Our Temporary Residence Experience Part 1 of 2
Our Experience Getting Temporary Residency
With so much conflicting information out there it's hard to figure out exactly what to do when you are interested applying for temporary or permanent residency in Mexico. I mean, even each cities consulate has different information!
I found blogs to be so helpful in figuring out what to do. Sometimes though they aren't the most recent articles and it's hard to find family specific articles so, I thought I'd add my little tidbits of information.
We applied for our residency in November 2021.
To apply you must first make an appointment with the closest Mexican consulate where you currently live. Since we are in the Austin area and there is a Mexican consulate here, this is the one we made an appointment for.
Now I suspect the difficulty and time that it takes to just get an appointment is just practice for once you actually start living in Mexico.
Normally you would call or email to schedule an appointment. I searched online for a Mexican consulate near me. Found one, went to their website, managed to find an online form to fill out. It's in Spanish, and since I'm still trying to learn the language, I used Google translate. Went through the prompts and when it listed the consulates, the Austin one wasn't on there. 🙆 So I proceeded to attempt to call the consulate. Did I get to speak with a person? Nope. It was an automated message, in Spanish, which I had to try and translate(you should have seen me with my husbands phone on google translate faced up to my phone on speaker, it was a whole thing), which gave me a number to dial which ultimately led to nowhere.
I'm a pretty determined person, as we needed to get this first step going! I went back onto the consulate website found a directory somehow and just started sending emails to everyone on that list. I got a reply the next day with someone telling me I could schedule an appointment with them. They basically said to bring proper documents and they would see me then. I would like to mention the consulate that Google maps pointed me to was the incorrect building and thank goodness I thought to go to the address listed on the responders email. Here it is if you are applying at the consulate in Austin.
5202 E. Ben White Blvd Suite 150
Austin, TX 78741
So what are the proper documents? Here are the links that I found were most helpful and the form and documents you need to fill out and bring as well.
We got out photos taken at a Walgreens. Tell them which country the visa you are applying for and their computers adjust the pictures to the correct sizing. They charged us $14.99/person.
We met with the gentleman at the consulate about a week later. He was a little intimidating at first and there was a little mix up with how much money we had to make per person in the household. The main bread-winner needs to make around $2,000 USD/month if you have a job or have $37,000 in savings for at least a 6 month long time period. Now the confusing part is when you have dependents. See the charts below to see how much extra you need to show proof of.
For ones who are showing monthly income:
| Residency Type | Monthly Income (MS) | Monthly Income (UMA) |
|---|---|---|
| Temporary Residency | MXN$42,510 | USD$2,237 | MXN$26,886 | USD$1,415 |
| Permanent Residency | MXN$70,850 | USD$3,729 | MXN$44,810 | USD$2,358 |
| Dependent Spouse (Temp. or Perm. Res) | MXN$14,170 | USD$$746 | MXN$8,962 | USD$472 |
| Dependent Minors (Temp. or Perm. Res) | MXN$14,170 | USD$$746 | MXN$8,962 | USD$472 |
| Family Unit* (Temp. or Perm. Res) | MXN$14,170 | USD$$746 | MXN$8,962 | USD$472 |
| Student (Temporary Residency) | MXN$14,170 | USD$$746 | MXN$8,962 | USD$472 |
For ones who are showing savings:
| Residency Type | Savings Balance (MS) | Savings Balance (UMA) |
|---|---|---|
| Temporary Residency | MXN$708,500 | USD$37,289 | MXN$448,100 | USD$23,584 |
| Permanent Residency | MXN$2,834,000 | USD$149,158 | MXN$1,792,400 | USD$94,337 |
| Dependent Spouse (Temp. or Perm. Res) | MXN$14,170 | USD$$746 | MXN$8,962 | USD$472 |
| Dependent Minor (Temp. or Perm. Res) | MXN$14,170 | USD$$746 | MXN$8,962 | USD$472 |
| Family Unit* (Temp. or Perm. Res) | MXN$14,170 | USD$$746 | MXN$8,962 | USD$472 |
| Student (Temporary Residency) | MXN$141,700 | USD$7,460 | MXN$89,620 | USD$4,717 |
It wouldn't hurt to print out these tables and bring with you. The gentleman had to go ask someone about the extra dependents as he was thinking it was $2000 per person, per month. That would have been around $8000/month!
I also want to note that the requirements are changing all the time so do your best to find the most up to date information you can. Overall we were there about 4 hours. They filled out information, took our pictures and fingerprint, and placed our temporary residency stickers in our passports. I believe it cost about $44/person(This can vary by location as well).
WE DID IT!!
Now we will do our "part 2" when we arrive in Mexico. You have 180 days to get into Mexico and then 30 days to start the final process once you are in Mexico. We plan to hire an expat services company to help with the second part. They charge $190/person to help you with the process. Apparently it's very advisable to do it this way if you aren't fluent in Spanish or are new to the procedures.
Please note these little extra tidbits:
*Some say you can stay for 6 months on your passport, leave, come back, repeat. Now that may be possible, but we didn't want to chance it and we don't want to possibly be denied entry if they start to question things. I have heard that they are becoming more aware of entry and exits and may not give you the full 6 months on your visit when you come back to Mexico.
*I have also seen that some places will let you apply for permanent residency right off the bat or apply for the full 4 year temporary residency right then and there(This will cost more). If this is something you want to do, feel free to ask the person handling your first steps. They will say yes or no, and that's that. Once you get the ball rolling you can't change mid way. We went with the 1 year temporary residency because we are seeing how it goes the first year being in Merida and then decide from there what we want to do.
Stayed tuned for our experience with Part 2!
~Bee🐝
Comments
Post a Comment