Belizean nationals only, lasts a year, and carries permission to work for pay in the job it was issued for, with unlimited entries and exits. Neither is residence, and neither reaches beyond the border states the ministry designates.
- Belizean nationality, or - for the regional visitor card only - permanent residence in Belize
- Application at a land crossing on Mexico's border with Guatemala or Belize
- For the border worker card, a job offer in one of the federal entities the ministry designates
- Stay confined to the border region or the designated states
What the law says
«Autoriza al extranjero para transitar o permanecer en territorio nacional por un tiempo ininterrumpido no mayor a ciento ochenta días, contados a partir de la fecha de entrada, sin permiso para realizar actividades sujetas a una remuneración en el país.»Our translation - not official
Authorises the foreigner to transit or remain in national territory for an uninterrupted period of not more than one hundred and eighty days, counted from the date of entry, without permission to carry out activities subject to remuneration in the country.
The word that does the work is 'ininterrumpido'. This is one continuous stretch from the date of entry, not a pool of days to be spent across several trips - which is how Peru and Colombia count, and why guidance written for one country misleads about the other.
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
«La temporalidad autorizada seráde ciento ochenta días naturales, salvo los siguientes casos:»Our translation - not official
The authorised period shall be one hundred and eighty calendar days, except in the following cases:
This governs the foreigner entering under a visa waiver. The exceptions that follow are only active air crew (seven days) and certain ships' crew (three days). On the face of the instrument the 180 days are the rule, not a ceiling the officer may cut at will. 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
«Los Agentes Federales de Migración revisarán y sellarán el pasaporte o documento de identidad y viaje; y colocarán la fecha estimada de salida del país, de acuerdo a la temporalidad otorgada.»Our translation - not official
Federal Migration Agents will check and stamp the passport or identity and travel document, and will write the estimated date of departure from the country, according to the period granted.
This is where the practice parts company with the instrument. 'La temporalidad otorgada' is the officer's number. The Institute does not publish a scale for it, so a visitor cannot find out in advance what they will get.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Mexico's migration institute. It runs the border filter and the entry form, decides residence applications inside the country, and publishes its own account of the requirements it applies.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is the agency's account of instruments it applies, not the instruments. On the central question - how long a visitor is admitted for - it describes a discretion the Lineamientos do not grant, which is the divergence worth knowing rather than a source to follow. It is also unusable for two of the things readers most want: the list of visa-requiring nationalities and the entry-fee tables are published as images, so anything read 'in' them is a reading of a picture. Note that INM publishes under two origins, www.inm.gob.mx and www.gob.mx/inm, so a catalogue entry keyed to one will not match the other.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«El Instituto Nacional de Migración omitirá la expedición de la Forma Migratoria Múltiple de manera física para aquellos extranjeros que ingresen a México vía aérea.»Our translation - not official
The National Migration Institute will not issue the Multiple Migration Form in physical form to foreigners entering Mexico by air.
Arriving by air there is no paper form and nothing to keep. The stamp is the record, and a digital copy can be downloaded once, during the period granted.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Mexico's migration institute. It runs the border filter and the entry form, decides residence applications inside the country, and publishes its own account of the requirements it applies.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is the agency's account of instruments it applies, not the instruments. On the central question - how long a visitor is admitted for - it describes a discretion the Lineamientos do not grant, which is the divergence worth knowing rather than a source to follow. It is also unusable for two of the things readers most want: the list of visa-requiring nationalities and the entry-fee tables are published as images, so anything read 'in' them is a reading of a picture. Note that INM publishes under two origins, www.inm.gob.mx and www.gob.mx/inm, so a catalogue entry keyed to one will not match the other.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Documento que acredite residencia permanente en Canadá, Estados Unidos de América, Japón, el Reino Unido de la Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte, cualquiera de los países que integran el Espacio Schengen, así como en los países miembros de la Alianza del Pacífico (Chile, Colombia y Perú)»Our translation - not official
A document proving permanent residence in Canada, the United States of America, Japan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, any of the countries making up the Schengen Area, or the member countries of the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Colombia and Peru)
This is the only place we found the Pacific Alliance doing any work in Mexican entry law, and what it does is narrow: permanent residence in Chile, Colombia or Peru substitutes for a Mexican visa. It confers no right to reside in Mexico.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Mexico's migration institute. It runs the border filter and the entry form, decides residence applications inside the country, and publishes its own account of the requirements it applies.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is the agency's account of instruments it applies, not the instruments. On the central question - how long a visitor is admitted for - it describes a discretion the Lineamientos do not grant, which is the divergence worth knowing rather than a source to follow. It is also unusable for two of the things readers most want: the list of visa-requiring nationalities and the entry-fee tables are published as images, so anything read 'in' them is a reading of a picture. Note that INM publishes under two origins, www.inm.gob.mx and www.gob.mx/inm, so a catalogue entry keyed to one will not match the other.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Visa válida y vigente de Canadá, de los Estados Unidos de América, Japón, el Reino Unido de la Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte o cualquiera de los países que integran el Espacio Schengen»Our translation - not official
