After being asked a question by our good friend Ron Reid as to a possible change in the tourist card/visa process for visitors earlier, I went ahead and made a few calls and sent a message to a connected friend in Mexico City who after some investigating was able to confirm a change is being planned to be phased in for tourists flying into Mexico.
I was then able to corroborate the change having been tested on at least 2 different flights arriving into Mexico in recent days; one landing in Guadalajara and the other in La Paz aboard an American Airlines flight with similar reports made from travelers arriving at Puerto Vallarta and Cancun.
The idea is to completely phase out the paper FMM tourist cards over time and instead, stamp the passports of tourists entering Mexico with the entry date as well as a written number of days they may remain in Mexico under that entry, much like occurs when entering other countries when traveling internationally.
An Important Point to Remember
This is Mexico and anything can and probably will change at some point. INM has not made an official announcement yet of the new policy but will likely do so after evaluating the test runs going on at different airports currently and should be in force before the end of the year.
I decided to go ahead with the news today to help ensure none of our readers and group members are caught off guard. So you may or may not be issued an FMM on your next flight into Mexico but be prepared, either way.
The change – for now – will be test implemented at international airports and tourists entering by land Points of Entry are expected to continue with the FMM tourist cards for the time being.
This new policy should not affect current temporary or permanent visa holders.
Stay tuned…
Responses
Back to the good ol’ days? I’ve kept all of my canceled (hole punched) passports since the 70’s as mementos of my travels and the collection of actual postage type stamps within plus the ink stamped border crossings are the best! To have a passport book and nothing stamped into it is sad… the elimination of paper visas will leave a small reminder in those books with a personal photo from years past.
I have many old passport books as well to serve as reminders of where I have been and honestly never understood why Mexico chose to handle the entry/exits differently. The real question will be if and how they would fully implement this at the land POE’s.