# New income requirements for residency?



## ValRomx (Nov 12, 2012)

Did new income requirements for temporary and permanent residency permits go into effect recently?


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

From Chapala lawyer

HUGE Changes today to Mexican immigration law

These changes apply to visas issued at Mexican consulates outside Mexico. I am assuming that there will be a publication soon applicable to people renewing within Mexico to harmonize the new lower financial requirements. 

Reduced income requirements for temporary residence, new income / asset requirements:

Balances in bank 5,000 days minimum wage (67.29 pesos) $336,450 pesos or $25,164US
Monthly income 300 days minimum wage (67.29 pesos) $20,187 pesos or $1,510US

1. Original y copia de comprobante de inversiones o cuentas bancarias con saldo promedio mensual equivalente a cinco mil días de salario mínimo general vigente en el Distrito Federal, durante los últimos doce meses; o
2. Original y copia de los documentos que demuestren que cuenta con empleo o pensión con ingresos mensuales libres de gravámenes mayores al equivalente de trescientos días de salario mínimo general vigente en el Distrito Federal, durante los últimos seis meses.

Permanent residents have same income requirements but lower asset requirements:

Balances in bank 20,000 days minimum wage (67.29 pesos) $1,345,800 pesos or $100,658US

Presentar los documentos que acrediten alguno de los siguientes supuestos:
a. Jubilados o pensionados:
1. Original y copia de comprobante de inversiones o cuentas bancarias con saldo promedio mensual equivalente a veinte mil días de salario mínimo general vigente en el Distrito Federal, durante los últimos doce meses, o
2. Original y copia de los documentos que demuestren que cuenta con pensión con ingresos mensuales libres de gravámenes mayores al equivalente de quinientos días de salario mínimo general vigente en el Distrito Federal, durante los últimos seis meses.

The changes were published in the Diario Oficial today, Friday October 10, 2014 and take effect 5 business days after publication, Friday October 17, 2014
http://www.dof.gob.mx/nota_to_doc.php?codnota=5363602


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

$1,510US looks like a 500 reduction for Temporal. Don't understand what he said about Permanent


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

sparks said:


> $1,510US looks like a 500 reduction for Temporal. Don't understand what he said about Permanent


The investment amount used to be 12 months of continuos balance of $105,000 US now it is $100,000 US.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

Good news! I wonder why the required amounts have been lowered.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

AlanMexicali said:


> The investment amount used to be 12 months of continuos balance of $105,000 US now it is $100,000 US.


Correction: It was $100,000 US for a RT and $130,000 for a RP visa at a consualte.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

Some have asked why it makes sense to become a Mexican citizen. The answer is in this thread. When SRE approved our applications for Mexican citizenship, they required that we turn over to them any and all INM documents relating to our residency permits and informed us that we no longer were under INM jurisdiction in any manner. PERIOD!

No future arbitrary changes in financial or residency requierments or anything else. We have Mexican plated cars, Passports and IFE (voter registration) cards- the national identification card in Mexico accepted, as we have found out subsequntly, without reservation universally. For example, before I got my IFE card, I presented my Chiapas drivers´ license to my bank in Jalisco where I have been a custiomer for over ten years. They refused to accept it as proper identifcation since it was not a Jalisco license. They didn´t even know where Chiapas was.

When you qualify, do not hesitate to go for Mexican citizenship as soon as possible. This makes a huge difference in the way you will be treated here. When I present my IFE card here now, I am always treated with the utmost courtesy and nobody ever questions my right to be here with all of the privileges pertaining to citizenship.


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## ojosazules11 (Nov 3, 2013)

sparks said:


> $1,510US looks like a 500 reduction for Temporal. Don't understand what he said about Permanent


For permanent resident status it says minimum after tax monthly income in past 6 months is 500 times daily minimum wage, which currently would be 33,645 pesos, or just over US$2,500. 

What was it before?


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

ojosazules11 said:


> For permanent resident status it says minimum after tax monthly income in past 6 months is 500 times daily minimum wage, which currently would be 33,645 pesos, or just over US$2,500.
> 
> What was it before?


The original poster said the only change for Permanente is assets dropped from 130k to 100k. Income remained the same

Temporal changes
assets down from 100k to 25k
and Income down from 2000 to 1500


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## MNWildRose (Jun 2, 2013)

A few questions, please:
* For temporary residency, can you prove EITHER bank balance OR monthly income, or do you need to provide both?
* For "balances in bank," do they accept proof of money in brokerage account mutual funds? 
* Also, do you advise that a husband and wife each apply for separate residency visas if you can prove the needed amount of money for each individual? (Thinking that this may be easier if one of the two of them were to die, with resulting complications for the remaining spouse.)


