can you please explain the difference between the two? What makes one different then the other? I too was asked by a lawyer which one I wanted. I am a rule follower, so based on what I have read here and elsewhere, I said, Duh, the FM3.
Maybe someone will supplement this, later, but the differences that quickly come to mind are- The FM2 costs more; if you hold an FM2, you cannot be out of Mexico more than 18 months of any 60 month period, whereas you could stay out of Mexico most of the time and still hold a valid FM3; and the FM2 is the route to permanent residency and citizenship, the FM3 is not.
If I had been given the FM2 option early on, I would have totally taken it but I was always told that I had to have my FM3 for five years, even with a Mexican child. For those of us who work here, the advantage of the FM2 is that you do not need to request permission to change jobs, you simply have to notify them. If you've worked here long enough you realize this is a great advantage even if you don't change jobs. In my experience, companies change their "pagadoras" which technically and legally means I work for a different company even though I have the same job and it must be reported to INM. It's happened to me twice in less than a year. Same job, new legal company name for pay roll purposes, pain in the bum with INM.
Well, I guess for this year I am fine with the FM3. I did promise my boss that I would give her for sure 1 year in exchange for them paying all the costs of the FM3. Maybe in December I will think about the FM2. Thanks!
Hi Tori! The FM2 has some restrictions, and is probably more recommendable for people on the path to citizenship. If you're planning to stay, it might be the right path for you eventually. CC - That's great news! Now I don't have to get all my paperwork together everytime my company changes pagadoras (4 times since I started working here!) Nobody is sure on the 5-year rule for switching from FM2 to FM3, but just this month I've had 3 friends move to Cancun to marry a local, and all were given an "FM2 Familiar" even though they'd never had an FM3.
Has anyone ever commented on the fact that, under Mexican Tax Law, foreign pensions and income from foreign investments of foreigners are apparently exempt from Mexican taxation? (See page one of the monthly, online tax declaration forms.) This could add a possible, future downside to those who are considering becoming citizens of Mexico, who might then lose this exempt status for those forms of income. It is possible to stop short of citizenship, with the status of "inmigrado" but this may have the same implication, tax wise, for those who file tax returns here.
By "citizen," I am assuming you mean "naturalized."......as opposed to a permanent resident, for which one must also have an FM-2 for 5 years (2 years if married to a Mexican National) My FM-2, only one year old, already states I am a resident of Mexico. So at what point do we become "not" foreigners?
Hi, Windknot. Becoming a citizen would clearly move one into no longer being a "foreigner", it seems to me, while anything short of that would not. (My guess!) FM2 status is "inmigrante", from which there are two paths- one to "inmigrado", the other to citizenship.
Migracion Smiles [ame="&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - 036, de Juan Fernando Andrés Parrilla y Esteban Roel García Vázquez
