Crossing the Border into Mexico

Moving to another country is a bit of an overwhelming endeavor. Since Mexico and the US are land-connected, we decided that instead of selling everything, hopping on a plane, and starting over fresh when we got there or shipping our belongings at a cost of somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000, we’d pare down to the items we really love or consider essential(ish), drive the 1,900 miles from Atlanta, and not need to buy absolutely everything for our new home.

PREPARATION

To make that happen, we bought a 6’x12′ enclosed trailer, held a yard sale, sold a ton of stuff on Craigslist, donated the rest, and packed and repacked until we were pretty sure we could fit / jam in everything. The drive and border crossing went smoothly overall, and we learned a ton about the process through our preparation and research

When importing belongings to Mexico, you’re only officially allowed to bring used items and electronics that are at least six months old. There are two choices for importing your items depending on the dollar value of what you’re bringing in. If the amount is worth over $10,000 US, you are required to fill out a menaje de casa (which you can get from your closest consulate), hire a customs broker, and then have the broker sign off on your items before you get to the crossing. If your belongings are worth less than $3,000, you can, in theory, sail on through, although it’s still a good idea to number your boxes and create an inventory with approximate values. If your value falls somewhere in between $3,000 and $10,000 (like ours may have), you’ll want to work those numbers to get them under $3k to save yourself the hassle and expense of the broker. It seems to be common practice to calculate the value using garage-sale pricing.

You are also required to obtain a TIP (Temporary Import Permit), as well as Mexican vehicle insurance. Both of these can be obtained at most of the border crossings, but you can also register and pay for them online beforehand, which we did, to save time at the crossing. To do this, we first applied for pre-authorization here. Next, we applied for the Temporary Vehicle Permit online at Banjercito (which is authorized to issue the permits). We were also able to get our insurance through the Banjercito site. We were able to print out our proof of insurance, and the TIP sticker was mailed to us within a week with instructions on where to put it on the car.

Based on a recommendation, we also put together a binder with clear sleeves, and filed three copies of ANY document a border or immigration officer or federale might want to see. That included passport, drivers license, car insurance, car title, birth certificate, marriage license, residency visa, etc.

DRIVING

We plotted our course through Houston with a pitstop there for a few days to give ourselves a break from being on the road and to visit good friends. Driving long distance with the trailer took some getting used to for Josh as the driver, and me as the passenger / general entertainer for the driver. The trip to Houston took about 13 hours, approximately two hours longer than a car trip would have. At first Josh tried to drive at a somewhat similar speed to normal, but quickly realized that it was nerve-racking as hell to try and pass slow vehicles as well as bad on the gas mileage to speed up and slow down. Halfway through the day, he switched to coasting at a slower speed in the right lane, which was less stressful and more economical, even though it added time to our drive.

We planned to cross the border in the Laredo area of Texas. A lot of people will drive to Laredo the day before their crossing and stay the night there so they can be at the crossing bright and early to avoid congestion. Sunday seems to be the optimal day to cross with the least amount of traffic. But we opted instead to leave from Houston at 3:00am – on a Monday – as we wanted to spend the whole weekend with our friends in Houston, which put us at the crossing by 9:30am, a little later than we would have liked, but not a problem as it turned out.

Josh heavily researched the different border crossing options and decided we should cross at the Columbia Bridge interchange based on the typical wait times, viewable online here. The City of Laredo website lets anyone check out the live camera feed at their border crossing locations by clicking on the Bridge Cameras link (after you identify the number of the crossing you want to see on that first page). The Columbia Bridge one was particularly empty pretty much every time he checked it out on camera. And when we pulled up, there was one other car pulling up as well, and we both had no problems finding parking spaces in the vacant lot.

THE BORDER

The building was completely empty of visitors when we walked in, and a few people directed us to different windows. No one spoke much English, so they bounced us around a bit once they realized we had already bought our insurance and paid for our TIP. We got to the immigration agent, and she took our passports with our residency visas in them, and had Josh fill out his FFM form while she, unprompted BTW, filled out mine for me. Which we didn’t check. Which was a big mistake. Instead of putting my name on it, she put Josh’s name. With my information. Oops. We didn’t realize this was a problem until a couple of weeks later when we went to the immigration office in Puerto Vallarta to initiate the in-country part of our residency visas and the very helpful woman there couldn’t believe the immigration border agent had done that. Luckily, the Puerto Vallarta immigration officer was able to make it right, but we were panicked there for a bit!

