This is not tax advice. Cross-border outcomes turn on facts this page cannot know: your visa category, your income mix, where your employer is incorporated, what you own and when you bought it. Use this to ask a qualified cross-border accountant better questions, and verify every figure against Mexico's tax authority and, for the US side, the IRS guidance for citizens abroad.
Your position in Mexico
Two tax systems will look at you, and they use different tests.
The United States taxes citizens on worldwide income wherever they live, so you keep filing a 1040. For 2026 the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion is USD 132,900 per qualifying person, but it covers earned income only, not pensions, Social Security, dividends or capital gains. Many Americans in Mexico do better with the Foreign Tax Credit once Mexican tax has actually been paid, because Mexican rates on middle incomes are not trivial. Add an FBAR if your foreign accounts together exceed USD 10,000 at any point in the year, and Form 8938 above higher thresholds.
Mexico does not use a 183-day test. Under Article 9 of the Codigo Fiscal de la Federacion you become a Mexican tax resident once you establish a casa habitacion, a permanent home, in Mexico. If you also keep a home in the US, the tiebreaker is your centre of vital interests: Mexico wins if more than half your calendar-year income comes from Mexican sources, or if Mexico is the principal place of your professional activity. Immigration status and tax residency are separate questions.
Resident rates run from 1.92% to 35%, with the top bracket starting above MXN 5,107,703.93 of annual taxable income. IVA is 16%, reduced to an effective 8% in designated northern border municipalities. The 1992 treaty and its 2003 protocol are in force. There is no totalization agreement, so self-employed Americans owe the full 15.3% US self-employment tax regardless.
Verify the Mexican half with SAT, the Servicio de Administracion Tributaria, and not with the IRS. The legal basis is Article 9 of the Codigo Fiscal de la Federacion, and SAT's portal carries the current rules, the RFC procedures and the forms; the IRS can tell you what the treaty says but has no authority over whether Mexico considers you resident.
The United States does not stop taxing you
The US taxes citizens on worldwide income regardless of where they live. Moving to Mexico adds a second tax system; it does not remove the first one. Most Americans abroad end up owing little or nothing to the IRS, but that outcome is produced by filing correctly, not by leaving.
Two mechanisms produce that result. The foreign earned income exclusion removes foreign wages and self-employment profit up to an annually indexed cap, but reaches earned income only and does nothing about self-employment tax. The foreign tax credit offsets US tax dollar-for-dollar with income tax actually paid to Mexico, reaches passive income the exclusion cannot, and can leave credits to carry forward. You cannot apply both to the same dollar. Separately, FBAR and FATCA reporting is triggered by account balances rather than by tax owed, and carries penalties out of all proportion to the tax at stake.
The full mechanics are the same wherever you move, so they live in one place: US taxes when you live abroad covers the exclusion tests, the credit, treaties and the saving clause, FBAR and FATCA thresholds, self-employment tax and state residency. The rest of this page is what Mexico specifically changes.
Which mechanism fits Mexico
Mexico's top rate of 35% sits below the US federal top rate of 37%. Credits may not fully cover the US liability at higher incomes, so the exclusion is worth modelling alongside them rather than assuming the credit absorbs everything.
Self-employment in Mexico
There is no totalization agreement covering Mexico, so self-employment income can attract US self-employment tax and Mexican social contributions on the same earnings. The exclusion does not help, because it reduces income tax and not self-employment tax. Price this in before you quote a freelance rate.