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## sparks (Jun 17, 2007)

Either or income or balance
brokerage YES
Easier as individuals rather than one being a dependent


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## jquest (Aug 10, 2013)

MNWildRose said:


> A few questions, please:
> * For temporary residency, can you prove EITHER bank balance OR monthly income, or do you need to provide both?
> * For "balances in bank," do they accept proof of money in brokerage account mutual funds?
> * Also, do you advise that a husband and wife each apply for separate residency visas if you can prove the needed amount of money for each individual? (Thinking that this may be easier if one of the two of them were to die, with resulting complications for the remaining spouse.)


I can tell you that for permanent residency, they required two separate bank accounts, one for each of us, even though the joint account had enough in it to cover both of us. Luckily we had a separate account that we transferred money in to each month for some automatic payments that were hooked up, so we had the other account with the required monthly deposits, even though they came from the joint account - they didn't care about the payment source, just that money was flowing in to the account every month that met the minimum amount.


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## wonderphil (Sep 7, 2013)

Isla Verde said:


> Good news! I wonder why the required amounts have been lowered.


The rules are based on Pesos then converted to foreign currencies. The rules are rewritten from time to time and then the required amounts change based on exchange rates. Of course they could also change the amounts required in pesos at anytime as well.

So in this case, the US Dollar has been very strong against other currencies recently. It is up about 8% against the Euro and Yen in the last few weeks. 


As far as Mexico, I just looked at a small sample of past exchange rates for example

Apr 30, 2013 - US Dollar, Mexican Peso, Date. 1 USD = 12.1379 MXN, 0.0824

Current exchange rate US DOLLAR (USD) to MEXICAN PESO (MXN) ..1.00 MXN, = 0.0741789 USD. Mexican Peso · ↔ · US Dollar. 1 MXN = 0.0741789 USD, 1 USD = 13.4809 MXN.

So stronger US $ means less $ is required in to meet residency requirement in PESOS.


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## wonderphil (Sep 7, 2013)

MNWildRose said:


> A few questions, please:
> * For temporary residency, can you prove EITHER bank balance OR monthly income, or do you need to provide both?
> * For "balances in bank," do they accept proof of money in brokerage account mutual funds?
> * Also, do you advise that a husband and wife each apply for separate residency visas if you can prove the needed amount of money for each individual? (Thinking that this may be easier if one of the two of them were to die, with resulting complications for the remaining spouse.)


You just have to prove either not both. My wife just applied for temp they would have given her permanent as I have but we wanted only a temp for her to allow for driving a US plated car down to Mexico. We could have done this on a tourist visa for her but there is some question in my mind about the legality of leaving the car down there when we fly back to the USA for a few weeks at christmas.

I assume it will be approved and we pick it up at the consulate on Oct 16th. 

Anyway all she had to show was the first page of her IRA (brokerage) account for the current month and the 11 preceding months ( Oct 2013 to Sept 2014). This page showed the account owner, balance of the account and summary. That is by far the easiest way if you can show the required amount in a individual account. 

She had all she needed in her account so looking at joint accounts was not needed. I do not even know if money in joint accounts works to fulfill the individual requirement?

She could have also got the visa based on my perminent visa If we would have showed a copy of our wedding certificate stamped by the appropriate state office. I think it is secretary of state of our state. Just having a copy of the certificate that you got when you were married will not work. 

On your last question It is my opinion that once they give you a visa it does not matter to your visa if your spouse dies later, in other words, once issued, there is no difference in how you got it (either as a individual or with your spouse at the same time).


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## ValRomx (Nov 12, 2012)

wonderphil said:


> The rules are based on Pesos then converted to foreign currencies. The rules are rewritten from time to time and then the required amounts change based on exchange rates. Of course they could also change the amounts required in pesos at anytime as well.
> 
> So in this case, the US Dollar has been very strong against other currencies recently. It is up about 8% against the Euro and Yen in the last few weeks.
> ...
> So stronger US $ means less $ is required in to meet residency requirement in PESOS.


Wonderphil -

The exchange rate isn't the key factor though, is it? As you mentioned in your second sentence, "The rules are rewritten from time to time" and that's the key factor in the newest income requirement for the Residente Temporale permit. 

To determine the average monthly income required, a specified number of days is multiplied by the daily wage rate (a variable that's changed annually - I think that went up by about 8% over the past two years). It's the equivalent of that amount that must be shown in bank statements. 

For the FM3 the number of days had been set at 250, then for the first iteration of the RT it was 400 days. Now the number of days has been lowered for the RT to 300 days. 