In preparation for the crossing, we had done an inventory of our belongings with estimated values, which we put at a little over $2,000 USD based on garage sale values. Most of the advice we had read online suggested having it be around $1,500 USD. We had a LOT of stuff, so we felt more comfortable landing around $2,000, and I’m not sure if it would have made a difference to value it as less, but the guy who walked out to the parking lot with us gave everything a rough look over and told us they’d value it at the max of $3,000 USD and charge us 16% tax on that for an import fee of $480 US. AND we wouldn’t have to empty our trailer and car. It basically seemed like he was offering us a deal. We weren’t happy about paying that much money especially because we thought bringing under $3,000 worth of goods through on our residency visas meant we shouldn’t be taxed on them, but we also did NOT want to unpack our trailer (and potentially still have to pay the same amount or more), so we said okay. He took us back to another window where we paid by credit card, and then we were able to drive through the gate, through another lot that had about 4 or 5 vehicles with their contents being examined, showed the receipt, and were waved through into actual Mexico. All in all, the whole process took less than an hour.

SAFETY

We took a lot of safety precautions during our drive through Mexico. We only traveled during daylight hours, we stuck to toll roads as much as possible (which were more expensive than we expected), and we generally tried to not bring attention to ourselves by dirtying up the car and trailer a bit so they didn’t look all shiny and newish, and wearing not super-nice clothes and no jewelry.

Josh essentially drove our whole route digitally on Google Maps the week before we traveled, and once we got to Houston, he plotted out the gas stations we’d stop at based on the miles per gallon we got on our drive from Atlanta. We filled up in the US as close to the border as possible and then not again until we were at least an hour into Mexico proper, as the areas close to the border are the ones of which to be wary, and we didn’t want anyone targeting us and following us from the border crossing area to the first gas station we saw. As we drove, we never allowed the gas to go below a quarter of a tank. And, as a general rule in Mexico, we only pay for gas with cash, and always count out to the attendant or have the attendant visually acknowledge the bills you’re giving them so they don’t quickly switch out a 500-peso bill for a 50-peso bill and claim you owe them more, which is a pretty common trick. It’s also important to always have small change on hand to use to pay for baños at gas stations and to tip the gas station attendants for cleaning your (trust me!) very, very dirty windshield and mirrors. We didn’t want to stop at an ATM until we were in a big city, so we carried a decent amount of pesos with us in the car, but divvied them up into smaller amounts hidden throughout the car.

We booked our two overnight stays in large cities at hotels with secure parking lots. We found these by both calling the hotels to ask if they had secure lots that could fit a trailer and by using Google Street View to scope them out. In Monterrey we stayed at Staybridge Suites Monterrey San Pedro, and in Guadalajara, we spent the night at Holiday Inn Guadalajara Expo, both of which we were able to pay for with points and were very happy with.

GENERAL

As we drove, we got stopped at every state and some city line crossings. It was obvious from a distance that our car was not Mexican, since Georgia doesn’t issue front license plates, and Mexico requires them. Most of the stops were super easy, they just asked to see our passports and visas or asked what we were hauling in the trailer without even wanting to see our identification. The only tough one was leaving the city of Aquascalientes. Those guys wanted to look over all our documents, had us get out of the car and open up the trailer, combed over our car import form, even checked our trailer hitch and our lights. They really wanted to catch something, but eventually let us go after about 20 minutes of examination with everything checking out okay. All of the officials were friendly and polite, even the Aquascalientes guys.

Overall, the drive was fairly uneventful, and, once we got past the stress of the border crossing, pretty enjoyable. The landscapes throughout Mexico are incredibly varied and beautiful. Right around the border crossing we drove through a massive butterfly zone, which was incredible. In Nuevo León, just past Monterrey, the fields of yuccas felt like an alien landscape. Outside of Guadalajara, the mountains and blue agave plants in Tequila are so gorgeous that we’re already planning a trip back there to explore.

In total, we spent three and a half days driving and less than $5,000 all in, including the purchase of the trailer, much cheaper than shipping items or buying every single thing completely new.

COSTS

Gas – $508
Tolls – $108
16% tax on $3,000 of imported goods – $480
Car and trailer temporary import tax and 6 months of insurance – $854
TOTAL = $1,950