Updates on Mexican Tourist Cards or Permits (FMT's)
You don’t need a visa to travel to Mexico as a tourist. You need a tourist card, called an FMT (also seen as an FM-T in some publications). This FMT Mexican tourist permit is good for multiple entries. You need a birth certificate or a passport to get a tourist permit. The Mexican tourist permit (FMT) is no longer free (except in Sonora). Although the cost of the Mexican tourist permit (FMT) varies according to the peso and changes periodically, it will set you back about $25. The old no tourist permit for seven days or fewer rule is no longer in effect.
Sonora has a Sonora Only tourist card that you need to get, and, theoretically, you need a Mexican tourist permit for Baja, but the enforcement of this rule is sporadic at best. Technically, you can only be a tourist in Mexico for 180 days out of 365. Technically, and sometimes practically, if you try to return to Mexico after your 180 days are up, you will be told to go home.
You will find several different products relating to living, working or driving in Mexico on my shopping cart, as well as a description of my consultation services to help you decide if, and where to live in Mexico.
Now, thanks to computerization, the government can keep track of you (conspiracy theorists, unite!). They keep a database of everyone who enters and for how long, Don’t ask for 180 days unless you need them; otherwise, you might not get back in for a year. Get a few days extra, to allow for the unexpected, but don’t get more than a week’s extra time if you want to come back again soon. Be sure to turn your tourist card in, either at the airport (where the ticket agent will insist that you do) or at the Migracíon office near the border. Finding these is always a challenge, but worth it. If you buy one of my maps, it will have the location of where to return the tourist permits and car permits.
Mexican Immigration officials have told me privately that they are ignoring the rule that you can only get one Mexican tourist card (an FMT) every year if -- in their clairvoyance -- they don't think you are living or working in Mexico. So take heart and somehow just try to look like you don't live live in Mexico, whatever that means.