How to Get a Mexican Temporary Resident Visa
A guide to the first step for leaving the United States for Mexico.
Note: The following post is offered free of charge to help people pursue a life in Mexico. If you believe this post is useful please consider sharing this publication, sharing this specific post, and/or subscribing.
When my wife and I chose to leave the United States to move to Mexico it was not directly motivated by America’s political failings. More than anything, we felt like we were ready for a new adventure and that if we didn’t take advantage of the opportunity being presented to us it might never happen again. But underneath that urge for a monumental change was also the growing understanding that we lived in a country that doesn’t truly care about the well-being of its citizens. No healthy society looks at the poor, desperate, and trod upon and decides to deliberately make their lives worse in order to enrich people who are both heartless and already grotesquely wealthy.
Mexico is hardly a perfect country and like the U.S. it is a very unequal one, but while the United States declines, Mexico rises. Trump has already undone the right to abortion in the U.S. and is planning to revoke marriage equality, and both of those things are legal in Mexico. Both of Mexico’s most recent leading presidential nominees were women and their gender was hardly even a point of discussion when people considered their electability. Mexico has free universal healthcare and (almost) free public university education.
Mexico’s most severe problems are also the fault of the U.S. It’s the United States’ unquenchable thirst for drugs that powers Mexico’s cartels, just as 70-90% of Mexico’s guns are from the U.S. If parts of Mexico are impoverished and unsafe, it is because the United States has made them that way. But beyond all of that, Mexico is a vibrant, fascinating, largely welcoming country that can be a wonderful place to live, raise a family, and/or retire.
The first step on that journey is applying for a Temporary Resident Visa.
Why You Need a Temporary Resident Visa
Currently, people from the United States and Canada can travel to Mexico for 180 days without a visa as long as the purpose of their visit is tourism. All you need is a Multiple Migration Form (FFM)1. That form can be completed ahead of time but you don’t need to, as it will be supplied to you upon arriving in Mexico. Mexico currently allows unlimited consecutive visits using an FFM, meaning that all you need to do is leave Mexico before your 180th day and then reenter, thus granting you a new FFM.
For those planning to stay in Mexico for longer periods of time, or for those who simply don’t want the hassle of having to leave Mexico multiple times per year, obtaining a Temporary Resident Visa is essential. Obtaining this visa is also a form of insurance, as it’s reasonable to assume that if the political situation in the United States continues to deteriorate Mexico will begin enforcing stricter visa rules. Having this visa will give you peace of mind.
A Temporary Resident Visa is also required by Mexican law if you want to purchase a home, and to qualify for a Permanent Resident Visa you must have had aTemporary Resident Visa for a period of four years. If you’re hoping to permanently relocate to Mexico, or just want to live here without worrying about being deported, you must obtain this visa.
Please note that a Temporary Resident Visa does not allow you to be employed by a Mexican company.
A Note About This Process (and Using Google)
The process for applying for your visa may vary depending on the specific consulate you visit.
It is incredibly vital that at the start of your process, you navigate to the website of the consulate closest to you, or which you plan to visit. That list can be found here2.
Searching for information on Google about how to apply for your visa may direct you to forms from the Mexican government that seem inaccurate, out of date, or are for a country you do not belong to. This is because what appears on Google is based on what Google thinks is accurate, not what is accurate to you.
Because of the variability in this process, there may be elements of the following guide that ultimately do not apply to you.
Step 1: Review the Application Guidelines
The first step in applying for your visa is reviewing the guidelines to ensure you qualify. An example of that form (from New York City) can be found here3. Please bear in mind that depending on the consulate you will be using the form may change.
General Requirements
To apply for your visa you need to complete an application form (English4 or Español5) and provide some basic documents along with a one-time consular fee of $53.00 USD, which you’ll need to pay in cash.
Depending on your particular circumstances you’ll need to provide documentation from one of three categories: 1) Economic solvency; 2) Family unification, or; 3) Invitation from an organization or a public or private institution.
More Details
The “Economic solvency” category is Mexico’s way of determining whether you have enough money (either being earned or already saved) to be able to live in the country. Their criteria are fairly straightforward and they require that you be able to provide a letter from your employer indicating that you have a job AND that you have 6 months of paystubs with a minimum income of $4,200.00 USD, OR that you have 12 months of bank statements with a minimum balance of $70,000.00 USD. If you plan to work remotely from Mexico the letter from your employer needs to indicate that you have permission to do so.