US-side official references: FEIE ·Foreign tax credit ·FBAR ·FATCA reporting ·Totalization agreements
Which relief mechanism reaches which income
The most common planning error is assuming the exclusion covers everything. It covers one category. This table maps each kind of income against the mechanisms available to you, with the last column set to Mexico's recorded agreement status.
| Income type | Foreign earned income exclusion | Foreign tax credit | Treaty position for Mexico |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wages earned while living in Mexico | Yes, up to the annual cap, if you pass the residence or presence test | Yes, on anything above the cap or not excluded | The employment income article assigns the primary taxing right |
| Self-employment profit | Income tax only. Self-employment tax survives the exclusion | Yes, against income tax on the same profit | No totalization. Both systems can charge the same profit |
| Dividends and interest | No. It reaches earned income only | Yes, for foreign tax actually paid on it | Dividend and interest articles usually cap withholding |
| Capital gains on investments | No | Yes, where a foreign tax is paid on the same gain | A gains article assigns the taxing right by asset type |
| Rental income from property | No | Yes, for foreign tax charged on foreign property | Immovable property is normally taxed where it sits |
| Pensions and retirement account withdrawals | No | Yes, where foreign tax is charged on the withdrawal | The pension article decides. Read it before you draw |
| US Social Security benefits | No | Depends which country is entitled to tax them | Many treaties assign them to one country only |
Read the rows against your own income mix. Someone on a local salary and nothing else uses one row of this table. Someone with a brokerage account, a rental at home and vesting equity uses five, and each one can land in a different country.
What Mexico's agreements with the US actually change
The general mechanics above apply to every American abroad. What differs country by country is which of them Mexico has an agreement to soften. Of the 15 countries covered on this site, 15 have a US income tax treaty, 12 have a totalization agreement and 12 have both. Mexico is the case below.
| Issue | Status for Mexico | What that means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Double tax on employment income | Treaty in force | A US–Mexico income tax treaty exists, so each type of income has an assigned taxing country and there is a defined route to relief rather than an argument. You still file both returns; the treaty decides who taxes what first. |
| Being treated as resident by both countries | Tie-breaker available | Treaties carry a residence tie-breaker: permanent home, then centre of vital interests, then habitual abode, then nationality. It gives you a defensible answer in the year you move, when both countries can plausibly claim you. |
| Social security and payroll contributions | No totalization agreement | No totalization agreement is recorded for Mexico. Self-employed Americans in particular can end up paying US self-employment tax on top of local social contributions on the same income, with no credit running between the two systems. |
| Self-employment and freelancing | Both systems may charge you | The foreign earned income exclusion reduces income tax, not self-employment tax. Without an agreement in place, US self-employment tax generally survives the exclusion. |
| Pensions, retirement accounts and investment income | Treaty articles apply | Treaty articles usually address pensions, dividends, interest and capital gains separately from wages. Read the specific articles: a treaty that solves your salary can leave your brokerage account taxed in a way you did not expect. |
Treaty and totalization status is recorded from the sources listed at the foot of this page. Agreements are amended and protocols enter force on their own timetable, so check the current text before taking a position on a return.
Two numbers worth running before you move
Consumption tax, which nobody models
Income tax gets the attention. Consumption tax takes its slice every month without appearing on any return. A US household spending the national average net salary of $4,230 a month would need roughly $2,623 a month in Mexico for the same basket, at Mexico's overall price level. Of that, the VAT embedded in the prices is up to about $362 a month, against roughly $295 in embedded sales tax at home.
| Measure | United States | Mexico |
|---|---|---|
| Headline consumption tax rate | 7.5% | 16% |
| Equivalent monthly basket | $4,230 | $2,623 |
| Tax inside that basket, per month | $295 | $362 |
| Per year | $3,540 | $4,344 |
A ceiling, not a bill. It assumes the whole net salary is spent, and in practice rent sits outside VAT in most systems while food, medicine, books and transport often carry reduced or zero rates, so real exposure lands below this line. The direction of the gap is the useful part: about $67 more per month than at home, before any reduced rate applies.
Marginal rate, read honestly
Mexico's top personal rate is 35% against a US federal top rate of 37%, a gap of -2 points. That comparison is weaker than it looks in both directions. The US figure excludes state income tax, which can add several points on top. The Mexican figure bites at its own threshold, which may be far lower or far higher in income terms than the US bracket it is being compared to. Top rates tell you the shape of a system, not your bill. Model your actual income against the brackets on the official site before you decide anything.
