North America Mexico Issues Renewing the Mexican Tourist Visa

Issues Renewing the Mexican Tourist Visa

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We wanted to do so much in Mexico, after all it is three times the size of Texas and has so much to offer. We had plans to visit Palenque, Oaxaca, Merida, Izamal, and stay until the Day of the Dead festival. But there was a bit of a problem, our tourist visa cards (FMM) were set to expire in less than a week.

“Just 30 days, please”

After making the spontaneous decision to purchase a one way ticket to Cancun, Mexico, we only asked for 30 days (instead of the legally allowed 180 days) on our tourist visa card.

Stupid right? I know, but we had a “good” reason for it, at least so we thought.

We feared that if we asked for more than 30 days, the immigration officer would ask for proof of onward travel, i.e. a return ticket. That is why we opted to just take the 30 days and not risk getting turned away at the border. However, after she wrote down 30 days on our cards, we realized we made a huge mistake. She didn’t even seem like she had a care in the world, let alone if we stayed in Mexico for 2 days or for the rest of our lives.

After being in Cancun for a few days, we did some research online and found out that we could renew our tourist visa card at the immigration office in Downtown, Cancun for $25 USD each. So, we didn’t really sweat the issue until our visa cards where about to expire.

Renewing the Mexican Tourist Visa Card

Let me start of by saying that contrary to the popular belief, you cannot renew your tourist visa card (aka. FMM) at the immigration office. At least that’s what were told from the officers working there.

I know your probably thinking, we did something wrong, or that our Spanish wasn’t good enough and the immigration officer had no idea what we were talking about but that was not the case.

Once at the immigration office we found someone that spoke a little bit of English and we had our trusty google translator app just in case she didn’t know what we were saying.

She took one look at our cards and said we couldn’t renew them, and that we have to leave the country and come back.

Wait what? But it said we can renew it online, and we were pretty sure we read it on your website as well.

She continued to say, “that our best option was to go to Belize and get a new tourist card with 180 days.”

Unable to convince them to renew our cards, we left the office.

We figured we would simply go back two days later (enough time for them to forget us) and ask a different person and see what they say. We had it all planned out. We even had a plan B, which was to take a colectivo to Playa del Carmen and go to the immigration office there.

But no matter what we tried to do the answer was still “no, you have to leave the country and come back.” All our hopes of renewing our visa card was shattered twice in one day. In Playa del Carmen, we even had someone translating for us and the officer there spoke pretty good English so the language barrier wasn’t the issue.

It is simply not possible to get the Mexican Tourist Card (FMM) renewed.

So now we had two choices, do a visa run to Belize and come back 3 days later, or forget about Mexico and continue our journey down south. Both options would cost us money we could have saved if we just said, “180 days please.”

Leaving Mexico

We had two days to figure out what we wanted to do and that was barely enough time. In the end, we decided to take an overnight bus to Chetumal, a Mexican city bordering Belize, and catch a chicken bus into Belize City from there.

We took a 2nd class bus, Mayab, from the ADO bus station in Downtown Cancun for $220 pesos (~20 USD) per person to Chetumal at 4:00am. The ride from Cancun to Chetumal was about 6 hours.

Once we got to Chetumal, we opted out of taking a taxi from the Chetumal bus station to the Nuevo Mercado (where the chicken buses to Belize where waiting) and just walked the 5-7 minutes. At the Nuevo Mercado, we saw an array of chicken buses (old American school buses) waiting and all we had to do is look for the bus that was going to our destination, Belize City. The four hour ride cost us $120 pesos (~$12USD) per person.

All that was left to do now was to cross the Mexican border.

Crossing the Border and the Exit Fee Scam

In our research we couldn’t find anything about Belize’s entrance and exit fee however, we found plenty on the Mexico exit fee scam.

Apparently, the officers at the Mexico border will ask tourists leaving the country to pay an exit fee of $300 pesos  (~27 USD) but what they don’t tell people is that if they flew into the country, the exit fee is usually included in your flight ticket. All you have to do is show them proof of paying the fee with an itemized receipt from your airline and they shut right up and let you pass.

But unfortunately for us, we didn’t have time to call our airline and ask for an itemized receipt for our flight tickets. We thought that our regular receipt and proof of our one way ticket would be enough.

WRONG.

We got to the border, and as expected the immigration officer asked us for $320 pesos per person. We quickly responded by saying that we didn’t have to pay because we payed the fee when we bought our tickets. But he didn’t care, so we gave him the fee. When we gave him $700 pesos because we didn’t have the exact amount of $640, he gave us back one hundred and only took the $600 pesos for the both of us. (umm, that has scam written all over it)

Yet again, we messed up and we were literally paying the price for it. We were relieved to find out that there was at least no entrance fee to Belize, only an exit fee of $37.50BZ (~$19USD) per person.

