Many foreigners come to Mexico to live with and be with their Mexican partners, or partners who are foreign nationals with existing legal residency in Mexico.
Most intentions and arrangements are genuine, and spouses and common-law partners who want to live here can access a legal route to residency in Mexico on the basis of their partner being a Mexican national, or an existing legal foreign resident.
The illegal and risky business of a marriage of convenience
There does exist an illegal underbelly of this arrangement: whereby a foreign national will marry a Mexican only for the convenience of seeking legal residency in Mexico. The Mexican national may be offered financial incentives directly by the foreign national, or by unscrupulous intermediaries who intend to profit from the arrangement.
Mexico’s INM is vigilant in regard to fake marriages
Mexico’s immigration rules are very humanitarian and offer genuine couples and families the opportunity to live together in Mexico with the least amount of bureaucratic friction through Family Unit arrangements, with specific procedures for people who marry or are common-law partners to Mexicans or legal foreign residents.
However, the INM is very vigilant when it comes to applications for residency by marriage/common-law partnership to a Mexican national and to existing foreign residents. The application procedures have special checks in place in the background dedicated to identifying and rooting-out unusual arrangements—and special teams take swift action to deal with frauds.
Consequences of obtaining residency by marriage fraud
Mexico’s immigration rules cite strict penalties for people who marry only for the convenience of attaining legal residency in Mexico:
- Foreign nationals can have their legal residency status revoked and get deported; and
- Mexican nationals participating in this fraud might face prison time.
By participating in a fraudulent ‘marriage of convenience’ with a Mexican national or an existing foreign resident for the sole purpose of obtaining residency, you’re creating a real risk in your own circumstances, and you might also condemn your ‘partner’ to a prison sentence if they are Mexican. Existing foreign residents participating in marriage fraud can have their residency status revoked.
Legal routes to residency in Mexico
There are legal routes to obtaining residency in Mexico that don’t require you to commit fraud.
- Learn about obtaining legal residency in Mexico through marriage or common-law partnership
- Discover the principal routes to acquiring legal residency in Mexico
- Most applications are made through economic solvency
- Residency for genuine relationships is facilitated through Family Unit rules.
- You can learn more about applications for residency in Mexico by reading our free and comprehensive Mexico Immigration Guide
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