How Mexico compares on tax across our dataset
Mexico ranks 1 of 15 on headline top personal rate, lowest first, with 13 countries charging a higher top rate. Every row links to that country's own tax page.
| Country | Top rate | VAT | US treaty | Totalization |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States (baseline) | 37% | 7.5% | Not applicable | Not applicable |
| Mexico · this page | 35% | 16% | Yes | No |
| Thailand | 35% | 7% | Yes | No |
| New Zealand | 39% | 15% | Yes | No |
| Italy | 43% | 22% | Yes | Yes |
| Australia | 45% | 10% | Yes | Yes |
| United Kingdom | 45% | 20% | Yes | Yes |
| Spain | 47% | 21% | Yes | Yes |
| Norway | 47.4% | 25% | Yes | Yes |
| Germany | 47.5% | 19% | Yes | Yes |
| Portugal | 48% | 23% | Yes | Yes |
| Netherlands | 49.5% | 21% | Yes | Yes |
| Ireland | 52% | 23% | Yes | Yes |
| Sweden | 52.4% | 25% | Yes | Yes |
| Canada | 53.5% | 5% | Yes | Yes |
| Japan | 55.9% | 10% | Yes | Yes |
Headline rates only. They ignore social contributions, local surtaxes, wealth and inheritance taxes, and the very different incomes at which each top rate starts. A country with a high top rate that begins at a high threshold can cost a middle earner less than one with a lower rate that begins early.
The sequence of tax events in your move year
The move year is the messy one: part-year residence in two systems, two calendars, and deadlines that do not line up. This is the order things generally happen in.
- Before you leaveFix the date you stop being a US state resident and the date you land, because almost every later question is answered by those two dates. Take a snapshot of account balances, unrealised gains and any equity vesting schedule. Selling before you become Mexico tax resident is a different transaction from selling after.
- The day you arriveRecord the arrival date against something durable, such as a boarding pass, a lease or a registration receipt, because you may have to evidence it years later. It is the day the clock starts on the rule that decides your Mexican tax residency: Mexico does not use a day-count test for individuals. Under Article 9 of the Codigo Fiscal de la Federacion you become a Mexican tax resident when you establish a casa habitacion (permanent home) in Mexico. If you also keep a home in the United States, the tiebreaker is your centre of vital interests: Mexico wins if more than 50% of your calendar-year income comes from Mexican sources, or if Mexico is the principal place of your professional activities. Immigration status and tax residency are separate questions, so holding an INM residence card is not by itself decisive. Mexican tax residents are taxed on worldwide income at rates from 1.92% to 35%.
- Weeks 1 to 8: register locallyA local tax number is usually a precondition for a bank account, a lease and a payroll run, so it happens early whether or not you feel like a taxpayer yet. Registering does not by itself make you resident; the residency rule above does.
- First local filingYour first Mexican return covers only the part of the year you were resident, in most systems, and it is the return where split-year treatment is claimed if the country offers it. Deadlines rarely match the US calendar.
- First US filing from abroadTaxpayers whose tax home is abroad get an automatic extension beyond the April deadline, and a further extension on request. The extension is for filing, not for paying: interest runs from the original date.
- The same season: information returnsThe FBAR and, above higher thresholds, Form 8938 are filed on their own schedules and carry their own penalties. They report balances, not income, so people who owe nothing still miss them and still get penalised.
- Month 12 onwardThe bona fide residence test needs an uninterrupted tax year abroad, so the first full calendar year is often the first year you can use it. Until then the physical presence test, 330 full days abroad in a 12-month window, is usually the only route to the exclusion.
State residency: the bill people do not expect
Federal filing is the obligation everyone knows about. The one that catches people is the state they left. States set their own residency rules, and several test domicile, meaning your permanent home in intent, rather than where you physically are. Under a domicile test you can spend a full year in Mexico and still be assessed as a resident of your old state, on your worldwide income, with none of the federal relief above available against it. The FEIE and the foreign tax credit are federal mechanisms, and a state is not required to follow them.
