If you are thinking about a move to Mexico, you will read a lot about income thresholds, consulate appointments and fees. What you rarely see is how many people from your own country actually make the move. Yet Mexico's Interior Ministry publishes exactly that number every month. The latest tables, covering January to July 2026, show a clear shift: 6,921 US citizens, 2,796 Canadians and 302 Britons received the card for permanent residence in those seven months, in each case far more than in the same period of 2025. The temporary card, by contrast, barely moved for Americans.
The figures come from the statistical bulletin of the Unidad de Política Migratoria, Registro e Identidad de Personas (UPM), a unit of the Interior Ministry, SEGOB. The UPM works from the records of the offices of the National Migration Institute, INM. It counts only cases with a positive decision where the card was issued and actually handed over. Applications still pending or refused do not appear. The 2026 tables carry the note "Información preliminar", meaning provisional figures, and the UPM warns that they may differ from later government reports. The 2025 comparison figures come from the same UPM tables for January to July 2025, so the two periods are always the same length.
Two cards, two stages
For foreigners staying longer than a tourist visit, Mexico has two main forms of residence. The Residente Temporal allows a stay of up to four years under article 52 of the Ley de Migración, with unlimited entries and exits. The Residente Permanente has no end date. Article 54 of the same law lists who receives it, including:
What the income and savings thresholds for both cards look like today is explained in the guide to Mexican residency through financial solvency. To read the statistics, this is enough: the temporary card is the usual way in, the permanent card the goal.
The key figures, January to July 2026
Permanent residence (Residente Permanente):
Temporary residence (Residente Temporal):
For permanent residence, the number of Americans rose by 56%, Canadians by 152% and Britons by 146%. Across all nationalities, permanent cards grew by 19%, so the English-speaking countries are well above the average. Together, the United States and Canada account for a quarter of all permanent cards issued in Mexico. Australia and the Netherlands more than doubled too, although at these sizes a handful of households makes a visible difference.
The temporary card tells a different story. For Americans it stayed almost flat, 6,306 after 6,245, while Canadians and Britons rose moderately and Australians fell. Taken together, 13,227 US citizens received one of the two cards from January to July 2026, after 10,671 a year earlier.
The Nordic countries are small in absolute terms: Sweden 25 permanent cards (14), Denmark 13 (4), Finland 9 (7) and Norway 7 (10). Among European nationalities overall, Spain leads with 649 permanent cards, ahead of Russia (464), Germany (451), France (397) and Italy (315).
Month by month
US permanent cards in 2026 were spread like this: January 1,006, February 875, March 1,095, April 959, May 962, June 1,056, July 968. There is no single outlier month behind the rise. Even the weakest month of 2026 was above the strongest month of 2025, when the monthly values ranged from 485 to 744.
The Canadian pattern is the same, only steeper: 377, 281, 492, 558, 421, 359 and 308 from January to July 2026, against a range of 108 to 224 in 2025. April was the busiest Canadian month, with 558 cards.
Which categories the cards fall into
The UPM assigns every card to a broad category, and defines them in the tables themselves. Trabajo (work) covers everyone whose reason for staying is employment or a job offer. Under Rentista the UPM groups owners of property and assets, investors, and retirees and pensioners. Otros collects research projects, public interest and other reasons. The remaining categories are Familia, humanitarian reasons and, for the temporary card, students.
For US citizens with permanent residence, the split looks like this (2025 in brackets):
For Canadians:
The biggest growth is in the catch-all Otros category, which almost tripled for Americans and grew more than fivefold for Canadians. The Rentista group rose by a quarter for Americans and by 78% for Canadians, while work-based permanent cards fell for both. Which legal routes sit inside Otros, the table does not break down. Across all nationalities, too, Otros grew the most, from 3,444 to 8,888, while cards on humanitarian grounds fell from 12,208 to 8,053. The Rentista group grew by a third across all nationalities, from 2,947 to 3,933.
The British figures follow the same pattern on a smaller scale: of 302 permanent cards, 156 fell under Otros (27 in 2025), 30 under Rentista (11), 39 under Trabajo (48) and 77 under Familia (37). For Australians, Otros accounted for 63 of 114.
