Mexico has long been a popular tourist destination, but people are increasingly seeing more than just an easy spring break option when they consider Mexico. People of all ages and family situations are seeing a true alternative to life in the USA, Canada or Europe. So if you’re wondering about moving to Mexico with kids, let’s get on with answering all your questions.

Like Cassie and her family, mine was one of the earlier families to move to Mexico in this wave of Mexican popularity, moving here with my kids six years ago. At the time, most of the expats I met were retired or snowbird Americans and Canadians coming to escape the worst of winter back home. Families with young kids were a much rarer occurrence. Now, our family Whatsapp groups are adding new members every week, and there is a reason for this: Life in Mexico with kids is fabulous!

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😱 According to Mexico’s Migration Policy Unit, the number of Americans applying for or renewing residency surged by around 70% from 2019 to 2022. And the numbers keep on rising!

We’ll begin by considering why moving to Mexico with kids is a good idea and then we’ll discuss the logistics to consider and steps to take if you do decide to you do want to move to Mexico. 

Mexico: a culture that loves and celebrates kids

❤️ Mexican children are cherished. They are considered a blessing. People, for the most part, understand that kids will be kids, sometimes loud, sometimes hyperactive, and often overly enthusiastic or exhausted.

If you move to Mexico with your kids you’ll be able to go out to restaurants without worrying: people as a general rule will not give you the stink eye if your kid is misbehaving or having a hard time. They understand that it is all part of the journey of growing up.

Mexico even has a holiday dedicated to children – El Día del Niño, the last day of April, which is taken seriously unlike in most other countries. On this day schools will generally have some sort of celebration as will any clubs the kids are in. Kids will be given candies and even more love than normal.

How much does it cost to live in Mexico?

Important: while it’s true that life can be cheaper in Mexico than north of the border, that doesn’t mean we’re advocating moving to Mexico unless you actively want to live in Mexico. Move because you love the culture, the food, the history and because you want to be a part of Mexico. Don’t come and then live in an ex-pat bubble, embrace Mexico and let it embrace you.

💲 Mexico hasn’t escaped the impacts of global inflation but life remains generally affordable for foreigners choosing to move to Mexico.

📌 Where you decide to live (more on that later) as well as the choices you make once you move will determine your budget.

💰 Costs will vary from state to state, with CDMX (aka Mexico City) topping the list of most expensive Mexican cities. Capital cities are often a big draw due to their larger number of expat families, international schools, culture, and hard-to-come-by imported items for those who end up missing a taste of home. 

➡️ Other important factors include: the size of your place, whether you are in a gated community, whether you try to buy mostly local produce or spend a big portion of your food budget on imported goods. Will you buy a car, what school choice will you make?

🔆 How often you use your AC, and how cold you set it when you use it can make or break a tight budget if you decide to settle in one of the tropical climate areas such as Mérida or Playa del Carmen.  

Where are the best places to live in Mexico?

The best place for you to move to depends on what you and your family members are looking for in a new home.

🚓 If you are moving to Mexico with kids, security may be your main concern. In this case, Merida could be the perfect place for you as it is the safest city in Mexico and one of the safest cities in the entire world. You could also consider Valladolid or Campeche.

🏝 Maybe you would rather be by the sea, raising a brood of surfers and living life barefoot, then the beachs town of Sayulita or Progreso could be a good spot! Puerto Vallarta is another excellent beach town option, as are Cancun and Playa del Carmen in Quintana Roo, although both of these are obviously very popular vacation destinations.

🌇 If you love city life then you could consider Mexico City (CDMX), Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Queretaro, San Miguel de Allende or Monterrey. Bigger towns generally will have better schools, more foreign families, and services such as good internet, international food and stores. 

🗻 Mountain cities such as Oaxaca and San Cristobal de las Casas are great options for families who aren’t looking for heaps of amenities but do love culture and nature.

📌 Moving to a new country is a huge decision and a big move so it is worth visiting different parts of Mexico before deciding where to live. A great way to research potential places is to join family Facebook groups and read what people are sharing. Keep in mind what might seem like a great place for a two-week vacation may not be the same once it is your long-term reality.

