International Movers to Mexico

Which direction

Is the move leaving Britain or coming back?

Each guide is written for a household setting out from the UK. A return from Mexico is outside what we researched.

Order of steps

What should I settle first?

Start with your right to live there, because the customs treatment of household goods hangs on it. We could confirm neither in full.

1. Residence. GOV.UK says “If you’re visiting Mexico as a tourist, you do not need a visa”, but a tourist cannot work. The UK to Mexico page shows what is and is not confirmed.
2. Customs. The Customs Law exempts the household goods of permanent residents, and the position for a foreign family is open. The customs page explains.
3. Route. Check the UK government warnings for your state, then the lorry hours for your city.
4. Car and pets. Neither was confirmed. Our guides on shipping a car and moving with a pet cover the UK end.

For British-side paperwork, read the UK customs documentation checklist.

Entry and customs

Where are entry and customs explained?

Two guides apply across the whole country, since neither rule varies by city.

For how a quotation is built, read the sea freight guide and the removals cost guide.

Cities and port

Which guide fits where I am going?

A container reaches a port and then goes by road. Every guide below says what we could and could not confirm for its area.

• The capital: Mexico City, with the daily hours cargo vehicles are barred and the fines reported for them.
• The Pacific coast: Colima and Manzanillo, with the port facts and the UK government exception that covers it.
• The west: Guadalajara and Lake Chapala, where two reports disagree on which lorries are barred in the morning.
• The north-east: Monterrey, with a 2025 state order and limits on the main avenues.

Every place rule here comes from a news report, because the official city and state pages did not open for our script. Each page says so.

Other places

Where are the rest of the named places?

None of the places below has a guide. Each shows the sourced facts we hold, and an entry says plainly when no rule was found.

• Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum (Quintana Roo): INEGI counted 39,586 people born abroad in the state in 2020, only 5,881 of them in the United States, so the mix differs from the border states. Benito Juárez (Cancun) had 911,503 residents and Solidaridad (Playa del Carmen) 333,800. Wikipedia says “The hurricane season runs from June through November”, which matters when you choose a delivery month.
• Mérida and Progreso (Yucatán): Mérida had 995,129 residents; the state had 15,405 people born abroad, 4,452 of them in the United States. Wikipedia says “The Port of Progreso is a center for both the fishing industry and the container industry”.
• Campeche: the municipality had 294,077 residents at the 2020 census. No sourced rule or port fact for removals was found.
• Oaxaca: the city municipality had 270,955 residents, and the state counted 22,659 people born abroad, 19,162 of them in the United States.
• La Paz and Los Cabos (Baja California Sur): the state counted 9,364 people born abroad, including 5,939 from the United States and 662 from Canada. Los Cabos had 351,111 residents.
• Tijuana, Ensenada and Mexicali (Baja California): the state counted 152,377 people born abroad, 132,673 of them in the United States. Tijuana had 1,922,523 residents and Mexicali 1,049,792; the port of Ensenada was built in 1994. The UK advice reads “FCDO advises against all but essential travel to the city of Tijuana”, with exceptions for the airport transit, a border bridge and two roads, so check the map.
• Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua: Chihuahua state counted 101,229 people born abroad, 93,373 of them in the United States, and the city of Chihuahua municipality had 937,674 residents. The UK advice reads “FCDO advises against all but essential travel to the state of Chihuahua”, with exceptions for the city of Chihuahua, the Ciudad Juárez crossing and the road between them.
• Zacatecas: the municipality had 149,607 residents. The UK advice reads “FCDO advises against all but essential travel to the state of Zacatecas”, with no exception listed, so any move there needs the mover’s own advice.
• Aguascalientes and Torreón: Aguascalientes had 948,990 residents and Torreón 720,848. Nothing else we could read applies to a removal.
• Querétaro and San Miguel de Allende: Querétaro had 1,049,777 residents, San Miguel de Allende 174,615, and Guanajuato state counted 42,486 people born abroad. Wikipedia says “Most foreign residents are retirees from the United States, Canada, and Europe”. The UK advice warns against all but essential travel to the areas south-west of road 45D in Guanajuato. One local news report gives a Querétaro cargo rule for vehicles above 3,587 kilograms, but we could not check it, so it is not relied on.
• Altamira (Tamaulipas): the municipality had 269,790 residents, and Wikipedia says “Its port business is mostly containerized cargo for ocean-going ships”.
• Veracruz, Puebla and Lázaro Cárdenas: the UK to Mexico guide covers the Gulf port of Veracruz, the Mexico City guide covers Puebla and the capital’s ring of cities, and the Colima guide covers Lázaro Cárdenas.

All other towns in the old address list are absent here, since no fact we could read would help a household plan a move. A town could earn a page if a browser read finds a local rule or a port fact.

All guides

Every Mexico guide in one list

Every guide carries its own source list. A place with no guide is mentioned on a bigger neighbour or among the named places.

Questions

Questions people ask before moving to Mexico