Mexico does NOT want us...

In a recent video we talked about countries that are on our short list for a second residency visa and Mexico was at the top of that list and we honestly thought that we would qualify for a visa there but after we talked to an immigration attorney we realized we might not actually qualify for some personal reasons and some bad tax advice that we got years ago. So in this video we're going to talk about you know why Mexico may not work for everyone including us and how it can shatter your dreams of moving there because of the visa requirements. Those darn visa requirements actually we're pretty upset about it. But before we go through all of that if you're new to our channel we're Amelia and JP and we can help you fast track your move abroad whether you want to expat in one country or slow travel for a while. All right let's talk first about why Mexico was so appealing to us. There's so many reasons. It's a beautiful country. We've been there we've been there a lot over the last 20-25 years to lots of different places. We love Mexico and it's got so much going for it including how close it is to the U.S. Yes that is really important to us because we definitely want to be closer to our families as they're getting older. We need to make sure we are more accessible. Yeah they have affordable health care. They have great food. Amazing culture. We love all of the traditions. Easy flight connections to multiple places in the U.S. and around the world. Established expat community so it's an easy place to land if you're an American and it's really just a great option for a long-term stay. It is especially because the country as you said is so big there's it's so diverse you are definitely going to be able to find a place that will work for you. All right so now let's talk about the residency reality check. It was a bit painful. Yeah the visa requirements I mean we we kind of knew what they were. We were pretty familiar with the requirements and thought that we would qualify but how they what the requirements that they have for you to meet the requirements are where we may not qualify. Right when we made an appointment and had a conversation with the immigration specialist that helped explain all of this stuff to us and it's it's straightforward if you're one person or if you're retired but for our particular situation there's some gray area there. Yeah so to start we I'm 54 Amelia's 57 we are years away from retirement a lot of people are like well just you know are you when did you retire do you get your social security how do you handle medicare abroad we don't get any of that. That's not what we do. Yeah and which also means that we don't qualify for a pension visa or a retiree visa because we don't have pension income we're not retired we still work and we earn a living as a working couple. Yes and so our plan was to apply for their temporary residency visa because they have changed those rules and so now you need to be retired to apply for that permanent residency visa as well although we wouldn't qualify for that. But yeah so we thought we were we would qualify for the savings route because we have savings that we thought we could use but there are requirements for that the first is if you have a joint account which we do they require double the savings you can't qualify on the stated amount you need double that if there are two of your two of you have joint a joint account with both of your names on it. And they said now depending on the consulate you go to that they may no longer let you use your investment income so or your investment accounts to qualify and that is new because I thought we could do it with our investments I'm like okay so we'll be fine because we've got this here and this there but no. Yeah you can't use a retirement account regardless if you're not retired. Right you have to be able to withdraw those funds and live on them. Yeah so most of our money is in retirement accounts IRAs and stuff right so here this is where the bad tax advice came in is that years ago when we were living in Ecuador my accountant in Denver told us that we did not qualify for the foreign earned income exclusion so we I put maxed out our IRAs I had a SEP IRA for the business and we just put as much money as we could afford into those so now those are locked up now all that money that we put in was locked up and we didn't actually need to do that because we didn't need to reduce our taxable income because of the income exclusion. Yes had we known that we would have done things differently. Yeah so now all of that money we could use to qualify for the savings in Mexico is locked up and now ineligible ineligible which is kind of frustrating. It is part of our frustration too is had we done this sooner we would have this probably would have been easier but yeah. Had we done it years ago it would have been a lot easier. Yeah especially because they changed the income requirements so dramatically over the last few years. Yeah that's a good segue into the next obstacle for us and that is the income route which we thought we might be able to do if the savings didn't work so our most of our income is from self-employment it comes from our YouTube business and all the the move abroad services that we offer and the travel club our new turtle travel club is most of our income comes from that it doesn't come from Amelia's part-time job. No. That's icing on the cake for us and it's nice she likes to have she likes doing that. I do I like my job. Yeah so but Mexico really wants a W-2 or a 1099 to prove that you are employed gainfully employed and it's kind of questionable whether they would accept our self-employment income because you cannot transfer money from one account to another to qualify for the income requirement which is essentially what we're doing we're transferring money each month from our business account to our personal account it we're not 1099 employees because we're an LLC and there's rules around how you treat yourself as an owner so I'm not convinced they would accept that. Right. Income and the only way for us to find out is to go through the process. Yeah so and which is expensive and time consuming. Right. And we have to go back to the U.S. to do that. Yes. So I feel like there's like maybe a 50-50 maybe not even 50-50 chance that they'll accept that. Yeah it's not something we want to spend all the time doing and then find out well we have to reapply or it's just we have to do something different or wait and then do it over again like when like you said we're just not in the U.S. very much. Yeah so which brings us to the next issue is that even if they do accept our self-employment income we don't make enough for both of us to apply with the new like basically you need over $4,500 each per month so we don't make that much. No. So we're not going to qualify individually now we could do where one of us applies and then the other becomes a dependent but we don't want to do that that's what we have in Ecuador I'm the primary in Ecuador Amelia is the dependent if something happens to me I die or whatever then she has to start over she doesn't get to keep her permanent residency. No no I don't they changed the laws after that for Ecuador but unfortunately I'm grandfathered into the old one so I would have to either leave the country or start over with a temporary visa. Yeah so we don't want to do the same thing again in Mexico. No. We don't want to have one of us as a dependent you know we're getting older you never know what could happen and we want to make sure the other doesn't have to leave their home. Absolutely. After like something bad happens to the other. Yes that would be awful. Yeah so that's I mean it's not really an option so even if they do take the income route it wouldn't work for us we really thought the savings route would work. Right yeah and we don't it's not like we need this residency visa so I don't want to try to