I have been considering permanent import of my vehicle, it is 10 years old and I had heard that 10 years is the magic age. I discovered along the way that because my vehicle is Japanese (only vehicles manufactured in North America can be imported by these means) I wouldn´t be able to import it using the normal importation procedure in Mexico, so I was pretty discouraged because I had also heard that people with FM2 documents cannot own vehicles that are temporarily imported. I was talking to one of my professors about this and he suggested that I look into the law, because he didn´t think that the there was a limitation on type of migratory document required.
So I did. The requirements for temporary importation of a vehicle are outlined in the “Regulations of the Customs Law” (Reglamento de la ley Aduanera) in Article 139:
1. The documentation that accredits your migratory status.
2. The documentation that accredits the legal ownership of the vehicle or, if the case may be, the letter of credit or invoice issued by the company that is financing the purchase. When dealing with rented vehicles, the corresponding rental contract should be to the name of the interested party.
The person importing the vehicle may do so, even if the title is in the name of his spouse, parents or children.
3. The guarantee determined by the rules of the Secretariat of the Economy
4. The declaration, swearing to tell the truth, that the importing party promises to return the vehicle in question within the period authorized and will not realize acts or omissions which are infractions or crimes by means of misuse of the vehicle.
Simple stuff right? Now, as for the my problem, I thought that would answer the question about whether or not I could have an FM2 and temporarily import a car, but it didn´t: I had to look a little deeper. The customs authority issues additional bulletins and handbooks to answer re-enforce customs law that has questionable material in it. This seems to be one of these issues. The answer I was looking for was in the “Operations Manual for Temporary Importation of Motorcycles and Vehicles” which is published by Hacienda and falls under the category of a law. It says:
Foreigners are allowed to expedite a temporary import permit with migratory qualities of Non-immigrants (FM3 or Tourists) of any kind except refugees and people with political asylum and Immigrants (FM2) with the quality of “Rentista” or retired.