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Last updated 29 December 2014 More useful information can be found on http://mexconnect.com free registration required. You should plan to spend a lot of time there learning about living in México. Definitions: NoB = north of the border = USA and Canada INM = the immigration office Menaje de casa = the paperwork required to take your household belongings to México duty free.
I have divided this page into four sections: How do I get a visa for México? updated 29 December 2014 If your spouse is a Mexican citizen
How
do I get a visa for México?
Visitante Fees
Visitante
without
permission to
engage in gainful activity
$306 pesos In addition to the tourist form of the Visitante, there many other versions for business, transit, etc. At the border or airport, the INM agent will ask the purpose of your visit and give you the appropriate Visitante,. This is a tremendous simplification of the old procedures for business people.
Everyone
entering the country must fill out a
Visitante even if you have a
a higher visa
for whom it's for statically purposes. You should keep your part of the
form to turn in next time you leave the country. If you have a
Residente card, you must be sure that you or the INM agent marks
your FMM with the kind of card you have -- Residente Temporal or
Residente
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Residente Temporal:
You MUST apply for your first Residente visa at a Mexican consulate in your home country or in a country where you are a legal resident. You cannot change from Visitante to a Residente while in México. This rule applies to first time applications for both Residente Temporal and Residente Permanente.
When you apply at a consulate, the actual card will not be issued at that time.
You will get the card from the INM office after you arrive in your new
home. After receiving your application and fee payment, the
consulate will attach a special form to your passport. With this
attachment, you will have 180 days to make your move to México.
Once you arrive in México, you will have only 30 days to go
When you cross the border, you will need to get an FMM. This will not be a regular tourist visa, rather it is a special document for your situation. Be absolutely, positively sure that the agent writes or marks CANJE on the FMM. That means you will be exchanging your border paperwork for the final paperwork at INM.
When you
present your documents at the INM office, they will want you to bring a filled
out application form and a Formato Básico. Instructions for these
two online forms are here. They will want
If you are applying for a Residente Temporal, you will only be allowed to buy a one-year permit. At the end of the first year at renewal, you will be allowed to buy a multiyear card if you wish. The Family Plan allows other members of a family to receive a Residente card without having to show financial means after the head of the family has met the financial requirement for him/herself. It works like this: The head of the family secures a Residente card (Temporal or Permanente). The rest of the family enters with Visitants. Then each member fills out all the application paperwork, gets photos, passport copies, etc. Take all this to the INM and apply as a family. There will be more paperwork at the office.
Income Requirements
The
The financial requirement can also be met
by submitting an original and copy of proof of investments
or bank accounts with average
Original and copy of proof of investments
or bank accounts with an average monthly equivalent to twenty-five thousand days
of general minimum wage during the last twelve
months.
Original and copy of written proof from a
Notario confirming that you own real property,. or have trustee
rights, with a value equal to forty thousand days of the minimum wage.
There are other options that apply to large-scale businesses or investments. These are beyond the scope of this discussion. Checking on the progress of your application can done from this website. The Pieza is your application ID number. The INM office will give you the Contraseña (password) and the NUT numbers when they accept your papers. After you enter the Pieza and Contraseña, click on Buscar, and a new page will come up asking you to select the NUT -- probably only one choice. Then all the particulars of your application will appear.
What can I bring?
Basically it's your household goods and personal effects. As stated in
Article 90 of the Mexican Customs Law, all items must be used personal
items and furniture of a house, such as clothes, books, furniture,
appliances, computers, entertainment electronics, musical instruments,
and artwork. The artwork must not constitute complete collections for
the installation of expositions or You may also include scientific instruments and tools that are needed for your profession or hobby. The scientific instruments and tools that you bring cannot form complete equipment for the installation of laboratories, clinics or workshops. Medical equipment such as a wheelchair, a blood pressure or sugar monitor, oxygen generator, etc, are duty free. Most medicines in reasonable quantities are allowed. The meds should be in the original pharmacy packaging with the doctor's name. Schedule 2 and 3 drugs are much more iffy, and you absolutely must have a doctor's prescription. What can I not bring? Most important on that list are guns and ammunition. México is very strict about these. A single bullet will land you in jail. You cannot bring fresh or frozen food, including cheese. Packaged and canned goods are usually allowed. Fresh or dried plants and plant material including spices and seeds are prohibited. The Move Now we can talk about moving your household belongings to your new home in México. You have two choices – use a moving company or do it in your own vehicle, perhaps pulling a trailer. You cannot take a rental truck into México, so you must use your own vehicle in order to do it yourself. You will have to pay an import duty on many of the items – furniture, dishes, appliances, etc. Personal items and a few other things are duty-free. Menaje de Casa The government will give you a one-time-only wavier of the import duties. A Menaje de Casa allows you to move your used household belongings to México without paying any import duties. (Note the word “used” defined as at least six months old.) You will get it from the same person who fixed your Residente Temporal.. Rules for preparing the Menaje sometimes vary among the consulates; so get the instructions on your first visit. The