The “Family unification” category asks you to provide evidence that you’ve either married a Mexican citizen or that you’ve married someone in Mexico who is already registered as a Temporary Resident.
The “Invitation” category requires you to provide the letter inviting you to come to Mexico, and bank statements for the inviting organization demonstrating that they have an average balance of $140,000 USD. If you are visiting at the invitation of a religious organization, you’ll be asked for additional paperwork.
Step 2: Complete the Application Form
The application form (English or Español) is very straightforward and the most complicated part of the process is compiling the additional documents required.
Step 3: Create a Llave MX Account
An in-person interview at a Mexican consulate is required to complete your visa application. To schedule that interview you’ll need to register online for a Llave MX Account. Llave MX is the online portal that the Mexican government uses for online forms and associated services.
The standard link that you can use after your account has already been created is here.
Step 3: Schedule Your Consulate Interview Appointment
Once you’ve registered online you can navigate to the consulate of your choice and select an available appointment. Before attending your appointment be sure that all of your paperwork is in order and that you have all of your cash payments ready in the exact amount asked for. Do not expect them to be able to make change!
Also please note that, depending on the rules of the consulate you are visiting, it is possible that each person applying for a visa will need their own appointment. In New York City, if you show up to a scheduled appointment with more than one person they will only see the person for whom the appointment was scheduled.
As part of your application, you will need to give the Mexican consulate officer your passport. If your visa is approved, they will place a visa sticker in your passport. This is not the Temporary Resident Visa, but rather is just a sticker indicating you’ve been pre-approved. You will later visit an immigration office in Mexico to complete the visa application and to obtain your visa card.
Step 4: Wait For and Receive Your Visa
Visa processing times may vary. When my wife Andrea applied for her visa they told her it would take approximately two weeks for the application to be processed and she received confirmation that her visa was approved and ready within one week. For myself, my visa was approved and printed the day after I attended my appointment. But it is possible your wait may be longer than what we experienced.
Depending on the rules of the consulate you visited, if your visa is approved you may need to retrieve your documents in person.
Once granted, the sticker that has been placed into your passport is valid for 180 days. Within that period you must travel to Mexico to complete the final step of the visa application process, which occurs at an INM office (the Mexican immigration office, which in Spanish is called the Instituto Nacional de Migración7).
Step 5: Travel to Mexico for the Canje
The final step in your visa application process is to travel to Mexico to obtain your Temporary Resident Visa card. This part of the process is referred to as the “canje.”
Note: It is VITAL that when you go through Mexican customs you do not obtain a tourist visa.
The above note is not an exaggeration. When you travel to Mexico and go through Mexican customs, you must:
Go to an actual immigration desk and not use an automated kiosk.
Tell the immigration agent that you are traveling to Mexico to obtain your residency visa.
Show the agent the visa sticker that has been placed in your passport. If you accidentally enter under a tourist visa it will invalidate the stamp that has been placed in your passport and all of the work you have done to get to this point will be negated.
Step 6: The Canje
Note: Once you enter Mexico you have 30 days to visit the INM.
Entering Mexico and beginning the canje process triggers a 30-day period in which you must schedule an appointment with the INM to obtain your Temporary Resident Visa card.
Visit this website to schedule your INM appointment8.
The canje process follows very specific rules and, as with the consulate appointment that you had before arriving in Mexico, you must provide a number of documents.
Note: A thorough walkthrough of the canje process can be found at Mexico Relocation Guide.
A thorough walkthrough of this process, complete with screenshots and sample documents, can be found at the website Mexico Relocation Guide9. This is an excellent resource for how to complete the canje process.
Step 7: Welcome to Mexico!
Once you have successfully completed the canje process your Mexican Temporary Resident Visa card will be issued to you. It is valid for one year, and you will need to renew it at least 30 days before its expiration. If you choose to renew your Temporary Resident Visa, the second time it is issued to you it will be valid for a period of three years instead of just one. After four years of having this visa, you will qualify for a Permanent Resident Visa.
Great post! Wish we had it when we were starting our process. One thing worth pointing out is that there is no guarantee that a traveler will get a 180 day FFM. That is the maximum allowable but the time granted is entirely at the discretion of the immigration official. This uncertaintly is what led us to apply for residency.
Thank you for this. I'm planning on marrying my mexican partner, and as a trans person I would really love the ability to escape the US if needed right now.