force something to fit because we already have Ecuador and we have other countries that are options but we were really excited about Mexico. I know we were because it was really second it was actually first on our list when we were looking at moving abroad in 2017 and then we chose Ecuador for a variety of reasons that we talked about in a previous video. Right. Multiple videos but yeah we're still glad that we chose Ecuador but it was it was kind of a dream to have residency in Mexico too. Yeah so we don't have to give up we just have to postpone it. Yeah so here's a bigger realization I guess is that visas even though we kind of we're in the visa world and we talk about them all the time it's still they're so complicated with their individual requirements and the nuances that this is even more important that you have somebody who knows this stuff help you. It absolutely is I mean some countries are really easy and straightforward like Panama's pensionado visa but you still need to have somebody that can help you with all of the rules and the translations and then going to the government offices and applying and you know it's it's hard and then some countries are just very complicated. They are. So Amelia this is another good segue to mention our new expert referral network. Oh yes. Yeah so we have been working tirelessly to add members to our expert referral network where we can help you find immigration attorneys or other service providers that you need and during we are we started this in Ecuador years ago I mean we had people in our referral network then years ago since we've been traveling over the past few years we've been meeting with immigration attorneys in different countries around the world and we're bringing all of them into one central spot and you know we've vetted them and we trust them and they really know what they're doing and you can get connected with them through our website. Yep it's a great option if you need some expert guidance and like JP said I don't know if I used the word tirelessly but I have worked very hard and diligently on meeting with the different experts and really getting to know them and building up that rapport and that comfort level so that we feel comfortable recommending them to you. Yeah so just go to ameliaandjp.com slash experts or scan this QR code and look through our index it's pretty small to start right now but we are working to add more people to that every single day. Yes I'd rather take my time and get the right people into place than just have a whole bunch of stuff on our site. Yeah all right Amelia so back to Mexico how does it make you feel that we don't qualify? Well you know like I said I was really disappointed we already had this whole dream in our heads and this is exactly the same stuff we tell other people not to do and we did it ourselves yeah we should have really been more uh I guess we should have started sooner by asking the questions instead of just making these assumptions. That's a really good lesson we've been we've been saying it for years start sooner and make sure you qualify for the visa before you set your sights on a place. Yes I mean I know we can still go there of course and we can use it for our slow slow travel strategy and that works well but it's not the same as actually being able to get that residency. Yeah yeah so what does this mean for us going forward? I think that the biggest lesson is to stop maxing out our IRAs we're almost we're getting close to retirement age and I don't really like having all of that money locked up in an account that I can't get access to. Yeah we need to do have a little bit more diversity I think. Especially it doesn't really benefit us that much to do those because I mean it's I'd rather have that money in a more liquid account and we don't need the tax deduction for that. Right I mean the nice thing is is that I can start taking I can start using that money earlier I think you can access that when you're 59 and a half. Yes so we don't have to wait that long and well also we could hopefully make some more money. Yeah I know that would be nice. Yes. Yeah so keep watching our videos. But I think also this is a really good reminder that you need to have a couple different options because some it's not even that Mexico is actually I guess they're being a little bit more particular about the way they interpret the law but countries change their laws all the time so you can have your heart set on going to Panama or Costa Rica or France or wherever and then by the time you're ready to apply they may have new rules like that happened in Portugal and it's really impacted a lot of people. It has. So it's always good to have a couple different options. Yeah so speaking of that I think the number two on that list of the short list was Costa Rica. Yes. So hi Costa Rica we're looking forward to meeting you soon. Yeah we'll be heading your way you're gonna go and do some investigation. Yeah we also have Albania and on that list so and that's it's in Malta but that's still it's kind of pricey after digging into that more I'm not sure that that's in our budget at the moment for the visa process. It is more of a commitment however the digital nomad visa is a nice option just to take it for a good test drive for a year to make sure we want to live there because it is an island so the lifestyle there is a bit different. Yeah so I guess the broader lesson from to learn from us is that don't assume that residency is going to be easy or that you qualify. Right. Just because you look good on paper. Right. Because we look good on paper but it's not the papers that Mexico wants apparently. Yes. Yeah and start researching your residence residency requirements very early and don't wait to talk to a professional. Don't trust all the information you see online and blogs that some of them are just outdated or maybe not positioned correctly or it just isn't valid anymore. Right and have a couple options in mind because you never know when something's going to change. Yeah. Because they do they change. And also check how your assets and your income are structured and make sure that if you're going to use something for a visa qualification that it's actually structured correctly so that you can use it. Yeah and this can even be for your pension and social security too because some countries won't let you combine income we get that question every once in a while and some countries will not let you combine income from other sources so you really do need to pay attention to all of that. Yeah so many rules. I just wish there was a standard. Wouldn't that be nice? It would be so nice. So we still love Mexico in fact we're going there again in November. November yeah. October November we're planning on staying for like three months in Mexico this next time so we're we're gonna spend some time there we still love it. Yeah we're I mean as slow travelers we can do that. Yeah. It's nice. Yeah every country has the right to set their own visa requirements whether we agree with them or not. Yeah. So it's their right their prerogative to do that but we want to make sure you guys are familiar with this so that you don't have any surprises during this process. Yes you don't get your heart broken like we were both pretty disappointed. And this is it just seemed to be getting more challenging. They do. It's very frustrating so all right guys we would love to hear from you in the comments are you disappointed that you can't move to Mexico because we hear that a lot because their income requirements are so high now or if you have any other thoughts on this we appreciate hearing from you. Yep we always do and we'd also appreciate a like so leave us a like please. Yes and be sure to check out our expert referral network at Amelia and jp.com slash experts and those likes are nice and they help the channel. They do. So we appreciate that. All right guys we will see you all in our next video. Ciao. Ciao.