Menaje consists of two parts – the list that you prepare and a cover letter from the consulate. More about the list later. While the Menaje is a good deal, you might not want it if you are moving only a few items. If the total value of your dutiable items is less than $3,000 dollars, a Menaje would not be cost effective. For amounts over $3,000 and for a moving company, a Menaje is the way to go. The value is the reasonable re-sale value, not the new or replacement cost. Taking your Menaje stuff across the border yourself is not as easy as it sounds. You can pull a trailer behind a pickup or van, so it is possible to bring quite a bit of stuff. If you do, you'll have to engage the services of a customs broker to walk the paper work through Mexican Customs. I’ve talked to some people who have been through this, and their experiences vary from a minor nuisance to a major hassle. I recommend this do-it-yourself approach only to the stout-hearted. (If you use a trailer, it will be listed on your vehicle permit. You'll need proof of ownership. It does not have to have plates.) Somewhere along the planning for a move to México, one really should carefully address the question of moving the household furnishings vs. having a giant garage sale, move to México with personal items and a few treasures that will fit in your vehicle, and buy all new for a new life in a new land. What you save by not doing the big move + the yard sale could very well furnish a house here. How I did my move I chose to bring a lot of stuff because the move would be cheaper than replacing my stereo recording system and my graphics-enhanced computer system – replacing them in México would cost more than the moving cost. So I brought everything that would fit in my new house and then some. If it were not for those big ticket items, I think I would have come with no more than would fit in my pickup. For my move, I selected United Van Lines because their agent seemed, more than the others I interviewed, to know what she was talking about. A couple of the agents were less informed than I was. You may find a different ‘best’ mover in your city. Talk to all you can find because the prices, services and experience do vary. In addition to movers in your Yellow Pages, you might want to consider these two. In addition to USA based movers, there are several who are based in México that you may wish to consider. Movingtomexicoguy.com offers a door-to-door service moving your household from your home in the USA or Canada to any place in México. . MexicoMovingCompany.com offers a similar service. Their website has a free quote request form. San Miguel Moving offers door-to-door moving to or from México. Their website has an online estimating form. Getting everything together Preparing the Menaje and getting ready for the movers is where the real nightmare begins. It’s almost a catch 22. You must have your small belongings packed in boxes, and the boxes must be numbered, labled and inventoried for the Menaje. My living room was my box room You also have to keep on living in your house while doing all this. Some things you can’t box until the day of the move unless you want to move into a motel or with family or friends. I solved this problem by packing those things for the inventory and box numbering, and then unpacking them for continued use until moving day. I also attached labels to each box listing contents in both Spanish and English. This was a big help when it came time to unpack 54 boxes. All this inventory and box numbering has to get turned into the Menaje de Casa, which, sigh, must be in Spanish -- an original and several copies to be submitted to the Consulate for approval and stamping. There is a fee of around $130. At the top and the bottom of this page, there are links to my Menaje with side-by-side English and Spanish to help you translate. I had help offers from several of my Latino friends -- some from México, some from other Latin American countries. I quickly learned that even simple things are not always called by the same word in various Latin countries. I came to rely only on the Mexicans. I had trouble finding names for some less common items. I never did find the word for 'wind chime' -- espanta espiritus, I learned after I moved. On my Menaje I called it music by the wind - música de viento. Then there is the matter of who packs the boxes. The moving company must prepare a manifest which the Mexican Customs folks can use to compare with your menaje. The moving company can’t (won’t?) list the contents of the boxes you pack – their manifest will say “owner packed.” I was told that this would increase the chances of the boxes being inspected. I was completely honest in what I packed and listed, but I wanted to avoid the time delay of a protracted inspection. I also was told that if an inspection is triggered, the authorities would find something to charge duty on to pay for their time. A thought that I find believable. So we agreed that I could pack the boxes and leave them unsealed so the movers could verify the contents and then seal the boxes. They charged me an additional $160 to seal the boxes. $160 for 54 boxes = $3.00 per box. Banditos! But in the end, it all went well. The head of the moving crew is from Gomez Palacio the town next to Lerdo, where I was moving to. He was so surprised, and asked, like so many others, Why? We had a nice chat. Two copies of my approved menaje were attached to the mover’s manifest, and my stuff was loaded on the truck and taken away. The trailer part of the truck was loaded on a train and taken to Laredo where it was attached to a Mexican company’s rig and taken through customs and on to my new home in México. The move went off without a hitch, and my stuff arrived a couple of days early and with only one minor cracked glass. I discovered to my chagrin that United (and others) will not accept a credit card for an international move. Cash or check only. I hope your move goes as well as mine did. If your husband is a Mexican citizen If you are married to a Mexican who is employed in México, you can get a Residente Temporal Familiares without having to show an income from outside México. Go to your local INM office to get instructions. You will need your birth certificate with an apostle and your marriage certificate. If you were married outside México, your certificate will need an apostle and should be registered at city hall before going to INM. After living in México for two years with this visa, you can apply for citizenship if you wish. |
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