# Establish Residence Before Moving?



## HolyMole (Jan 3, 2009)

(I would have continued an existing thread, but it's been closed.)

This business of having to establish a residence before applying for an FM3 from inside Mexico is still worrying me.

If you apply for an FM3 outside Mexico, i.e. at a Mexican consulate, the application form, (at least the one provided by the consulate in Vancouver, BC) asks for your expected port of entry into Mexico and the date, and your main destination and length of stay. Nothing about a residential address. 

For various reasons, including the fact that it's 500 km away from where we live, we did not apply for our FM3's from the consulate. 

(At the time, we had been advised.....in books written by more than one respected Mexican retirement "expert"....that one HAD to apply for an FM3 from outside Mexico. We now know otherwise.)

I haven't yet tried applying for our FM3's from inside Mexico, but anticipate doing so this November/December, in Zihuatanejo.

We are interested in full-time residence as retirees in Mexico. In order to do so, we would have to sell our house in Canada. Until we actually sell and move south, we have no idea where, in Mexico, we will decide to stay permanently. 

Since our income is fairly close to Mexico's minimum income requirements, it would be foolhardy to sell in Canada in the hope we'll qualify for our FM3's. For the same reasons, it wouldn't be wise to sign any longterm Mexican rental lease without first obtaining our FM3's. 

The only practical procedure, then, is to apply for our FM3's from within Mexico while we're down there this winter. Then, FM3's in hand, return to Canada, sell our home and go south for good. 

That means that when we apply for our FM3's this fall/winter, we won't be able to provide any "residential address" in Mexico except that of the hotel/guest house/apartment where we end up spending the winter. 

Has anyone had a similar experience? Has not having a permanent residential address been a problem when applying for an FM3 from inside Mexico? Surely other full-time expats must have faced the same problem?


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

You will need proof of a residence in Mexico when you apply for an FM3. You are also required to renew that FM3 within 30 days of its expiration date each year, in Mexico, not at a consulate. There is also a requirement that you notify INM within 30 days of any change of address.
So, you might want to consider using the 180 day FMT for each of your visits/vacations until you are ready to settle down in Mexico. There is no need for the FM3 before then.
The reason that a consular application does not ask for your Mexican residence is that they understand that you may not have yet established one. However, an FM3 issued by a consulate must be presented at the border within a certain time frame, stamped on the 'entrada' page and then registered with INM, within 30 days of that stamp, at your destination with proof of residence, income, etc. Only if you are shipping a consignment of household goods and need a 'menaje de casa' for the one time duty free event, would you need an FM3 from outside Mexico.


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## HolyMole (Jan 3, 2009)

RVGRINGO said:


> You will need proof of a residence in Mexico when you apply for an FM3. You are also required to renew that FM3 within 30 days of its expiration date each year, in Mexico, not at a consulate. There is also a requirement that you notify INM within 30 days of any change of address.
> So, you might want to consider using the 180 day FMT for each of your visits/vacations until you are ready to settle down in Mexico. There is no need for the FM3 before then.
> The reason that a consular application does not ask for your Mexican residence is that they understand that you may not have yet established one. However, an FM3 issued by a consulate must be presented at the border within a certain time frame, stamped on the 'entrada' page and then registered with INM, within 30 days of that stamp, at your destination with proof of residence, income, etc. Only if you are shipping a consignment of household goods and need a 'menaje de casa' for the one time duty free event, would you need an FM3 from outside Mexico.


Thanks RVGRINGO. In a previous post, you had offered the opinion that providing the address of a hotel might suffice when applying for one's initial FM3 from inside Mexico.....but I won't hold you to it. We may still try it that way this November in Zihua.

Your explanation as to why a consular application doesn't require a residential address makes sense. 

Surely it's unreasonable to expect that someone obtaining a "consular FM3" will find a permanent residence within 30 days of entering Mexico? Every book on the subject suggests staying for at least a month or two in a hotel or apartment/hotel before committing to a real estate purchase or long-term lease arrangement.

I guess my post wasn't clear. We've spent enough time in Mexico over the years to know that we want to reside there permanently. The "where" is something we would likely decide after trying a couple of areas over the first year or two.

However, we are very reluctant to sell our home in Canada on an assumption that an application for an FM3 will be successful. Given the current real estate markets in Canada, (and in the States), it is entirely conceivable our home could take 6 months or more to sell. Our plan is to somehow obtain those initial FM3's, then return home and sell our home. 

IF we are able to obtain our FM3's this December in Zihua, that timing should, we hope, allow us to return to Canada in late April, put the house up for sale, and get back to Mexico in time for the first annual FM3 renewal around November/2010

The only fly in the ointment appears to be the requirement to prove residence when we apply for the FM3's this November in Zihua.


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## El Toro Furioso (May 13, 2007)

HolyMole said:


> The only fly in the ointment appears to be the requirement to prove residence when we apply for the FM3's this November in Zihua.


If you rent you should be able to use a copy of a phone or CFE bill in the landlord's name as proof of residence, even without a lease contract. We have done that for four years without a lease, just showing a phone bill with our landlady's name and our claimed residence address on it. This won't work everywhere and you don't want any nasty surprises, so you should consider renting a house or apartment with a signed lease issued by the person whose name appears on the Telmex or CFE bill. That should overcome any doubts on the part of INM. You might want to look at what RVG wrote again, though. You would be much better off waiting until you sell your house.

You may be under the impression that you have to show a certain amount of income each month to INM. This is not at all the case. There are many ways to show them liquidity, including showing them that you have a large savings account from selling your home in Canada. We used to show three months of checking account activity, which is the standard request in Jalisco. Now we have switched to having our Mexican investment bank adviser write a letter to INM saying that we have X pesos in our account. This does the trick.

So you don't need to get your FM3s before selling your house and moving here. If you are really really way under the minimum "monthly" requirement, FM me and I'll explain a way to get around that issue. Remember, you only need show the minimum balance OR the minimum amount of activity in your checking account for three months prior to your initial application or renewal each subsequent year. You could do that with very little actual cash in hand.


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

INM seems to be tightening up on the 'rules' and it appears that, if you are still in 'travel and exploration mode', that the FMT is what you need. As above, apply for the FM3 when you are settled.


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## DanHoward (Oct 17, 2009)

HolyMole said:


> (I would have continued an existing thread, but it's been closed.)
> 
> This business of having to establish a residence before applying for an FM3 from inside Mexico is still worrying me.
> 
> ...




When we moved from England in 2007, we bought a house to rent out, and a house to live in. Good idea because sometimes the purchasing process can take a long time and its not something you want to go through if you've just landed!!


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## cookjmex (Aug 12, 2009)

I'm with RVGringo on this. Get your FMT at the border (or through your airline ticket) and stay with that status until you have decided where to settle. I have now gone through the FM3 process 3 times and you don't want to be on it unless you really need it, i.e. you are really settled on what city and what address you want to be at. It's not that big a deal to renew an FMT, certainly less complicated and expensive than renewing an FM3. Simply a matter of recrossing the border. Use the trip to do a little shopping for those items hard to find in Mexico.


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