Mexico: from Residente Permanente to a Mexican passport

For many Germans, Mexico starts as a winter escape, becomes a place of residence and one day turns into home. Few take the last step, the passport, even though the law sets it out clearly: the Ley de Nacionalidad of 1998 sets the timelines, its Reglamento of 2009 lists the documents, and the only authority in charge is the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, the foreign ministry. How Mexico compares with other countries that naturalise foreigners is shown in the overview Naturalisation abroad. For Mexico, the order is simple: first residence, then the years, then the Carta de Naturalización.

How do you get Mexican nationality?

Article 30 of the Mexican constitution recognises two kinds of Mexicans: by birth and by naturalisation. As a German without Mexican ancestry, your route is naturalisation. The other routes still matter, because they affect your family.

Mexico has no citizenship by investment programme. For people who have rendered outstanding service to the nation in culture, science, sport or business, the SRE may shorten the period to two years at its own discretion, and only in exceptional cases does the President waive residence altogether. That is an honour, not a route you can plan.

How long must you live in Mexico before applying for the passport?

Article 20 of the Ley de Nacionalidad sets the standard at five years of residence immediately before the application. If you have a special tie to the country, two years are enough, and children need just one.

For Germans, the standard case is the starting point. It gets interesting with family: if your child is born in Mexico, the child is Mexican by birth and your waiting period shrinks from five years to two. How parents plan for this is covered under Birth in Mexico.

Travelling abroad while you wait

You do not have to stay in the country without a break in the years before you apply. Under Article 21, temporary absences do not interrupt your residence. There is one exception you need to know: in the two years before the application, your absences may not add up to more than six months. The rule is stricter for children naturalised after one year: their residence must be unbroken.

With the application you declare how often you left and re-entered Mexico during that period. If you log your trips from day one, this is no problem. How to document your time in a country properly is shown in Proving years of residence.

The first step: Residente Temporal and Residente Permanente

Without a residence card, not a single day counts. Article 14 of the Reglamento recognises exactly two forms of proof: the Residente Temporal card and the Residente Permanente card. As a tourist you build up no time towards naturalisation, and the German Federal Foreign Office points out that once you have entered as a tourist, you cannot apply for a residence permit for another purpose. The route therefore starts at a Mexican consulate.

The Ley de Migración (Migration Act) distinguishes the two cards as follows:

Under Article 54, you obtain Residente Permanente status among other routes after four years as a Residente Temporal, as a retiree or pensioner with income from abroad that lets you live in the country, or if you have a child who is Mexican by birth. For naturalisation, the order is what counts: your years as a Residente Temporal already count. So if you live in the country for four years on a temporary card and one year on a permanent one, you have your five years.

How to obtain residence by proving financial solvency, which amounts the consulate wants to see and how the appointment works is explained in VidaLibrePlan on temporary residence in Mexico. The switch after four years is described in VidaLibrePlan on permanent residence as a Residente Permanente.

One practical rule from the Reglamento is worth remembering early: your residence card must still be valid for at least six months when you apply, and it must show your CURP, the Mexican personal identification number. If you file just before a temporary card expires, you waste time.

Applying for Mexican citizenship: how the process works

You file the application with the SRE. Under Article 31 of the Reglamento, the Carta de Naturalización is issued solely by its Dirección General de Asuntos Jurídicos, the directorate for legal affairs.

The documents

For the standard case, Article 16 of the Reglamento lists:

• the completed and signed application form; you must be of legal age
• your valid residence card as proof of the five years, still valid for at least six months and showing your CURP
• a certified copy of your birth certificate, with apostille and translation
• your valid German passport in the original
• a declaration of how many times you left and re-entered the country during the relevant period
• a criminal record certificate at federal level and at the level of the place where you live in Mexico
• two colour photos, 4.5 x 3.5 cm, white background, no glasses
• a statement confirming that your information is true
• proof of payment of the fee under Article 26 of the Ley Federal de Derechos (Federal Duties Act)

Under Article 7, foreign documents need an apostille and a translation by a Perito Traductor, a translator licensed by the judiciary of a Mexican state. For the route through a child or a marriage, add the child's birth certificate or your marriage certificate.

Language, history, culture

The Ley de Nacionalidad requires you to speak Spanish, know Mexico's history and be integrated into the country's culture. The Reglamento turns this into tests whose content is set by the SRE's Instituto Matías Romero. If you are over 60, you only need to prove your Spanish; the same goes for minors and recognised refugees. After five years in the country, this is a formality for most people rather than a hurdle. How other countries test language and civic knowledge is shown in Language, test, oath of allegiance.

The authorities' deadlines

The Mexican procedure runs on fixed deadlines. If your file is incomplete, the SRE contacts you within 20 working days, and you have two months to submit what is missing. Once it is complete, the SRE sends it to the Ministry of the Interior, the Secretaría de Gobernación, within 15 working days. The ministry gives its opinion within 45 working days at most. The SRE then decides within 90 calendar days.