Cassie’s book, Moving to Mérida, has lots of helpful advice and tips for renting and buying houses in Mérida

REMEMBER: Be respectful in the groups you join. Do your research and don’t expect others to do the work for you. Start by searching the page for threads on topics you want to learn about such as school classes, best neighborhoods, internet speed, etc.  It gets very tiring to have new people join and say, “ok tell me this, tell me that,” when members have already taken the time to answer these questions on multiple occasions.

Moving to Mexico with kids – education

📌 If you’re moving with a school age child, then you have three main options in Mexico: private schools, public schools, and homeschooling. Private schools are on the whole much less expensive than in the United States but by no means cheap. 

How to choose between private and public school

People are often told that if you’re not a permanent resident you have to put your children in private school but this isn’t strictly true. It’s easier to get non-permanent residents into private schools than the public system but since every child is entitled to education, you can get into the public schools. You’ll need to request a temporary CURP number to do this though.

Benefits to public school

Kids who go to Mexican public schools will have no choice but to learn Spanish if they want to succeed. Public schools are obviously a lot cheaper to access than private school.

Benefits to private school

If you’re worried about your child not picking up Spanish quickly then it might be wise to find a private school that’s bilingual or at least has the capacity to cope with foreign, non-Spanish speaking children. The facilities are often better in private schools (although many of the smaller private schools are not fancy at all).

Most people I’ve met end up putting their kids in private schools. 

📌 If your kids are older and struggling with the change, there are English-speaking schools but we recommend you do your due diligence and confirm their existence and that there is space for your child. Not all cities have them and some schools bill themselves as being a private bilingual school when in fact there are only a couple of classes in English every day. 

What about homeschooling in Mexico?

There are no clear mandatory attendance laws in Mexico and as a result, homeschooling seems to be flourishing in several places. Some cities have large English-speaking homeschool groups made up mostly of foreigners while Mérida, where I currently live, now has an active Spanish-speaking homeschool community. If this is something you would like to consider, I recommend going to local FB pages for cities and looking for family pages, and asking people if they can introduce you to any homeschooling families in the area. Many of them use WhatsApp to communicate versus Facebook so it’s a question of getting someone to add you to the chat.

What is SEP?

The Secretaria de Educacion Publica is the education regulating body in Mexico. They set the academic calendar and the minimum requirements for each grade.

📌 Usually, your kids’ transcripts will be submitted via their new private school who will register them with SEP.

⭐️ There are some non-SEP schools, particularly at kindergarten level.

➡️ Usually, kids will integrate into the SEP system at some point, like my kids did, or they can pass an equivalency test for primary, then high school, etc. This is what local friends of mine did for their two homeschooled daughters, one of whom was just accepted to an excellent local university.

➡️ Coming from an American school or other overseas school you’ll need to bring transcripts with you.

Important dates

📌 Pay attention to timings for school applications. Generally, schools hold entrance exams and interviews between January – April. If you aren’t able to attend (either in person on on Zoom) then you may find there are no places available at the more popular schools.

🗓 The school year is typically longer than in the US or UK but Mexican kids have longer breaks throughout the year.

⏰ The days also start much earlier. Many Mexican schools start at 7 am and end around 1 or 2 pm. They typically have two recesses, where they can eat a mid-morning snack.  Most Mexican families will then have a large lunch together around 2:30-3 and a very light dinner.  

English or Spanish?

📣 Age matters. Young children are usually quick to pick up another language but it doesn’t mean it’s automatically easy for everyone.

Yes, you could get by living in many Mexican cities without much Spanish but why would you want to? We believe the best way to fit in and make a new life is by embracing the local culture. 

 

Housekeeping and other help

More good news! Help is very affordable in Mexico. Whether you want a nanny, gardener, house cleaner, or someone to take care of your pool, you will be paying a fraction of what you would pay back home. This is particularly helpful when you have young kids who may not yet be school-aged and you need to work full time.

In my case, I have extra help to look after my elderly mom with dementia. They are loving, and hardworking and it means my mom can stay in her “home,” something I could never have afforded back in the United States. 

Health Care

🏥 Medical care wasn’t something I considered when we moved here but it certainly plays a part in why I stay. Again and again, we’ve had access to outstanding affordable health care, that far exceeded anything I had back in my home country. 