A valid and current visa from Canada, the United States of America, Japan, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or any of the countries making up the Schengen Area
Note that for the visa route the Pacific Alliance is absent: a Chilean, Colombian or Peruvian visa does not substitute, only permanent residence does.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Mexico's migration institute. It runs the border filter and the entry form, decides residence applications inside the country, and publishes its own account of the requirements it applies.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is the agency's account of instruments it applies, not the instruments. On the central question - how long a visitor is admitted for - it describes a discretion the Lineamientos do not grant, which is the divergence worth knowing rather than a source to follow. It is also unusable for two of the things readers most want: the list of visa-requiring nationalities and the entry-fee tables are published as images, so anything read 'in' them is a reading of a picture. Note that INM publishes under two origins, www.inm.gob.mx and www.gob.mx/inm, so a catalogue entry keyed to one will not match the other.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Visitante sin permiso para realizar actividades remuneradas $983.00»Our translation - not official
Visitor without permission to carry out remunerated activities $983.00
Cite the article of the Ley Federal de Derechos, not the numbering of the annual revenue decree that amended it. Air passengers do not pay this at the border: the law makes the airline collect and remit it.
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
We do not reproduce the list of nationalities that need a visa. The Institute publishes it as a picture on its own page rather than as text, so there is nothing to quote and nothing to check a reading against. Ask a Mexican consulate for your nationality.
The consular interview is part of the visitor visa, not a formality. The guidelines make issue conditional on its result and give the consulate ten working days to decide.
Nothing we read in the migration law, its regulation, the visa guidelines or the Institute's entry page requires a visitor to hold health insurance. That is an absence in those four documents, not a survey of Mexican border practice.
The officer may ask for a hotel booking, a return ticket, an itinerary, proof of means of support and the address where you will stay. The Institute lists these on its entry page as things it will request to corroborate the purpose of the trip.
The fee tables the Institute publishes for 2026 entries are images, not text, so we state the amounts from the Ley Federal de Derechos instead and cite the Institute only for the fact that it publishes them.
- 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
- issuesLineamientos para trámites y procedimientos migratorios, DOF 08/11/2012
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
- administersForma Migratoria Múltiple Digital (FMMd)
Instituto Nacional de Migración
About this source
Mexico's migration institute. It runs the border filter and the entry form, decides residence applications inside the country, and publishes its own account of the requirements it applies.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is the agency's account of instruments it applies, not the instruments. On the central question - how long a visitor is admitted for - it describes a discretion the Lineamientos do not grant, which is the divergence worth knowing rather than a source to follow. It is also unusable for two of the things readers most want: the list of visa-requiring nationalities and the entry-fee tables are published as images, so anything read 'in' them is a reading of a picture. Note that INM publishes under two origins, www.inm.gob.mx and www.gob.mx/inm, so a catalogue entry keyed to one will not match the other.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- administersPaíses y regiones que requieren visa para viajar a México
Instituto Nacional de Migración
About this source
Mexico's migration institute. It runs the border filter and the entry form, decides residence applications inside the country, and publishes its own account of the requirements it applies.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is the agency's account of instruments it applies, not the instruments. On the central question - how long a visitor is admitted for - it describes a discretion the Lineamientos do not grant, which is the divergence worth knowing rather than a source to follow. It is also unusable for two of the things readers most want: the list of visa-requiring nationalities and the entry-fee tables are published as images, so anything read 'in' them is a reading of a picture. Note that INM publishes under two origins, www.inm.gob.mx and www.gob.mx/inm, so a catalogue entry keyed to one will not match the other.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- consolidatesLey Federal de Derechos (texto vigente)
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
- administersTarifas de Derechos Migratorios por internación Vía Aérea, Terrestre, Marítima y Frontera Sur 2026
Instituto Nacional de Migración
About this source
Mexico's migration institute. It runs the border filter and the entry form, decides residence applications inside the country, and publishes its own account of the requirements it applies.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is the agency's account of instruments it applies, not the instruments. On the central question - how long a visitor is admitted for - it describes a discretion the Lineamientos do not grant, which is the divergence worth knowing rather than a source to follow. It is also unusable for two of the things readers most want: the list of visa-requiring nationalities and the entry-fee tables are published as images, so anything read 'in' them is a reading of a picture. Note that INM publishes under two origins, www.inm.gob.mx and www.gob.mx/inm, so a catalogue entry keyed to one will not match the other.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source