What severing residency usually rests on, and what to be able to evidence:
- Ending the lease or selling the home, rather than keeping it available to you.
- Surrendering the state driver's licence and voter registration.
- Moving vehicle registration, professional licences and mailing address out of state.
- Where dependants live and where school-age children are enrolled.
- Day counts, kept contemporaneously. A calendar reconstructed three years later convinces nobody.
- Filing a final part-year return for the state, which is what formally closes the file.
Check your specific state's rule before you leave, not after. It is easier to establish that you left cleanly on the way out than to argue it from Mexico City two years later.
What to keep, from day one
- A day-count log with arrival and departure dates for every trip, including trips back to the US. Both the physical presence test and Mexico's own residency rule are decided on days.
- Local payslips and the annual Mexican tax assessment, which is the evidence of foreign tax paid that a credit claim rests on.
- Year-end statements for every non-US account, plus the maximum balance during the year, which is what the FBAR asks for and what banks rarely show by default.
- Cost basis and acquisition dates for anything you owned before you moved, in USD at the time.
- Your certificate of coverage, if a totalization agreement applies to you.
- The exchange rates you used, and the source of them, applied consistently across the year.
Tax questions about Mexico
Do I still pay US taxes if I move to Mexico?
Yes. US citizens file a 1040 on worldwide income no matter where they live. The 2026 Foreign Earned Income Exclusion shelters up to USD 132,900 of earned income, but not pensions, Social Security, dividends or capital gains, so retirees generally rely on the Foreign Tax Credit for Mexican tax paid. You also file an FBAR once foreign accounts total more than USD 10,000 at any point.
Can I collect Social Security while living in Mexico?
Yes. The Social Security Administration pays retirement benefits to US citizens living in Mexico without restriction, by direct deposit to a US or Mexican account. What you do not get is credit-combining: there is no totalization agreement in force between the two countries, so Mexican IMSS contributions cannot help you qualify for US benefits, and self-employed Americans still owe full US self-employment tax.
Sources and review
The Mexico-specific figures on this page, meaning the residency rule, treaty and totalization status, rates and notes, come from the sources below. The general US mechanics are described from published IRS, FinCEN and SSA guidance, linked inline above.
What these numbers are. Several figures on this page could not be matched to a published statistic and are reasoned estimates. Treat them as directional and check the official sources before acting on them. Where a source entry says a value is derived, estimated or crowd-sourced, that is exactly what it is: no international body publishes a like-for-like index for every category, and private insurance premiums are not published at all in most countries. Rent figures are national market averages, so a capital city will run above them. How the dataset is built.
- Banco de Mexico, tipo de cambio FIX (16.9560 MXN per USD, 3 September 2026) - the rate used for every peso-to-dollar conversion on this page — accessed September 4, 2026
- World Bank, PPP conversion factor for household and NPISH final consumption, Mexico (MXN 11.308778 per international dollar in 2025; MXN 10.801299 in 2024; the United States is 1.0 by construction) - the independent cross-check on the headline index. Divided by the 2024 period-average exchange rate it gives a consumption price level of 59.0 against the US at 100; rolled forward on Mexican and US all-items CPI to July 2026 and restated at the July 2026 peso it gives 62.4, which reproduces OECD's published 62 to within half a point — accessed September 4, 2026
- World Bank / IMF IFS, official exchange rate for Mexico, period average (MXN 19.24 per USD in 2025; MXN 18.30 in 2024) - used for the PPP price-level cross-check and the currency-risk comparison — accessed September 4, 2026
- OECD, Monthly comparative price levels, Mexico against the United States = 100: 62 in July 2026 (SDMX observation MEX.M.CPL.IX.USD.USA, 2026-07, OBS_VALUE 62). This is the headline col_index on this page. OECD builds it from the annual PPP benchmark for private final consumption, extrapolated with each country's consumer price index and converted at current market exchange rates, so it is a like-for-like consumer basket including rent and not a crowd-sourced sample. No crowd-sourced or user-submitted pricing is used anywhere on this page — accessed September 4, 2026
