Moving to Oaxaca from the US/Canada: The 90-Day Plan

Most people who move to the Oaxaca coast from the US or Canada do not start with a residency visa. They start as tourists, on the same entry permit a two-week vacationer gets, and they use the first three months to test the life before committing to it. This guide is that plan, month by month: what to do, what to spend, what to skip, and what to sort out before you leave home. It applies just as much to someone asking how to move to Mexico from Canada as to someone coming from the US — the entry rules are the same for both.

The frame

Why 90 Days

The system that makes this possible is the FMM — the Forma Migratoria Múltiple, Mexico's tourist entry permit. US and Canadian citizens do not need a visa to visit Mexico. You get the FMM on arrival at the airport or at a land crossing, or you can fill it in online before you travel. The immigration officer stamps it with a number of days — often up to 180, sometimes fewer — and that stamp is your legal stay. Rules change, so confirm the current practice before you fly.

Be clear about what the FMM is not. It is a tourist permit, not a residency. Officially you are in the country as a visitor: working on it, even remotely for a foreign employer, sits in a gray area that many people accept and the law does not exactly bless. Overstaying your stamped days brings fines at the border and can complicate future entries. In some cases the INM — the national migration institute — can grant an extension, but it is discretionary, not a right. The reliable way to stay longer is temporary residency, residencia temporal, which you apply for at a Mexican consulado — the consulate in your own country — before you move. It takes paperwork and proof of income or savings, and it is worth doing properly if the coast passes the test.

The 90-day frame exists for a simpler reason than paperwork. Three months is enough time to stop being a tourist. Enough to sit through a storm, shop at the tianguis (the open-air market), argue a utility bill in Spanish, and find out whether the pace of life actually suits you. That is the test the plan is built around.

The first three months tell you more than three years of research.

The plan

Months One, Two, Three

Treat month one as reconnaissance, month two as a trial run, and month three as the decision. Nothing in the first ninety days needs to be permanent, and that is the point.

Month	Focus	Key tasks
Month one	Arrive and observe	Get your FMM stamped, settle into two to four weeks of short-term housing, open a bank account, buy a local SIM, walk the towns, keep a daily budget.
Month two	Test the life	Pick a base town, move into a monthly rental, set up internet, visit a private clinic, shop the tianguis, start Spanish classes, meet people.
Month three	Decide	Compare your real spending with your budget, choose stay or return, and if staying, start the residency application and plan the longer rental or the land search.

Week one is for the basics: the bank account, the SIM card, and a walk through the town you think you like. Week two is for the questions nobody asks on vacation — where is the nearest clinic, how does water delivery work, which market has the good fruit. By month two you should be living like a local rather than a guest. By month three the decision should be almost easy, and if you are still torn, that is information too.

For the wider picture of towns, seasons, and daily rhythms, our complete guide to living on the Oaxaca coast is the place to start.

Money

Money and Banking

Get a Mexican bank account early. It makes rent, utilities, and everyday life simpler, and it is more attainable than most people assume. With your passport and FMM, some banks — Banco Azteca is the usual first stop — will open an account for a tourist; others, including the bigger banks, often ask for a residency card. Policies vary branch to branch, so expect to visit two or three sucursales (branches) before one says yes. You will leave with a CLABE, the 18-digit number that lets anyone in Mexico transfer money to you.

For moving money from the US or Canada, a transfer service like Wise that uses the mid-market rate is almost always cheaper than a bank wire. Your home bank can do it too, but compare the fees and the exchange rate first — the spread is where the cost hides. Once you have a peso account, transfers between Mexican accounts are fast and typically free.

Cash still rules on the coast. Market stalls, small restaurants, and many landlords take pesos only, so keep a week's worth on hand. Use bank ATMs rather than the exchange kiosks at the airport, and always decline the machine's offer to convert the withdrawal for you — the ATM's rate is worse than your bank's. If you bring dollars or Canadian cash, a casa de cambio (exchange house) in town will change it; ask the rate before you hand anything over, and compare two or three places.

Budgeting is where most moves go wrong, not because people overspend but because they guess. Our breakdown of the real monthly cost of living on the coast gives you honest numbers for rent, food, utilities, and transport, town by town.