For temporary residence, US citizens show a broader mix: Otros 2,913, Familia 1,345, Trabajo 913, Rentista 868 and students 267. Canadians: Otros 478, Familia 247, Rentista 145 and Trabajo 92. Britons: Trabajo 86, Otros 74, Familia 73, Rentista 8 and students 3. If you are moving for a job, the requirements are set out in the guide to the Mexican work visa.
One thing stands out: the statistical categories do not match the visa routes you apply for at the consulate. Rentista mixes retirees with property owners and investors, and the table does not say how many people qualified through the financial solvency route. It does show, though, that North Americans use the Rentista category far more than Europeans: 3,110 of the 3,933 permanent Rentista cards went to US and Canadian citizens.
Where newcomers settle
The tables by state show where the card was applied for and handed over, which is normally where the person lives.
Permanent residence, US citizens, January to July 2026 (2025 in brackets):
Canadians concentrate even more on the coasts: Quintana Roo 589 (305), Jalisco 481 (205), Nayarit 411 (57), Baja California Sur 373 (205) and Yucatán 235 (84). Nayarit, on the Pacific coast next to Puerto Vallarta, grew sevenfold for Canadians. Britons look more like other Europeans: Quintana Roo 79, Ciudad de México 64, Jalisco 27, Yucatán 22 and Baja California Sur 20.
Town by town
For the permanent card there is also a table by municipality of residence, the place cardholders give as their home. It lists the fifty or so municipalities with the most cards individually. For US citizens, San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato leads with 541 cards, followed by Los Cabos (466), Puerto Vallarta (451), La Paz (380), Bahía de Banderas (372), Chapala (344), Solidaridad with Playa del Carmen (342) and Mérida (333). In Mexico City, the Cuauhtémoc borough counts 293.
Canadians lead in Solidaridad (366) and Bahía de Banderas (348), ahead of Puerto Vallarta (224), Los Cabos (207), La Paz (137), Mazatlán (112), Mérida (103) and Chapala (102). The top British municipalities are Solidaridad (44), Cuauhtémoc (27), San Miguel de Allende (16) and Mérida (15). Australians are spread thinly, with San Miguel de Allende (9), Puerto Vallarta and Cuauhtémoc (8 each) at the top.
Where foreigners settle overall
Across all nationalities, most permanent cards from January to July 2026 were handed over in Chiapas (7,276, after 10,871 a year earlier), followed by Ciudad de México (7,213 after 5,126) and Quintana Roo (4,959 after 3,480). Then come Jalisco (2,698), Baja California Sur (2,043) and Yucatán (1,907). Chiapas, on the border with Guatemala, plays no significant role for North American or European cardholders: only 70 of the 9,717 US and Canadian permanent cards were issued there.
What the figures mean for your plans
The statistics do not explain why more people from these countries are getting permanent residence. They do show that the rise is not a one-month effect, and that it runs across the months, the main categories and the main destinations.
If you start with the temporary card: the figures confirm that this remains the standard route. After four years, article 54 opens the switch to permanent residence. What changes in the fees for both cards next year is covered in the guide to Mexico's 2027 fees.
If you want permanent residence straight away: retirees with sufficient pension income can apply for it without the temporary stage. The rising numbers say nothing about whether consulates are assessing applications more generously; the UPM counts positive decisions only, not quotas.
If you are thinking about tax: a residency card, temporary or permanent, does not on its own make you tax resident in Mexico. How residence permits and tax residence relate is explained in the guide to Mexico residency. Moving to Mexico does not, on its own, end your tax residence at home either. What your home country keeps taxing, and whether a tax treaty helps, depends on where you come from:
The key facts on tax and residence are on the Mexico country page.
How current the figures are
The UPM publishes its bulletin monthly, a few weeks behind. According to the file data, the tables up to July 2026 were saved in September. Because the figures are provisional, individual values may still shift in later versions; for the scale of the rise, that makes no difference. All tables are on the UPM website as Excel files to download, broken down by nationality, category, state and municipality.