- OECD, PPP detailed results - price level indices, Mexico with the United States as base = 100, 2024 benchmark by COICOP division: food and non-alcoholic beverages 88.3, clothing and footwear 72.0, housing/water/electricity/gas and other fuels 42.7, furnishings and household equipment 89.7, health 46.0, transport 80.6, information and communication 65.6, recreation/sport/culture 63.3, education services 9.05, restaurants and accommodation 65.1, miscellaneous goods and services 55.0, actual individual consumption 50.9. These are the benchmark levels behind the category indices on this page. World Bank ICP 2021 agrees independently: dividing its Mexican category PPPs by the 2021 exchange rate of 20.2724 gives food 86.0, restaurants and hotels 59.3, transport 81.5 and actual housing/water/electricity/gas 38.1 — accessed September 4, 2026
- OECD consumer price indices by COICOP 2018, Mexico (compiled from INEGI's INPC, 2015 = 100), 2024 annual average to July 2026: all items 154.452 to 165.615 (+7.23%), food and non-alcoholic beverages 181.300 to 190.991 (+5.35%), actual rentals for housing 127.702 to 137.304 (+7.52%), water supply and other services relating to the dwelling 162.045 to 182.905 (+12.87%), electricity/gas and other fuels 132.157 to 127.968 (-3.17%), transport 161.884 to 170.856 (+5.54%), restaurants and accommodation 175.220 to 201.221 (+14.84%) - the Mexican half of the roll-forward from the 2024 OECD benchmark to July 2026 — accessed September 4, 2026
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U (US city average, not seasonally adjusted), 2024 annual average to July 2026: all items CUUR0000SA0 313.689 to 333.918 (+6.45%), food at home CUUR0000SAF11 306.536 to 321.643 (+4.93%), food away from home CUUR0000SEFV 368.743 to 396.859 (+7.62%), transportation CUUR0000SAT 270.685 to 289.420 (+6.92%), rent of primary residence CUUR0000SEHA 420.060 to 447.963 (+6.64%), fuels and utilities CUUR0000SAH2 314.768 to 353.712 (+12.37%) - the US half of the same roll-forward. Series are retrievable through the BLS public API, for example https://api.bls.gov/publicAPI/v1/timeseries/data/CUUR0000SAF11 — accessed September 4, 2026
- Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis (FRED), Mexican pesos to one US dollar: monthly average 18.3256 for calendar 2024 and 17.4557 for July 2026 (series EXMXUS), daily 16.9750 on 26 August and 17.0430 on 28 August 2026 (series DEXMXUS) - the exchange-rate leg of every index on this page and the independent confirmation of the Banxico FIX rate quoted above. The category indices are computed as the 2024 OECD benchmark multiplied by the Mexican category CPI ratio, divided by the matching US CPI ratio, multiplied by 18.3256/17.4557, which puts them on exactly the same July 2026 footing as OECD's published headline of 62. At the 3 September FIX rate of 16.956 every index would be about 3% higher — accessed September 4, 2026
- ESTIMATE, not a measured statistic: utilities_index_vs_us = 27. Basis is the typical monthly household bill for electricity, heating, water and refuse for a normal dwelling, converted to USD and indexed against a US monthly equivalent of about USD 210 for the same basket, so the Mexican bill assumed here is about USD 57 a month. The consumption assumption is a two-to-three-person dwelling on CFE's subsidised domestic tariff (tarifa 1/1A-1C) staying below the DAC threshold, LP gas cylinders for cooking and water heating rather than central heating, which almost no Mexican dwelling has, municipal water, and refuse collection, which most Mexican municipalities fund from the predial rather than billing separately. The saving over the United States is driven by consumption, not price: Mexican dwellings are smaller, unheated and use a fraction of US household electricity. It could not be derived from a permitted source because INEGI (ENIGH household expenditure) times out and CFE's tariff application serves a broken TLS certificate chain, both re-tested on the access date, and because the published OECD and World Bank ICP category levels stop at housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels combined (42.7 for Mexico in the 2024 OECD benchmark), which mixes rent with utilities and so cannot be used as a utilities-only ratio. What is verifiable is the direction: Mexican electricity/gas prices FELL 3.2% in nominal peso terms between the 2024 average and July 2026 while the US fuels-and-utilities index rose 12.4%. Treat USD 57 as a central case and verify against an actual CFE bill; a DAC-tariff household running air conditioning on the hot coast can pay several times this. The URL below is the INEGI-compiled electricity/gas/other-fuels series that establishes that direction — accessed September 4, 2026