The roof

Housing: Finding a Place to Rent

Book the first two to four weeks somewhere short-term — a small hotel, a guesthouse, a short-stay apartment — and look for the longer rental with your feet. The best places on the coast are rarely listed online. They are found by walking the streets, asking at the tianguis and the corner cafes, and watching the local Facebook groups. Landlords prefer a tenant who is already here; being present is your best credential.

Rental prices move with the season. High season, roughly November through April, pushes monthly rates well above the long-term norm, and the same apartment that rents by the week to vacationers in January goes for a fraction of that on a six-month lease in June. A one-month deposit is typical. Ask for a written contract in Spanish — a rental agreement is standard — and have it translated if your Spanish is young. Check what the rent includes. Utilities are often separate: CFE, the federal electricity company, bills you directly, and water, propane, and internet may be your responsibility too.

Internet in the smaller towns is the weak spot. Telmex and Totalplay cover the bigger towns; beyond that you may be looking at a satellite dish. If the rental test goes well and you start thinking about putting down roots, our honest guide to buying land in Oaxaca explains titles, trusts, and closing costs — but rent first, always.

The stuff

What to Ship vs What to Buy There

The rule of thumb: ship almost nothing. Mexico runs the same 110–120V electricity as the US and Canada, so your appliances and electronics will work without adapters — but you rarely need to bring them. Furniture, appliances, cookware, and tools are all available at fair prices in Puerto Escondido, Huatulco, and Oaxaca City, and online marketplaces cover the rest. Shipping a household is slow, expensive, and mostly unnecessary.

Item	Ship	Buy there
Passports, documents, medical records	Carry them	—
Prescription medications and glasses	Ship	—
Furniture and appliances	—	Buy
Specialty kitchen gear, English books	Ship	—
Tools and hobby equipment	Ship the essentials	Buy the basics
Clothing and shoes	Ship what you love	Buy basics locally

What is genuinely hard to replace: specific prescription medications (bring a supply and the prescription), good glasses and contacts, niche kitchen tools, English books, and quality tools. Everything else is a shopping trip. If you do ship a full household, the only sensible route is sea freight in a shared container, and new residents can bring household goods duty-free once under the menaje de casa allowance — but expect two to three months in transit and a serious pile of paperwork. For most people, extra checked bags are the right answer.

Health

Health and Insurance Setup

Sort out health cover before you board the plane. For the first months, travel health insurance is the right tool: cheap, easy to buy online, and it covers accidents and urgent care while you find your feet. Your home-country coverage may not follow you — most US Medicare plans do not pay in Mexico, and Canadian provincial plans cover out-of-country care only in narrow emergency cases. Check your own policy, and assume you need one that works here.

Once you are on the ground, the private system is your daily reality. Clinics are in every town, a consultation typically costs a few hundred to around a thousand pesos, and pharmacies — farmacias — are everywhere. For the longer term, your options are Mexican private insurance, an international policy, or, once you have residency, voluntary enrollment in IMSS, Mexico's public health system, which is affordable and covers a great deal. The full picture, clinic by town, is in our healthcare guide for the Oaxaca coast.

The list

Your First-Month Checklist

Print this or save it. The first month sets the tone for everything after.

• Complete the FMM online before you fly, and keep the printed copy with your passport.
• Book two to four weeks of short-term housing — not a year.
• Buy a Mexican SIM in week one; a pharmacy or an OXXO convenience store will have one.
• Open the bank account in the first two weeks, and withdraw pesos only from bank ATMs, declining the machine's conversion offer.
• Find your nearest consulate or consular agency and save the contact details.
• Locate the nearest private clinic and pharmacy, and confirm your travel policy covers you from day one.
• Start a spending log in week one and track every peso for a full month.
• Learn ten useful phrases — hola, gracias, ¿cuánto cuesta?, la cuenta — and use them badly but often.
• Walk more than you drive. The coast is small, and the details are what you came for.

Ninety days from now you will know whether this coast is yours. If it is, the paperwork — residency, banking, and eventually maybe a piece of land — all follows the same slow, honest path. Take the time to test it properly.