So the moral of the story is don’t do the same mistake we did.  Avoid having to do a visa run to Belize and save money by just asking for 180 days on your visa regardless if you plan on staying in Mexico for that long or not. You never know.

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Comments

  • Raymond Parker

    FMM Visas are not and never have been renewable. A wise man once said that ignorance of the rules is never an excuse. The wife and I are in the process of getting our permanent resident Visas at present and have researched the subject to the point of exhaustion. Do the footwork on the front end or be prepared to pay out the nose on the backend!

  • todd quincy freeman

    Did you get 190 days into Mexico after entering Belize? I heard some people get 7 days?

  • Thanks for the info! Especially about having a copy of your flight ticket with you. I’m looking to do a visa run too from CDMX since they are no longer allowing FMM pandemic extensions. I went to the INM office here in CDMX and they told me I could either pay a $2000 pesos fine when my visa expires, or just leave the country. I was surprised too. Did you guys find Guatemala safe? I’ll be going by myself.

    • I am curious as to what did you finally do? Pay the fine or run to Guatemala – actually this article is about going to belize..

  • Hi, I have a few questions… Does the rentry have anything to do with your nationality or depend on specific passports? I came in with a tourist visa by air but I want to stay for a bit longer. I am worried I might not be granted a reentry if I move across the boarder

  • Tiffany

    Thanks for this great info. My family and I need to do a visa run to Belize in a few weeks. Is there an amount of time we need to stay in Belize before re-entering Mexico? Cheers, Tiffany

    • I think you have to stay out of the country for 3 days before you can re-enter but some immigration officers might let you in the same or next day.

  • Where did you renew the new fmm card in belize? I am trying to get the fmm card before going into mexico?

  • WOW what an adventure with something you thing it would be easy right? I made those borders crossing by boat from Belize to Chetumal. Great journey indeed! I loved Mexico also, I want to come back one day again. Greetings from Ouarzazate!

  • Oh, Ben & Jazzy!!
    So, this is super pretty web :) Your blog is awesome!
    Sorry about your Mexico Visa issue :( That’s too bad.
    When we make a mistake(unfortunately), we can get more knowledge and learn something :) That’s the life of travelers :)

    Have fun and enjoy it, everyday :)
    ah~ where are you, now? I will go to Guatemala, soon.

    • Hey Jisan,

      I see you made it to Caye, Caulker. It is great over there, we loved it. Now, we are in Guatemala. We are leaving Antigua tomorrow and heading to Panajachel. Maybe you can meet us there!

      Safe travels,
      Jazzy & Ben

  • Ha, land crossings in Central America… Tim has said it already: by now it doesn’t even qualify as a scam, just business as usual. We also payed the “exit fee” at La Mesilla. Just couldn’t be asked to make a fuss. But hey, you made it across the border :)

    • Yes! (saying this while jumping up and down) we weren’t the only ones, hehe. :)) not only did we cross the border, we got to meet you guys in Antigua!!! Bonus!!! (yes I like using a lot of exclamation marks)

  • Yep, that scam has been in operation for a very long time. So long I don’t even think you can call it a scam. More like price of doing business. Sorry to hear they got you coming and going.

    • Yeah, we either had to pay the man or get deport out. So paying it was… price of doing business sucks !

  • Oh dear thats a bit of a hassle when travelling , thanks for sharing

    • No problem Anne, we make mistakes and not only learn from them but share it with others so they won’t make the same mistake as well.

  • Oh shit man :(

    • You can say that again!! But it’s whatever now. We can either complain about it, and figure out better ways we could have gone about the situation or learn from it and move on. And we chose the latter.

  • Oh no, so sorry to hear about this. A good warning to others too. Hope your next adventure is more positive

    • Yeah it sucked but we do believe that everything happens for a reason (though at the time we were thinking we are soo stupid). So, far Belize has been nice to us (though expensive).

  • What a terrible experience! That is so frustrating and disappointing to hear. It’s great that you’re sharing your story, however, so hopefully you can help others avoid what you unfortunately had to endure! :(

  • Oh jeez what a hassle! and very scammy sounding…thanks for the advice though, I’m sure it will help out a lot of people!

    • Just so you know. Now, they are not stamping passports at the borders until further notice. You have to fly in or out unless the Consulate approves you and gives an official letter to enter.

      • Today, I just tried to cross the border from Chetumal into Belize by taxi. The Mexican border officials would not let me cross and said the only way in was by flying. I also went to the ADO bus station and the “chicken bus” station and there are no buses going to Belize from Chetumal. Also I went to the water taxi station and it is also closed until further notice due to COVID.
        I don’t know when the author of this article made their trip from Chetumal to Belize but it doesn’t work right now! However, the Mexican border officials said I can fly to Belize and enter that way.

      • Do you have an official confirmation for this info? I’ve just been advised by immigration to exit via land for the purpose of visa renewal.

    • No problem Hannah. We try to help whenever we can!

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