New Visitor Tax

Dakota98 wrote:

robatthelake wrote:
This is the same Fee that We pay for Our current Tourist Card!

Is it true if your FMT is lost or stolen, there may be a fee & or fine in order to leave the country ??

First things first, Dakota.

Strange article.

According to old rules (last 20 years?) any visitor needed to obtain FMT at the cost about USD 25 if he wanted to stay more than 3 days or wanted to travel farther than 20-mile border zone no matter for how short time.

Now it sounds like tourists only need FMT if staying more than 7 days (and the half-baked journalist product tells nothing about border zone). In any event, this sounds like BETTER, more lenient regulations, and not any "new tax".

Now to your question, Dakota.
If FMT is lost or stolen - I'm 99% positive that there is a fee to replace it as with most govt documents in most countries. There is no fine to be paid in this case when leaving the country UNLESS they find out that it was lost or stolen or never issued. Luckily, they can only find this out during your departure if you leave by air.

Keep in mind that they can also find this out - sort of - during your recurring visit, no matter by air or ground. The law says you have to return the FMT when leaving the country, even by ground. Almost nobody does this on ground crossings, but Mexicans have learned how to use computers and there are anecdotal evidence that they do demand a fine occasionally after comparing records of issued FMT against records of returned stubs and not finding the name of unfortunate tourist on the returned stubs log. But, since they are doing such a lousy job logging the issued FMT and a lousier job yet logging returned FMT, they sort of realize this, so these incidents are not common.

Old rules FMT / FMM set your pinkie one inch into Mexico anywhere, and 72 hours later the law declared an FMM is needed. This has been the rule since I first remember, back in the 1960's.

Now, a visitor can stay SEVEN DAYS without the need of obtaining an FMM. This is a more LENIENT stance not a stricter enforcement of Article 42 migracion.

Baja California businesses wield a huge stick with state and federal gobernacion. This has always been the case. The new law was/is confusing to many people and rather than wait and hope the law did not impact tourism the business sector went on the warpath.

It has always been this way NOTHING HAS CHANGED for Baja California. But other border areas, say along the Rio Grande the 7 day rule is more lenient.

The words Mexican Government and Common Sense is a world class OXYMORON.

But if a person is a RESIDENT here it's a whole different story. Migracion comes knocking on the front door with a policia municipio on each shoulder. The offender better have a residente permanente card or a valid FMM. The migras allow the offender so much time to get squared away then they come back and check. But again, this is for extraneous residents, not tourists.

If you are flying out you need an FMM and it may cost another $20-something. Driving out you don't need anything

The fee this post is about is the FMM (tourist permit) and businesses thought ID checks and possibly needing an FMM would slow business. It's always been required going further into Mexico

robatthelake wrote:
This is the same Fee that We pay for Our current Tourist Card!

Is it true if your FMT is lost or stolen, there may be a fee & or fine in order to leave the country ??

sparksmex wrote:
Stopped as soon as it started?

MEXICO STOPS ENFORCING IMMIGRATION LAWS IN NORTHERN BORDER WITH CALIFORNIA

That is good to see it being rolled back for now!

Stopped as soon as it started?

MEXICO STOPS ENFORCING IMMIGRATION LAWS IN NORTHERN BORDER WITH CALIFORNIA

This is the same Fee that We pay for Our current Tourist Card!

There's no point saying what I think about this, it will only get deleted. :)