There is a public system in Mexico, which permanent resident are entitled to use. However, we do not use this already strained system believing that if we have the privilege to move our life to a new country which is already benefiting us financially, then we should be paying our way and leave the national system to the Mexicans who have no other options. 

📌 Private health insurance can be organized through an excellent broker in Mexico (of which there are many). Generally people use insurance for the big-ticket items like hospitalizations or if one someone becomes gravely ill. For all routine and minor incidents, most pay out of pocket because it’s not expensive.

✅ Many if not most of the doctors and dentists speak English and a good percentage were trained in the USA or Canada.

 

So what’s next? How do I make my move to Mexico?

 

We highly recommend coming for a short stay before you make the move. Mexico isn’t for everyone. Better to come for 6 months and figure out if you can make a new life in Mexico before selling up and ripping the kids away from everything they know.

But once you’ve decided you do want to move to Mexico, the first step in your moving process is to go to the Mexican Embassy or Mexican Consulate in your own country, find out the requirements to live in Mexico and start the process of applying for a resident visa from your home country.

✅ The easiest and most cost-effective path for a family with kids is to have one parent apply for residency and then, once you arrive in Mexico, you start a family re-unification process and the entire family will be eligible for a residency visa. It’s perfectly legal and is actually what the embassy generally recommends for families.

➡️ This is something you can do yourself but if you are allergic to heavy amounts of administrative and bureaucratic paperwork, there are many agencies set up specificially to help new residents. 

❌ Generally, we do not recommend attempting to move to Mexico on a tourist visa. However, in some parts of Mexico the Regularisation Program that was opened during the pandemic remains open and helps people who have overstayed their visa regularize and get temporary residency status. DYOR before assuming this will work for you, though.

Once you arrive in Mexico

Once you arrive in Mexico there will be plenty of administrative tasks to handle (all while your kids are having teeny meltdowns over having left their friends, clubs, school, bedroom etc). You will need to:

• finalize residency for the whole family
• open a local bank account 
• find a house – there are plenty of real estate agents ready to help you but I highly recommend either asking for recommendations or calling the numbers you’ll see on the street outside houses that are for rent.
• buy a car 
• get a new phone number or contract
• enrol the kids in school 

⭐️ Don’t forget that MexicoCassie wrote the definitive guide to moving to Mexico with kids. It will help you figure out all your steps to your new life in Mexico. ⭐️

​🧳 Some people move with just their suitcases, others ship a container with all their belongings. There is no right or wrong way to do it, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Almost everything is available in Mexico, but sometimes at a much higher price, and often at a much lower one. 

📌 When you move to Mexico as a resident, you have one opportunity to bring all your things and, so long as they are used/previously owned, you will not have to pay import taxes.

Personal Experiences: As we moved around a lot and didn’t have a home base or parents who could store our things, we moved our all our belongings to Mexico. Our kids liked being “reunited” with their bedroom furniture and toys. With hindsight, we probably could have saved a lot of money and stress by taking a more KonMari approach and buying thing from local stores upon arrival. These are very personal decisions but both approaches are possible. 

What should you bring when you move to Mexico?

Apart from the obvious (your clothes, documents, computers etc):

English children’s books – there are book shops with English language sections but they can be hit or miss.

Bedding – this is a tricky one as good quality bedding can be hard to find at decent prices in Mexico but bedding from outside the country never fits perfectly, in my experience.

Spices – any kitchen spices you absolutely can’t live without although it’s easier to order things like this than it was when we arrived.

Baby equipment – if you’re coming with a little one, bring only the most important bits and pieces, and then use a baby equipment rental scheme until you can buy everything you need in Mexico.

Don’t forget your pets!

Mexico is a pet-friendly country and it is relatively simple to bring your furry friends over, assuming they aren’t exceedingly large, in which case it is only marginally more complicated as you need to send them as cargo.

Nothing makes a new place feel like home for kids like making sure you bring your fur children too.  


And of course, no matter where you end up in Mexico, you will be giving your kids the gift of travel, the experience of a foreign country, and the opportunity to learn a new language and a new culture. And the greatest gift is you will likely have more time to enjoy this new adventure with them.