Hey everyone, I hope you all are able to help out with this problem I have. I need to get a new tourist card, so I can then get my FM3. Is there a way to get a new tourist card without having to leave Mexico and coming back? If so, how do I get one? Where do I go? What will they ask of me, if anything? Is there a cost? (because they are given free on airplanes). Any and all help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. )
Hi! I'm sure you'll get more answers soon from folks who have actually done it. You would need to go to imigration which is located in Avenida Nader. Go early, they open at 9am til 1pm Monday to Friday I'm not sure if you need to provide a flight ticket home, perhaps someone else knows about that. I haven't done it myself but I know it's possible. There is a fee, I would estimate about $1500 pesos. Again, I'm sure you'll get some answers soon. But it is possible so don't worry!
As far as I know (and I am not the expert), if your tourist visa has actually expired, you do need to leave and come back. You can just head down to Belize and reenter the country on a new visa. It might be a short term one (a couple of weeks) but then you can go to Immigration in Cancun for an extension.
Elizabeth is right. If you overstayed then you'd best leave and come back. And the agents on both sites of the Belize border will know exactly what you are up to and won't like it. And may want bribes. If you are just running out of time but have not expired yet then you should go downtown and get more time. But if you go in saying you need an extension in order to have time to file for an FM3 they might not like that. The FMT is for tourists, and if you are getting an FM3 then you are not a tourist. It's screwy logic, but then Mexican Immigration is one of the hardest ones, much harder than the US or Canada. If you can just renew your FMT that would be easiest. And probably you just need to tell them you need another x days, but don't tell them why. Then after that you will "change your mind" and file to change your status to an FM3.
This is what happened to me. It will be relavent to you if you are ready to apply for your FM-3 and your tourist card has not yet expired. When you turn in your application, you turn in your tourist card at the same time and that is it. But if you have to leave Mexico while your application is pending you have to get a special permit to leave and re-enter the country. I don't know how the money was allocated between Migracion and the attorney but it cost me $500 Mxn. I did need to produce a copy of my airline ticket to leave Mexico. I really don't think there is much of a problem if you just go down to Belize for a couple of days and come back in. Ask for 180 days on your FM-T and if they don't give it to you at the border (and the agent might for a few $$) you can go to the office on Nader and extend your stay. I guess they could ask you to produce your ticket to get out of the country but you could always say you are going to do more traveling and will change your departure when you know the date you want to leave. Girl, you better get your stuff together. Dealing with the government is a big pain on a good day. Don't make it worse on yourself.
While I lived there last year I extended my FMT a couple of times at the office on Nader. Nobody asked for a return ticket, nor an explanation. The back of your FMT (front? I don't know, it's been a couple months) says you are alotted 180 days so I just filled out the form and followed their direction. One time, however, me and those wacky Ceruttis jumped in the family truckster and drove to Belize with every intention of staying a couple of days. Didn't quite work out that way because the immigration guy in Belize kinda got into it with me (clearly he wanted a bribe but he was in no mood to play the game and frankly I was looking for the game). Long (loooong) story short, I ended up storming (well, driving, but storming in my head) back to the Mexican border and working out a deal (if you will) from the immigration guy there. Home by midnight the same day. I guess my point is, for me anyway, it wasn't that easy just to go on down to Belize, at least not by car, and if all you need is to extend your FMT to the allowed 180 days, I don't see a problem. If you are almost through your 180 days, it might not hurt to check Spirit for a cheap ticket to Florida.
An important point to make here is that as a tourist, which you are if you have an FMT, you can only get a max of 180 days PER STAY. As gjp pointed out if you are through that 180 days you will HAVE to leave to get more time. I would also advise searching through the archive on this site for more info on getting an FM3. There's been a lot of info posted here on this subject. And as I said before Mexican Immigration is a super pain in the butt. So you need to be sure you do everything right.
