Mexican Customs Requirements For drivers

When driving to Mexico, you may or may not be inspected by Mexican customs officers (aduana) two times (except for Baja and Sonora). When driving to mainland Mexico, when you first cross the border, you will push a stoplight and either get a green or red light (no, a red light is not what some of you are thinking). Green means you do not get inspected by Mexican customs (aduana). Red means you do. After driving about 21 kilometers into the interior of Mexico, you will go through the same customs inspection process. Drivers to Mexico get more chances to deal with Mexican customs agents.

Driving to Sonora, you will encounter the customs guys at the 21 kilometer mark. Driving to Baja, you may never see Mexican customs or immigration officials.

Personal Effects

Technically, you are allowed $100 of personal effects per person when driving to Mexico. If you are flying the figure is $300. This is only enforced if you get a customs inspector on a bad day. Practically, you can bring in a reasonable amount of personal effects. I can't tell you exactly what that means because it varies according to the customs inspector. True, there is an official list of what is permitted, but it is seldom followed. In general, as long as you do not have too much stuff, don't worry about it. A laptop is no problem..

One time I was having a hard time with a computer until I told the official that I was a writer. "What kind of stories do you write?" he asked. "Like James Bond, 007." He beamed and waved me through. I have known people who have been turned back from one border crossing, who have driven to the next border crossing or waited for the shift to change and gotten in. New clothing with the tags still on, even a couple of shirts, will almost always cause you trouble.

Another time, I had a new shirt and the customs officer at the secondary stop (approximately twenty-one kilometers from the border) and talked my way out of it by saying that my girlfriend thought I had such bad taste that she bought me a new shirt. Some of you may be saying, "Yeah, it's easy for him to say, he speaks Spanish. I don't." Most visitors to Mexico do not speak Spanish. Most customs officials speak some English and many are fluent. Don't worry about it. If you really want to learn Spanish, check out the course offered here.

What customs is looking for is new items that could be sold. The secret is not to have new-looking items with you. For example, if you have new clothes, take the tags off. If you have new camping gear, take it out of the shiny boxes and throw some dirt on them to make the boxes look old. Get the idea? Of course, just to make things complicated, Mexican customs officers frown on taking old, used clothing to Mexico. Say what? In fact the best way to get bothered by Mexican customs officials is to have bags and bags of used clothing. I know you only want to give it away. They won't believe you. While the duty on stuff like that has practically disappeared in this decade, guns and drugs are often smuggled in with used clothes. And yes, you will see tractor-trailers with bales of used clothes running down the highway. Who said life was fair?