# Mexican Tourist Card



## Rwrobb (Jul 13, 2014)

If you fly to Mexico from Canada and you are planning on staying for a maximum stay of 6 months is it automatically stamped for that period or do you have to state that is how long you plan to be there. I know at one time they were always good for 6 months but I,ve heard they have changed that.


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

Rwrobb said:


> If you fly to Mexico from Canada and you are planning on staying for a maximum stay of 6 months is it automatically stamped for that period or do you have to state that is how long you plan to be there. I know at one time they were always good for 6 months but I,ve heard they have changed that.


I don't fly-into Mexico from Canada, but when I do that a couple or several times a year from the USA, INM agents automatically write-in "180" days. I think that's the standard proedure, now. In years past many people received 20/60/90 days or just the number of days they said they would be in Mexico, and if they wanted to extend the time they/we had to go to an INM office and ask permission.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

The famous "Tourist Card". One of my first experiences when in Mexico was, back in the 1980s when we flew from San Francisco to Cancun via Monterrey on a cheap chárter flight . While in Cancun, I lost my tourist card and when we returned to the Cancun airport to return to San Francisco via Monterrey , I had no tourist card to give them so they wouldn´t let us board the flight which was scheduled, of course, to stop in Monterrey. I requested that they issue me a new tourist card and they informed me that new tourist cards could only be issued in Monterrey so I requested to board the plane and get a new tourist card in Monterrey before returning to California. Impossible, they informed me as a new tourost card could only be issued in Monterrey and my plane was simply stopping in Monterrey, a destination for which I had no ticket even though we were going to be there for a couple of hours before proceeding on to San Francisco. While all this was going on I helplessly watched my chárter flight to San Francisco take off and, soon afer that, I used my brain and asked if there was some way, for a fee, I could buy a new tourist card there at the Cancun airport. Well, of course, they replied - why didn´t you ask that before? So they then, for an exorbitant fee, printed me up another tourist card and I and my wife bought new full priced tickets to San Francisco through San Antonio on a regularly scheduled flight .The new torist card plus the full fare ticket through San Antonio cost us a fortune but, whet the hell, we´d have paid anythin to get out of Cancun at that point. I can´t believe that some 30 years later we actually retired to this illogical place but we did 13 years ago and have no regrets but we watch our traveling papers with utmost discretion whenever we hit the road even now when we are both Mexican citizens. Never cross city hall.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

Rwrobb said:


> If you fly to Mexico from Canada and you are planning on staying for a maximum stay of 6 months is it automatically stamped for that period or do you have to state that is how long you plan to be there. I know at one time they were always good for 6 months but I,ve heard they have changed that.


I often fly to Mexico City from Toronto. I've always been given 180 days, even if I say I'm staying only for a couple of weeks. Of course length of stay is always at the discretion of the immigration official, but I would say 180 days is the standard. 

Maybe they realize some people plan to come just for a short time, but love Mexico so much they want to stay longer! 😉


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## Rwrobb (Jul 13, 2014)

hmmm (length of stay is always at the discretion of the immigration official) I hope they like the look of me, I,m hoping its a guarantee that's its 180 days . I,d hate to have to go to the nearest immigration office when getting there to straighten out the time frame. It might just cost you that way. All my trips there have been for 1 - 2 weeks and I can,t remember how much time I was stamped for. I never had to use a passport, just a photo ID. Can't remember when it was made mandatory for a passport but probably just after 9/11. I have,nt been since 2006 and am just renewing a new passport at this time. Will do some more checking into it .Thx for your answers.


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## Playaboy (Apr 11, 2014)

Just ask the INM officer for 6 month.


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

Primarily, the Passport is a requirement to _return_ to the USA. Sometime after the USA enacted that regulation Mexico adopted one which is similar. Visitors from the USA entering Mexico by land at the USA/Mexico border may not be required to present a passport - at the border crossing - but are almost certainly required to present it a checkpoint 25 km into the country. The procedures in Baja California have oftentimes been a bit different than most of the rest of Mexico and I don't know what people experience now - but if that's where you will enter Mexico there are people who participate in this forum who have first-hand, current knowledge of the situation.


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Longford said:


> Primarily, the Passport is a requirement to _return_ to the USA. Sometime after the USA enacted that regulation Mexico adopted one which is similar. Visitors from the USA entering Mexico by land at the USA/Mexico border may not be required to present a passport - at the border crossing - but are almost certainly required to present it a checkpoint 25 km into the country. The procedures in Baja California have oftentimes been a bit different than most of the rest of Mexico and I don't know what people experience now - but if that's where you will enter Mexico there are people who participate in this forum who have first-hand, current knowledge of the situation.


I have crossed the border from the US to Tijuana on foot, then taken a bus to the interior of Mexico many times and never had to show a passport at all. At the Tijuana crossing, you would have to go out of your way to stop at INM and fill out a tourist permit if you did not have a visa.

On the other hand, in Ciudad Juarez, you have to show a passport or visa at the bus station before you can board a bus going south. If you didn't have a visa, I suppose they would ask you to fill out a tourist permit. But I have never tested that.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

TundraGreen said:


> I have crossed the border from the US to Tijuana on foot, then taken a bus to the interior of Mexico many times and never had to show a passport at all. At the Tijuana crossing, you would have to go out of your way to stop at INM and fill out a tourist permit if you did not have a visa.
> 
> On the other hand, in Ciudad Juarez, you have to show a passport or visa at the bus station before you can board a bus going south. If you didn't have a visa, I suppose they would ask you to fill out a tourist permit. But I have never tested that.


I´ve never been asked for any document when entering Mexico by car or foot, yet, at the California - Mexico border.

When flying out of the Mexicali and TJ airports since I recieved my Residente Temporal card the let me pass by the INM desk in departures. The INM officer at the Mexicali airport knows me and gives me a nod. Before I would stop there, now no. I think I can show any picture ID at the baggage checkin counter but usually show my RT card. At the gate boarding they ask for picture ID also but once in a blue moon don´t bother.

The INM officers have asked to see my "Document to prove I can be in Mexico" when going into the baggage claim áreas both in Mexicali and TJ airports the last 5 trips though. Before no. Things change. I look like an American.

They never ask for a US passport, but I do carry it and my US passport card which I used to use to get mulitiple FMM tourist cards every year so they would not stamp my booklet passport and go through the hassel to get is stamped out which I had to do once over 6 years ago and they didn´t really want to stamp it, just take the FMM card I gave them and told me to get on my way.


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## maesonna (Jun 10, 2008)

This may seem petty, but it’s important to keep in mind: 180 days isn’t 6 months, it’s about 5 months and 28 days (plus or minus a couple days depending on ‘30 days hath September, etc.’).


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## coondawg (May 1, 2014)

Just ask for 180 days.No problems.


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