Hey there Tangerineys! If you're new to our channel, my name's Maddie,
and I'm Jordan, and we are Tangerine Travels. Just missing our trusty sidekick, Laska. Where did mom go!? Where is she? No, you're not falling for it? We are going to be talking today about how
not to get deported in Mexico. But more specifically - Visas, Residency,
Temporary or Permanent Residency, bringing a car in, customs, stuff like that. So in this video, we're going to be going
over the various kinds of visas, the free zones, how to import a car, do you need a
lawyer? How much does it cost? And in addition to those things, we're basically
going to tell you everything we went through, from start to finish, on how to live here
legally. Be sure to stick around for the end of the
video, where we'll share with you a bunch of tips and tricks that we've learned along
the way, that's going to make your life easier! And we're making this video because there's
a whole lot of misinformation out there. Some websites say one thing. Others say another thing. People in different Facebook groups are going
to tell you one thing. We're just going to share with you exactly
what our experience was and hopefully, it will help you. We're not going to include every bit of specific
information for our own safety and privacy. But we will do our best to give you resources,
especially since between consulates things can be different. At different offices it can be different. And the whole experience might be different
if you do it on your own versus using a lawyer. So let's dive in. First question we get asked "Can I have a
passport card?" Well, the US Government offers you two options
for passports: a passport card and a passport book. We highly recommend getting the book because
you can't get a visa with the passport card. But, we did get the passport card because
in case we lose our book, we want an extra form of identification and it's only 30 extra
dollars to do that. Since we have been driving through Mexico,
our first and one of our biggest concerns was making sure our car is legal. There are some free zones within Mexico which
basically means you can drive without a temporary vehicle import permit (TIP). And that's within 15 miles of the US border,
anywhere along the US / Mexico border. The entire Baja Peninsula, and that's a huge
area! So, I mean, you could probably spend your
whole life exploring the Baja Peninsula. And also, most of the state of Sonora is a
Free Zone. Or maybe it's not most, much of it is. And also Quintana Roo is, but in order to
get your car to Quintana Roo, you need a temporary import permit unless you're shipping it through
the ocean, or driving it from Belize. So as far as traveling through Mexico, there
are a few different types of Visas you can get. One is most commonly known as a Tourist Visa
or FMM. That's your 180-day Visa where you can travel
about the country and it's pretty simple to get. We'll go into more detail on that in a little
bit. The next one is Temporary Residency which
is good, with renewal, up to 4 years. Also, we'll go into more detail on this later. And the Permanent Residency Visa. Now, we're going to cover the various types
of Visas you can get in Mexico. The first one is the FMM or the 180-day one. Some of the advantages to this is: Practically
anyone can get it. It only costs 500 pesos or a little more than
$25 US Dollars. With an FMM, you CAN bring a foreign-plated
car into Mexico. Of course, you still need the proper paperwork. And a lot of people just never get temporary
or permanent residency, and they do 180-day border runs every 6 months or so. A couple of the disadvantages are you can't
earn income from a Mexican source. And, they're starting to crack down on the
people who are abusing the border runs and just getting them repeatedly. So, if you want to do that - I guess, it's
an option. But it is starting to be a little bit risky. One of the big downsides of having a 180-day
visa, especially for us, was that you have to drive back the border to renew, not only
your visa, but also your car permit every 180 days. And that's a big trip if you're in the middle
of the country or nowhere near a border. The first time we came into Mexico, we didn't
know if we were going to end up living here. But, it turns out we loved it and wanted to
stay longer. So the route we ultimately ended up going
was the Temporary Residency route. And some of the advantages of this are you
can still have a foreign-plated car, it's lower income requirements than Permanent Residency,
and it still lasts quite a while. The financial requirements vary by consulate
and they can vary daily with exchange rates and the Mexican Federal minimum wage. But there have been reports that people have
gotten approved for Temporary Residency with as little as $1,000 US Dollars a month income. There's 3 different ways that you can get
approved for temporary residency. One is having a sufficient monthly income. Number two is having sufficient savings. And three is owning a house in Mexico over
a certain value. We're not going to go into specific details
in this video (nevermind, yes we are) but we're going to place a link down below. The lawyer we use, his website has all that
financial requirement information, so just look for the link chapalalaw.com. In order to get Temporary Residency, you have
to start the process off at a Mexican Consulate in your home country. So, for us, we ended up going to Laredo, Texas. We made an appointment online and booked 2
days in advance. We don't recommend that to insure availablity
when you need it. When getting temporary residency, you'll have
to be preparred to pay some of the costs that go along with in. One pretty insignificant one is photos you
have to get for your application and the consulate fee. But, the more significant expenses are going
to be paying the government fees once you get into Mexico and start the process after