If the decision is positive, you make your declarations in writing: renouncing other states as far as Mexico is concerned, and pledging allegiance to Mexico's laws and authorities. Only then is the Carta issued, and it takes effect from the day after it is issued. Under Article 25, the SRE may refuse if requirements are missing, if you are serving a prison sentence for an intentional offence, or if it does not consider naturalisation appropriate. In that last case it must give reasons for its decision.

Dual citizenship: Mexico and Germany

This is the question Germans care about most, and the answer is good news. On naturalisation, Mexico asks for a formal declaration: you renounce, as far as Mexico is concerned, any other nationality and any submission to a foreign state. It is a declaration made to the Mexican state. It decides how Mexico treats you, namely as a Mexican.

Whether you remain German is decided by German law alone. According to the Federal Office of Administration (Bundesverwaltungsamt), since 27 June 2024 acquiring a foreign nationality no longer leads to the loss of German citizenship, anywhere in the world and without a retention permit. Renouncing German citizenship under § 26 of the Nationality Act (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz) requires approval from the German nationality authority and only takes effect when the certificate of renunciation is handed over. A declaration before the SRE is no such renunciation. You become Mexican and stay German. What dual nationality means for your obligations in Germany is covered under Dual citizenship in Germany.

Residence also raises the question of tax. When Mexico treats you as tax resident and how it taxes your worldwide income is shown in the Steueratlas profile of Mexico (in German). How a second passport fits into your tax planning is covered under Taxes.

What applies after naturalisation

With the Carta, you are Mexican, and specifically Mexican by naturalisation. On one point the constitution treats this group differently from Mexicans by birth: Article 37 B lists cases in which nationality acquired by naturalisation is lost again.

• voluntarily acquiring another foreign nationality after naturalisation
• presenting yourself as a foreigner in a public deed
• using a foreign passport
• accepting foreign titles of nobility
• living abroad for five years without interruption

Loss is not decided by a border officer at the desk. The Ley de Nacionalidad requires an SRE procedure with a prior hearing, the Reglamento gives you 15 working days to respond with evidence, and here too the SRE first seeks the Ministry of the Interior's opinion. For your everyday life, three clear rules follow: towards Mexican authorities, notaries and at the Mexican border, you always appear as a Mexican, with a Mexican passport. You never let your tie to the country lapse for five years in a row. And you acquire any further passport before the Carta, not after.

Article 32 of the constitution reserves certain offices for Mexicans by birth who hold no other nationality. You must also be Mexican by birth for active army service in peacetime, for service in the navy, air force and Guardia Nacional at any time, and to crew ships and aircraft under the Mexican merchant flag. For your life, your business and your passport, none of this matters.

Conscription in Mexico

The Ley del Servicio Militar makes armed service compulsory for all Mexicans, by birth or by naturalisation: one year in the active army at 18, then the reserve until 30 and until 40. If you are naturalised as an adult, you are almost always past the age for the active year, and the constitution reserves active service in peacetime for Mexicans by birth in any case. What German conscription means for Germans living abroad is covered under Conscription.

The Mexican passport for your children

This is the strongest reason to see the route through. In Article 30 A III, the constitution makes every child born abroad a Mexican by birth if the father or mother is a naturalised Mexican. As proof, the Reglamento requires a Carta issued before the child's birth. And Article 37 A states: no Mexican by birth can lose their nationality.

For your family, this means:

So with the passport you give your children more than a travel document. You give them a nationality that Mexico can no longer take away from them. How families plan second passports as a whole is shown under Family.

What the Mexican passport gives you

A passport is a right, not a permission. A residence card has to be renewed and can be lost; citizenship belongs to you. As a Mexican, you enter and leave without the foreigners' queue, never need to renew a card again and are entirely free to choose where in the country you live and work.

Then there is North America. The USMCA trade agreement gives Mexicans and Canadians their own route into the US labour market: TN status for professionals in the occupations the agreement lists. You need an agreed position with a US employer and the qualifications for the profession, and according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, TN status is granted for up to three years at a time, with extensions. Mexicans apply for a TN visa at a US consulate or embassy in Mexico. For professionals who want to work in the United States, this is a tool no European passport offers.

Planning naturalisation in Mexico and a second passport side by side

Mexico is a naturalisation country for people who truly want to live there. Five years of residence, tests and a procedure involving two ministries lie ahead of you, and until the Carta you have no second passport. That is why it pays to combine both routes: naturalisation is the low-cost route and, in the end, the stronger one, because it rests on a real life in the country. A citizenship by investment programme buys you the time until then and gives you a second right within months. Why this is not an either-or is explained in CBI and naturalisation.

Mexico adds a particularity that settles the order. Article 37 B of the constitution lists the voluntary acquisition of another nationality after naturalisation as a ground for loss. So if you want a second passport through an investment programme, get it before you receive your Carta de Naturalización. The programmes with their amounts and timelines are set out under Programmes and Programmes compared, the total costs under Costs.

If you are weighing up Latin America as a whole, The fastest naturalisations shows the countries with even shorter timelines. For Mexico, the arithmetic stays simple: start your residence early, document your trips carefully and secure a second right for the waiting period, and in the end you have both, a life in Mexico and a Mexican passport for yourself and your children.

Frequently asked questions