Are you planning to become a resident in Mexico under the Settlement Program? Check to see if you have any entry stamps on your passport. If there are such stamps, change your passport. Because otherwise you will never receive a residence permit under the settlement program, or perhaps for a lot of money.
Maximum length of stay allowed in Mexico for travelers — 180 days. To renew this period, you need to leave the state and enter again. And in order not to leave, previously it was possible to simply buy a stamp for your passport about entry into Mexico along with a paper FMM migration form. Mexico does not issue exit stamps, and if you had a fresh entry stamp in your passport, you could be considered to have left and re-entered Mexico. Well, accordingly, your new 180-day legal period of stay in Mexico has begun. If you are stopped during an immigration check, you show your passport — there is a stamp, 180 days from the date of entry have not yet expired, which means you are in Mexico legally.
We will not evaluate the quality of such stamps in passports. We will assume that the stamps are real, but there are no corresponding entry records in the migration database.
In the fall of 2022, the migration service stopped issuing paper FMM migration forms upon arrival in Mexico by plane, and during migration checks, it began checking not the stamps in the passport, but the entry records in the migration database by scanning the passport. Buying new entry stamps has lost its meaning. At the same time, the old fake stamps remained in the passports.
When you first go to the immigration office and ask for a residence permit under the settlement program, they scan your passport and look for your previous entries in a migration database called SETRAM. This database contains information on all entries of foreigners since at least 2015. They then begin to check the records from SETRAM with the stamps in your current passport. And then — oh, horror! — they find a stamp in a valid passport that does not match in the migration database. No one will figure out how this stamp appeared and why there is no correspondence to it. Your passport will be returned and your application for a residence permit under the settlement program will be denied. We have encountered similar situations many times and are surprised at the calmness of migration service employees when they see fake stamps.
There will be no other consequences. The Migration Service does not have the right in its offices to detain visitors who have violated migration legislation, transfer information about them anywhere or make any notes, say, set an alert for them in the migration database, which in most cases would be tantamount to an entry ban. You will simply be refused a residence permit.
To obtain a residence permit under the settlement program, you will have to change your passport, which contains fake entry stamps. It doesn’t matter, if you bring a new, clean passport to the migration service, they will still check your entries using their database. The Migration Service will not ask you for a document about the loss of your passport if you explain your blank passport by the loss of your previous one.
However, you have the opportunity to obtain resident status without changing your passport, on any other basis where entry verification using the SETRAM database is not required. This is for a work visa, for the birth of a child in Mexico, for marriage to a Mexican or a resident, etc.