To bring your family the sponsor needs an income of around 4,432 dollars a month plus around 1,434 for each family member, several times the average local salary. Status security scores 94.
On paper Mexico is generous. There are no integration courses or language tests for residence, the status is not tightly tied to an employer, permanent residence comes after 4 years and citizenship after 5, keeping your old passport. Children attend state school regardless of immigration status. The July 2025 reform of visa rules raised income thresholds but did not touch statuses already granted.
The gap is in delivery. Since 2026 no INM office accepts walk-ins without an online appointment, slots are scarce and waits run to months; in late 2024 immigration lawyers reported work visa decisions taking 72 working days instead of 20. Consulates read the document rules differently. The state does not publish refusal statistics.
In 2025-2026 INM ran checks on streets, at transport hubs, in residential areas and at workplaces, and some of those detained had applications pending with INM. We found no systematic campaign against legal residents. Tourists are increasingly given fewer than 180 days at the border, but this does not affect resident card holders.
Once you have it, the status is solid. Losing a job is not a ground for cancellation, the card stays valid to its end date, and a change of employer must be reported to INM within 90 days. You can change the basis of your stay without leaving the country, with a receipt covering you while the case is pending. During a renewal you may live and work, but leaving the country needs a separate permit.
Families have a harder time. A spouse gets a status without the right to work, which has to be requested separately on the back of a job offer. The sponsor must show about MXN 25,800 (≈$1,410) a month for each family member, against an average national wage of about MXN 17,000-18,000. Banks open an account the same day with a resident card, an RFC tax number and proof of address, but before the card arrives banking is mostly out of reach.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa needed for visits, with stays of up to 180 days, though the officer at the border sets the actual length. Residence goes through a Mexican consulate under the same rules as for everyone.
Citizenship after 2 years of residence instead of 5. Spouses of Mexican citizens get the same shorter term.
A visa and a consular interview are required. For a short trip, a valid visa or permanent residence of the US, Canada, the UK, Japan or a Schengen country replaces the Mexican visa. There are no nationality restrictions on residence.
A visa is required, the consular interview is mandatory, and the wait for an appointment is the main bottleneck. For a short trip, a valid visa or permanent residence of the US, Canada, the UK, Japan or a Schengen country replaces the Mexican visa. The 2025 visa rules close no routes by nationality.
The place interval 22-39 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Status security: 94 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 57.9. The weakest is Agency processing: 27 against 48.7. Above the world average: 5 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
By rule, visa authorisation takes 20 working days, the consular visa 10 and the card swap 15. In practice, INM delays and scarce appointments stretch the path from appointment to card to 5-8 months.
Yes, temporary residence based on income or savings: about $4,350 a month over 6 months or about $73,500 in savings. It does not give the right to work for Mexican employers.
At 2026 rates the 4-year temporary resident card costs MXN 25,058, switching to permanent residence MXN 13,579, and the consular visa about $54. An exit permit while a case is pending is paid separately.
Losing a job is not a ground for cancellation: the card stays valid to its end date, and a new workplace must be reported to INM within 90 days. The law has a closed list of cancellation grounds, including serious crime and security threats.
Permanent residence after 4 years of temporary residence. Citizenship after 5 years, keeping your old passport; you take a 10-question history and culture test (pass mark 8) and a Spanish exam.
The rules are open: no language requirement for residence, fast citizenship, a status that does not hang on one employer. The problem is delivery: months of waiting for appointments and cards, consulates that apply rules differently, and INM checks that also catch people with pending applications.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.