your consulate appointment. Those are not cheap at all. Neither are the renewal fees you have to pay
every year. With Temporary Residency, you can bring in
a foreign-plated car like you can with the 180-day visa. But, the difference being, you don't have
to return to the border every 6 months. Or every year. You do have to renew it every year, but the
renewal can be done from within the country and you don't have to go outside of the country
to do that. A couple downsides to temporary residency
- also, like the 180-day visa, you can't earn income from a Mexican source. Also, although it didn't happen to us, there
have been reports of younger people getting denied temporary residency. Basically, for a foreigner to get residency
in Mexico, the Mexican Government wants you to be able to show that you can financially
provide for yourself. And it can sometimes be a concern for younger
people that you'll be able to do that for the next 4 years or the rest of your life,
in the case of permanent residency. The general guidelines for getting temporary
residency for financial purposes are about $1,400 per month in income, or approximately
$20,000 US Dollars, or owning a house in Mexico that's worth at least $180,000. Again, we're going to link to these numbers
below. The last option for residency is permanent. And like the name implies, it's good forever. There are a couple major downsides to this,
though. One, is that you cannot bring in a foreign-plated
car to Mexico. And the other is it's much harder to get approved. To get approved for permanent residency, you
have to show a monthly income of about $2,500 and it can only be from a pension. No other source. That's because, hey, you're becoming a permanent
resident in Mexico and the government wants you to be able to show that hey, this is going
to be an income source for the rest of your life. You can also show that you have a sufficient
amount of savings. And this is somewhere around $100,000. If trying to become a permanent resident,
if you're under 50 years old, it might be a little more difficult for you to get permanent
residency. It varies by consulate, but there have been
a lot of reports lately of younger people getting denied. I could be wrong about this but I've heard
that, if you have permanent, then you get a one-time exemption to bring a whole bunch
of household goods in. One trip, duty free. If you're coming to Mexico otherwise, with
a trailer full of stuff, you're probably going to have to pay import taxes on those. Fortunately for us, we haven't had to pay
any import taxes when coming into Mexico. But we entered with just a couple suitcases each. If you want to get temporary or permanent
residency in Mexico, we recommend using a lawyer. We've been told by many people that you don't
need one, but ultimately, it's not a cheap process, and getting a lawyer isn't THAT much
more. It saves a lot of headaches, it saved us a
lot of trips to government offices, and waiting in lines and such. We'd recommend doing that. We used Spencer at Chapala Law and we recommend
checking out his website. That information is below in the description. For us, getting a lawyer made us prevent misunderstandings or filling out a form wrong (which we did before contacting Spencer.) Or wasted trips because we don't have the
right documentation. It made the process super smooth, and really
easy, and allowed us to have time to do other things - like making YouTube videos. So now you have the options for the various
kinds of visas. Now, we're going to go into what the process
was like for us to get temporary residency. What was the appointment at the consulate
like? What was the process like after that working
with an attorney? And what kind of fees did we have to pay? We book an appointment online at the Laredo,
Texas consulate. We didn't really know what to expect before
we got there. And we got there and everyone was speaking
Spanish. Thankfully, at this point we did speak some
Spanish, so we were able to understand what was going on. But for those of you non-Spanish speakers,
and there was at least one lady there while we were there who spoke no Spanish at all. They did accomodate English speakers. Even for us, we didn't ask for an English
speaker but they still gave us one despite us talking to them in Spanish. And this is what happened with this other
English speaker in there as well. She clearly didn't understand anything that
was being asked of her and they sent her to someone who could accomodate that. We went into the consulate with 12 months
of printed bank statements, separated by month. And we handed them the first month, or the
most recent. And he looked that over. It was as if he almost didn't want to see
anything else to see proof of income. I was like, do you want to see the next month? And he like "Yeah, I better." And then he looked at that one and then he
was fine with it. So people say that you need at least 6 or
12 months proof of income, or proof of savings, or whatever it is that you're trying to prove. But, in our experience, just showing them
the one month, and then the next month. That was it. The whole appointment was pretty painless. We ended up getting approved and there was
a small cost to it. It was much easier than we thought. It only took about an hour from the time we
walked into the door until the time until the time we had the visa sticker in the passport. There are some things you'll need for this
appointment at the consulate. You'll need your visa application totally
filled out. You'll need a passport-like photo with the
correct measurements that fits into the box that's on the application. You'll need proof of financials and some consulates
are more strict about this than others. For example, some might want notorized copies
or copies signed by a bank manager or something crazy like that. But fortunately, Laredo just wanted printouts,
that was fine with them. And you'll need your appointment confirmation
form. So we booked online, got a confirmation email,
