Look inside
The plan for Mexico, from the inside
These are all 31 steps of the Mexico journey, exactly as they appear in your personal plan, here by name only. Further down you see one step at full size, with deadlines, counters and sources. Pick another country below if you're heading elsewhere.
Now: Mexico — choose another countryEvery country has its own steps, its own order and its own clocks. Switch as often as you like.
- Steps
- 31
- Phases
- 5
- Official sources
- 38
- Only for your situation
- 6
Phase 1
6 steps
Orientation
Mexico is closer than it sounds and further than the brochure says: the residence card is achievable and affordable, but the country is on no Dutch treaty list at all — and that decides your healthcare, your AOW and your tax more than the visa does.
- 1.1Understand the system: two cards, one consulate, thresholds in UMA
- 1.2Know what happens to your income, your AOW and your healthcare
- 1.3Explore the region, and look beyond the beach
- 1.4Get a picture of what it's going to cost
- 1.5The family conversation
- 1.6Choose your target date
Phase 2
6 steps
Your visa
The application lies in The Hague, not in Mexico. Six months of income or twelve months of balance above the UMA threshold, an appointment, and a visa that is valid 180 days for one entry.
- 2.1Choose your card: temporary or permanent at once
- 2.2Prove your means: six months of income or twelve months of balance
- 2.3Apostilles and translations
- 2.4The appointment at the consulate in The Hague
- 2.5Know the thirty-day clock after arrival
- 2.6Partner and children: the unity of the familyOnly if this applies to you
Phase 3
8 steps
Closing the Netherlands
This is where the money of this journey sits, and the order is the gain: the policy accepted before you deregister, the wage tax exemption before the first Mexican month, and the sum of the AOW done before the conversation with the bank.
- 3.1Arrange your healthcare before you deregister — no CAK, but a policy
- 3.2Know where you're going to pay tax, and apply for the exemption
- 3.3Know the Mexican side: worldwide income, the residence test and the UMA exemption
- 3.4Deregister and inform the SVB — with the married rate in hand
- 3.5If children come along, the child benefit stopsOnly if this applies to you
- 3.6Partner comes along without a job of their ownOnly if this applies to you
- 3.7The house in the Netherlands — and what it does to your Mexican tax liabilityOnly if this applies to you
- 3.8Annuity or company: the protective assessment without automatic deferral
Phase 4
4 steps
The move
The household goods enter the country free once the consulate has stamped the list; the car only comes along temporarily, and never once you're permanent; the pet needs a certificate at most fifteen days old.
- 4.1Choose your form of move and request quotes
- 4.2The menaje de casa — the consular certificate decides the exemption
- 4.3The car — temporarily along as residente temporal, never definitivelyOnly if this applies to you
- 4.4Pet along — a certificate at most fifteen days oldOnly if this applies to you
Phase 5
7 steps
Arrival in Mexico
The chain after landing hangs on one date: within thirty days at the INM. After that follow CURP, bank, policy, driving licence and the tax office — and for whoever buys on the coast, the bank that holds the land for you.
- 5.1The canje: within thirty days to the INM
- 5.2CURP, address and bank
- 5.3Close your healthcare: activate the policy, or the IMSS package
- 5.4The driving licence — no exchange, a Mexican licence per state
- 5.5Register with the SAT: the tax number and the annual return
- 5.6Living and buying — the restricted zone and the fideicomiso
- 5.7Landed
6 of these steps aren't always there. They appear only when your answers call them up — a pet, a car, children staying behind. That's the difference between a plan and a checklist in which you have to work out yourself what applies.
Look inside
This is what one step of your plan looks like
Not a brochure but the real thing: this is one of the steps of the Mexico journey, exactly as it appears in your personal step-by-step plan — with the deadlines, the counters and the sources.
Step 2.2 of your plan
Prove your means: six months of income or twelve months of balance
- Lead time
- gathering takes weeks; the bank statement is the slowest
- Costs
- bank statements and copies
The UMA stands in 2026 at 117.31 pesos a day. That makes the thresholds concrete: for the temporary card a good 79,771 pesos net a month, six months in a row, or an average balance of a good 1,344,373 pesos over twelve months. At a rate around twenty-one pesos to the euro that is roughly 3,800 euros a month, or 64,000 euros in the bank. For the permanent card 133,733 pesos a month, or a balance of 5,378,664 — a good 6,300 euros, or a quarter of a million.
Two pitfalls. Net here means free of charges — the consulate looks at what arrives on your account, so show the withholding as well as the amount that remains. And the bank statements have to be per month, with a declaration or stamp from the bank; a printout from the app isn't enough. Request that declaration now, because it is the slowest item of this phase.
This is step 2.2 of 31. The other 30 are ready for you — each with the same sources, the same counters and a planning that watches your dates.
And what you don't see here
This page shows the content. What a page can't show is the work the platform does for you afterwards:
- The clocks that start running the moment you begin, and a nudge at the moment something is asked of you — not earlier.
- Your documents in one place, with their expiry dates watched, so nothing lapses while you wait for something else.
- The ticking off, together with your partner on the same journey.
- The steps that drop out or appear based on your answers, so your plan holds only what really applies to you.
Ready to start on Mexico?
All 31 steps, set to your situation and with the deadlines watched. € 399 once, no subscription.
The departure guide
Five mails, and you see your whole journey
Not ready to start yet? Then we'll send you the departure guide for Mexico: five mails in a week and a half, with the order, the pitfalls and the real costs. After that one question about where your plans stand, and beyond that only a short update when something in Mexico really changes — at most one a month, no newsletter, and you can switch it off at any time.
Ready to begin?
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