It appears the number of days for the Residente Permanente remains at 500 days (up from 400 days for the FM2).


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## Meritorious-MasoMenos (Apr 17, 2014)

I wonder if the significant cut in income requirements is related to Citlali's post in Iguala's thread:

The pool of new expats has been shrinking for a while and the snowbird population is not as high as it used to be either. 
Construction workers in an expat area like Ajijic are desperate for work and people selling home furnishing are suffereing all signs that the pool of new expats is shrinking.

Houses are not selling weither which wil make getting out for homeowners more difficult no doubt about that.

The shame is that Mexico has an opportunity to increase their tourism as North Africa which is a big European destination is becoming off limit. Mexico could sell their beaches , ruins, culture etc..but news like that of Iguala will counteract any big campaign.

The much bigger question for all of us Mexicans and expats is where is Mexico going?. Can they reverse the trend or continue their descent in hell?


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

I would say that the new financial requirements were not giving the right message to potential expats. Since many people depends on their SS to retire it would have made sense to have requirements in line with the SS average payments so I guess someone thought about that when the expat flow dropped and readjust the requirements to a more logical amount.

President Peña Nieto had the news on violence pretty much under control so along with a reduced financial requirement should bring more expats until the idiot mobsters from Iguala took care of the image of Mexico worldwide for a while.. this too will pass and the lower requirements should help getting more expats.


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## lancekoz (Nov 6, 2013)

Here is a link to an article about it....

Mexico's federal government relaxes strict income/asset requirements for retired expats


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## MJD13 (Aug 11, 2014)

wonderphil said:


> ... She had all she needed in her account so looking at joint accounts was not needed. I do not even know if money in joint accounts works to fulfill the individual requirement?....



Hello. Does anyone know if a JOINT ACCOUNT is ever acceptable for obtaining a permanente or temporal visa for an individual? I want to apply for a permanente and hubbie wants a temporal for a few years so we can keep our current NAFTA vehicle until it qualifies (based on age) for import. The vehicle is in his name.

That explained, I have several investment accounts solely in my name that would suffice for my visa application but husband does not have any accounts solely in his name nor does he have sufficient monthly Social Security income. 

If a joint account CAN'T be used for an individual's application, it sounds like we need to plan ahead and create a separate account for him that can be used down the road for his temporal application and, in the interim, he continues on a FMM. 

Most likely, we would be applying in the Phoenix consulate office which sounds fairly user friendly.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide some guidance or info! 

MJ Drake
Alamos, SON, MX


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

citlali said:


> I would say that the new financial requirements were not giving the right message to potential expats.


I don't know if the new regulations weren't/arent giving the "right message," but obviously administrators thought the number was probably too high. Since the new regulations have been in effect just about 2 years now, the wheels of government (any government) move slow and it takes time to adjust after an issue percolates.



> Since many people depends on their SS to retire it would have made sense to have requirements in line with the SS average payments so I guess someone thought about that when the expat flow dropped and readjust the requirements to a more logical amount.


For retirees who were lower-wage earners, or maybe just "average" wage earners n the USA, the average monthly Social Security money received in 2013 is about US$1,300 which is less than the minimum level set by Mexico to qualify. The average disablity payment from Social Security is about Us$1,200. The monthly income threshhold wasn't much if any problem for middle-class persons who have Social Security and some sort of pension or investment income, but, rather, for those who find/found themselves below the averages.



> ... this too will pass and the lower requirements should help getting more expats.


Maybe yes, likely no ... if we blend the factors people take into account when thinking about a retirement location. People still receiving just the "average" US Social Security money won't qualify unless they meet the assets standard and there are a lot of people who don't have US$25,000+ in a savings or investment account. Well, yes, there are a lot overall ... but we see a lot of people posting to Mexico-specific forums about retirement (and who are already in Mexico) who apparently do not and who are in Mexico or would like to be in Mexico because they think it's a cheaper place to live (to live better than they think their money will provide for them in the US).

The adjustment to the income/asset levels to be met is a good sign that the government is being somewhat flexible or realistic. But for those who desperately look for a place to live other than the USA, due to personal financial problems, I really don't think these adjustments are going to be all that beneficial.


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## Meritorious-MasoMenos (Apr 17, 2014)

ValRomx said:


> It's always nice when people stay on-topic, instead of wandering into rabbit holes.
> 
> The title of this thread was "New income requirements for residency?" - we're pretty far from that, now, so maybe a moderator can close the thread?


This often happens with threads, and I may be wrong, but from what I can gather from my brief time here, moderators often permit it.


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