- ESTIMATE, not a measured statistic: rent_1bed_center_usd 765 and rent_1bed_outside_usd 495. No Mexican statistical agency publishes advertised rents by dwelling size, and no permitted source publishes a US one-bedroom rent level by centre and periphery either, so both legs of this calculation are assumptions. The checkable half is the rent index of 45, derived below from OECD's 2024 price level for housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels rolled forward on Mexican and US rent CPI. Applying 45% to an assumed US metropolitan one-bedroom of USD 1,700 in the centre and USD 1,100 outside gives the USD 765 and USD 495 carried here. Mexico City, Monterrey, San Miguel de Allende and the Riviera Maya sit well above them; secondary cities sit well below — accessed September 4, 2026
- Servicio de Administracion Tributaria (SAT), official portal home - Mexico's own tax authority and the responsible national authority for anything on this page about Mexican tax residency or Mexican tax obligations; the IRS pages cited here cover only the United States side and have no jurisdiction over Mexican tax. The portal home is cited rather than a deeper topic page because SAT's public site is a single-page application that returns the same shell for every /portal/public/ path, so no deeper URL can be confirmed as live content from outside a browser session. The substantive Mexican rule quoted on this page is Article 9 of the Codigo Fiscal de la Federacion, cross-checked against PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries below — accessed September 4, 2026
- Mexican fuel-price transparency feed that every service station must publish under the price-disclosure rules administered by the energy regulator (formerly CRE, now the Comision Nacional de Energia): national mean of MXN 23.67 and median of MXN 23.99 per litre of regular gasoline across the 13,794 stations of 16,318 in the feed that posted a regular price on 4 September 2026, about USD 5.28 per US gallon at 16.956 MXN/USD - the Mexican side of the fuel comparison and part of why the transport index sits near the US level — accessed September 4, 2026
- Secretaria del Trabajo y Prevision Social (gob.mx), average IMSS-registered contribution base salary of MXN 671.3 per day at the close of May 2026 - basis for the average net salary figure. MXN 671.3 a day is about MXN 20,410 gross a month; deducting ISR at the 2026 resident tariff and the employee IMSS contribution leaves roughly MXN 17,600, which at the July 2026 average rate of 17.4557 MXN/USD is the USD 1,010 carried here. The daily wage is the official statistic; the step from gross to net is our own calculation and is an estimate. This is the formal-sector average and sits above whole-economy averages, because more than half of Mexican employment is informal, so the typical Mexican worker earns less than this figure suggests — accessed September 4, 2026
- Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, Visa de residencia temporal (qualifying categories including economic solvency, family ties, property and investment; explicitly permits work for an employer paying from abroad; 30-day card exchange rule) — accessed September 4, 2026
- Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, Visa de residencia permanente (retiree and pensioner route; spouses of Mexicans hold temporary residency two years before applying for a permanent card) — accessed September 4, 2026
- Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, Visa de residente temporal estudiante (required for any student staying more than 180 days, regardless of nationality) — accessed September 4, 2026
- Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores, Visa de visitante sin permiso para realizar actividades remuneradas (scope of the visitor condition: tourism, business meetings, training, medical and short educational stays) — accessed September 4, 2026
- Instituto Nacional de Migracion (gob.mx), official site and Tarifas de Derechos Migratorios 2026, in force from 1 January 2026 - the official page publishes the fee table only as an image, so the amounts below are taken from a secondary transcription — accessed September 4, 2026
