The Covid-19 pandemic and the rise of the digital nomad sent thousands of Americans in search of a better lifestyle in Mexico City.
Mexico’s capital city, Ciudad de México or CDMX, is the biggest city in North America, with a more prominent region populace of almost 22 million people.
Its population grew by 3%, or about 600,000 people, between 2019 and 2023, according to The World Population Review. During that time, from 2019 to 2022, the number of Americans who applied for or renewed residency visas surged by about 70%, jumping from about 17,800 to over 30,000, according to statistics from Mexico’s Migration Policy Unit.
Because many digital nomads enter Mexico on tourist visas, which allow them to stay in the country for up to six months, it’s almost difficult to know the number of Americans that have exceeded those visas and are living and working there full time.
From 2019 to 2022, the number of Americans who applied for or renewed residency visas flooded around 70%. As per a few of these Americans living in Mexico City, the region is less expensive, offers a more easygoing way of life, and is wealthy in culture and safer communities.
And while Mexico suffers significantly higher crime rates than the U.S., some Black Americans say the region can feel safer and more inclusive. Rent prices are going up, short-term rentals are proliferating and Mexicans are being displaced by the more prosperous newbies.
As at now, when you walk through several famous communities in Mexico, you might hear more English spoken than Spanish, and see cafés swarmed with telecommuters on their laptops.
For local people, the deluge of foreigners is muddled — making more abundance for a few Mexican occupants while pushing out others. As a matter of fact, numerous Americans have seriously fallen in love with the city and had been to wanting to live there for many years to come. Some are already permanent residents after moving here as far back in 2019.
According to some American residents, living outside of their native language is difficult, but they feel like the quality of life, community and the friends that have made is worth it in Mexico City. They really appreciate that Mexico has a collectivist culture and not such an individualistic culture. That is, you develop with some kind of mindset that there is a ‘We’, overcoming the ‘Us’ attitude in communities. And so, they all look out for each other.
Also, with how much peace and ease that they have in Mexico — they wouldn’t exchange that for anything. Their mindset have additionally changed about work and leisure. Things are only much more better than in the U.S.
Many Americans have an alternate discernment about Mexico now, and they say since moving to Mexico City they feel more secure and safer than they did in the U.S. Others also revealed in an interview that, the homicide of George Floyd pushed them to pursue a decision to leave the US. They lamented they were so saturated with cynicism and racism.
While many Black Americans have gained a deeper sense of safety since leaving the U.S., Mexico still suffers from high rates of violent crime. Homicide rates are nearly four times those in the U.S., according to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography.
It’s estimated in a report that 90% of crimes in Mexico are never reported, according to the Human Rights Watch.
Some Americans Are Earning Good Salaries, Up To $250K
When the pandemic hit, Mexico kept its borders open to American tourists. Remote workers from the U.S. were able to enter the country freely on tourist visas.
Americans can apply for temporary residence visas that allow them to stay in Mexico for up to four years as long as they can prove economic solvency, according to a press release from Mexico’s Foreign Affairs. In 2022, more Americans visited Mexico by air than those from any other country.
In Mexico City, the top 10% of households with the highest income make 13 times more than the bottom 10%, according to a national Mexican survey of household income and expenses. What’s more, the top 10% of households with the highest income make, on average, about $65,000 on an annual basis, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Georgraphy.
Meanwhile, the average salary in Mexico City in 2022 was about 357,240 pesos a year, or about $20,000.
Between April and June of 2023, the number of stays booked in Mexico City on Airbnb for longer than a month increased by 30% compared with the same period in 2019, according to The New York Times.
From 2019 to August 2023, short-term rentals in Mexico City increased by about 45%, according to AirDNA data.
“There is currently no price control on rents,” says Alberto Martinez, a government consultant in Urban Regeneration and Citizen Participation. “When we cannot stay in our home because of an economic issue, we are breaking community ties, we are breaking traditions, we are breaking a series of things that make us culturally Mexican.”
Alberto Martinez believes that the Mexican government needs to come up with a way to control rent prices in Mexico City. It is estimated that the entire country of Mexico needs more than 800,000 new housing units a year for the next 20 years to accommodate the population growth, according to a recent study by MIT.
Meanwhile, in September 2023, lawmakers introduced a bill in the Mexican Congress that would tax digital nomads after their 20th day in the country, but it remains at the proposal stage.