and printed that out. And you'll need your passport and a copy of
your passport. Make sure that copy is in black and white,
never color photos. We're going to touch a little bit more on
that at the end of this video, be sure to stick around for that. There's some very important information there! And you'll need $36 US Dollars in cash, or
if you're in Canada, it will be $44 Canadian. If you're getting a temporary visa like us,
you'll get a sticker in your passport at the consulate if you're approved. But this is not your temporary residency. This is just your pre-approval. The process needs to be continued once you
enter into Mexico. And after you cross the border, you have 30
days to start that process. So at this point, we got our pre-approval
from the Mexican consulate but that's only where the process begins. And from there, we have to continue the process
once we get into Mexico. As soon as you cross the border, you stop
an an INM office where you'll get an FMM. This is the same as the 180-day visa but this
one is only valid for 30 days. There is going to be no cost for this at this
point. But it's only going to be valid for 30 days
and you have those 30 days to continue the process with INM, or Mexico immigration, in
Mexico. After hitting up the INM office and taking
care of that paperwork, then, if you're taking a car in, you're going to go to the Banjercito where you'll get your Temporary Vehicle Import Permit (TIP) And this is tied to the FMM that you just
got, so that is also going to be valid for 30 days. The cost of this import permit is going to
depend on the age of your vehicle. It will cost somewhere around $50 or $60 US
Dollars plus a refundable deposit. And the refundable deposit is what is determined
by the age of your vehicle. It can be as high as $400 US Dollars and as
low as $200 US Dollars. To get this permit, you're looking at between
$250 to about $460. Once you get into Mexico, start the process
with your lawyer or INM office. Earlier, we said stick around until the end
and we're going to let you know some important things you should know before doing this process. We have a lot more information for you after
this advertisement. If you've been wanting to learn Spanish, one
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programs, and software, and videos. And this one is the most thorough we have
found. If you're interested in that, check it out
and we'll have a link down in the description below. A huge thanks to everyone who has purchased
it already! It really helps us continue our travels throughout
Mexico and show you more of this great country! Back to the video! If you get any official documents from the
Mexican government, you might be thinking "Hey, I should make some copies of these! Because what if I lose the originals?" Well, be very careful making copies! Because if you make a colored copy, you're
a forger. If you make a black and white copy, it's not
valid because it's black and white. How do you get around this? You go to a public notary, they're all over
the place in Mexico. For a pretty reasonable price, we paid 50
pesos per document in an expensive city here in Mexico. So I'm guessing it's cheaper most other places. They'll notorize a copy, and that black and
white notorized copy is seen as a valid document. This one is really important! Once you have temporary or permanent residency,
never ever enter mexico on an FMM! Otherwise, your temporary or permanent residency
will be cancelled and you'll have to start the process all over again. So again, FMM is a 180-day tourist visa. Never get one of those if you already have
residency! If you're bringing a car into Mexico like
us, be sure to always have the proper paperwork. Stop at the Banjercito and get your paperwork
there. And then start the process within 30 days
to make sure your paper is valid or continues to be valid. You need to notify Aduana, which is the Mexican
customs agency, that you have a car and need to extend it. We didn't do this ourselves because our lawyer
filed this paperwork. But it is important to do this. Something else you should know is that some
consulates are more generous and more lenient than other consulates. So if you go to Las Vegas or Laredo, those
have been places that have reported to give approval for permanent or temporary residency
with lower incomes being shown. And not only do you need lower incomes for
those consulates, they're also more lenient in terms of what kind of documentation they'll
accept, and how friendly they are in general. One more thing you should know about getting
a temporary import permit is that if you don't turn it in, you can never get another one. Ever. You can never import another car into Mexico. Be sure to surrender your import permit to
the Banjercito booth when you're leaving Mexico. We know this video has been packed full of
information. There's so much to remember here, there's
a ton to know! And it might not all be totally accurate. It is accurate to the best of our knowledge,
but we're going to link to some great resources, some awesome blogs that have tons of information
on this subject, so you know exactly what to expect when you're coming to Mexico. Getting some type of visa, importing a car,
whatever it is. And again, we used Spencer from ChapalaLaw.com. He was great to work with, it made the process
so much smoother! Saved us a bunch of trips, and allowed us
to enjoy our time in Mexico rather than always stressing about "What do we have to do to
get past this legal red tape and get through this process?" Thank you guys so much for watching! If you liked this video, give it a thumbs
up, and subscribe to our channel. But don't forget to gong that bell, so you
get notified every time we put out a new video! Most of them are showing you what daily life
might be like in Mexico and some of the awesome places you can visit here. So, we look forward to seeing you in the next
one!