- Migralaw (Mexican immigration law firm), transcription of the 2026 INM fee schedule - temporary resident card MXN 11,141 for 1 year, 16,693 for 2, 21,143 for 3, 25,058 for 4; permanent resident card MXN 13,579; visitor derecho de no residente MXN 983; consular visa fee USD 56; the 50% discount for family unity or a formal job offer is not automatic and must be requested with documents. Secondary source, used because INM publishes the table only as an image and Mexican consulate websites block automated access — accessed September 4, 2026
- Mexperience, financial criteria for Mexican residency 2026 (UMA of MXN 117.31 per day published 8 January 2026; 680 UMA monthly income and 11,460 UMA savings for temporary residency; 1,140 UMA and 45,850 UMA for permanent residency; an extra 220 UMA per dependent spouse or minor child) — accessed September 4, 2026
- IRS, Mexico tax treaty documents (1992 income tax treaty and 2003 protocol, both listed as in force). This is the United States tax authority and is cited only for the US side of the treaty; it has no jurisdiction over Mexican tax, so the tax authority link on this page points at SAT instead — accessed September 4, 2026
- IRS, Figuring the foreign earned income exclusion (maximum exclusion USD 132,900 per qualifying person for tax year 2026; USD 130,000 for 2025) — accessed September 4, 2026
- IRS, Totalization agreements - the page does not enumerate countries and directs readers to the SSA list of agreements in force, which does not include Mexico. The 2004 US-Mexico agreement was signed but has never entered into force — accessed September 4, 2026
- PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Mexico individual residence (a person is resident once they establish a home in Mexico; where a home is also kept abroad, the centre of vital interests turns on more than 50% of income from Mexican sources or Mexico being the primary place of professional activity) — accessed September 4, 2026
- PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Mexico taxes on personal income (2026 resident table runs from 1.92% on the first MXN 10,135.11 to a top rate of 35% on income of MXN 5,107,703.93 and above) — accessed September 4, 2026
- PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Mexico individual other taxes (general VAT rate 16%; a 50% VAT tax credit in the northern border region gives an effective 8% rate; employee social security contributions capped at MXN 29,103 a year) — accessed September 4, 2026
- PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, Mexico corporate other taxes (VAT payable at the general rate of 16% on sales of goods and services, leases and imports) — accessed September 4, 2026
- OECD Health at a Glance 2025, Mexico country note (health spending USD 1,588 per capita PPP versus an OECD average of USD 5,967; about 6% of GDP versus 9%; 78% of the population covered for a core set of services; 2.7 practising physicians per 1,000 versus an OECD average of 3.9; life expectancy 75.5 years) — accessed September 4, 2026
- World Bank / WHO Global Health Expenditure Database, out-of-pocket expenditure as a share of current health expenditure, 2023 (Mexico 41.24%, United States 10.93%) — accessed September 4, 2026
- El Imparcial, IMSS Modalidad 33 Seguro de Salud para la Familia annual premiums for 2026 by age bracket (MXN 9,300 at 0-19; 11,550 at 20-29; 12,350 at 30-39; 14,350 at 40-49; 14,850 at 50-59; 20,600 at 60-69; 21,500 at 70-79; 22,150 at 80+). Mexican news source, used because IMSS blocks automated access to its own tramite page — accessed September 4, 2026
- Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (gob.mx), official IMSS portal — accessed September 4, 2026
- US Energy Information Administration, weekly US regular all formulations retail gasoline price (USD 4.071 per gallon, week ending 31 August 2026) - the US side of the fuel comparison — accessed September 4, 2026
- World Bank, total population of Mexico (131,946,900 in 2025; 130,861,007 in 2024) — accessed September 4, 2026
Your New Country publishes reference information, not tax advice. Tax positions are fact-specific and the penalties for getting a cross-border position wrong are heavier than the fees for getting it checked. Before you file, take advice from an accountant who works both systems, and confirm everything against Mexico's tax authority and the IRS, which administers the US rules described here.