The lower house of Mexico’s Congress has voted to charge cruise ships $42 per passenger when making port calls, a fee they are calling an “immigration levy”.
The immigration fee is standard for those visiting Mexico but until now, cruise ship passengers had been exempt since they spent the night aboard their vessel and were thus considered to be “in transit”. Some of them don’t even leave the ship during port calls, making the fee seem like an expensive add-on for those in the cruise industry.
However, the new law stipulates the exeption has to come to an end the levy must be applied for every passenger, regardless of whether they leave the ship or not. “It is necessary to eliminate the exemption from immigration document payment for foreign passengers who enter Mexico aboard cruise ships,” states the new Mexican law.
The implementation could make Mexico less attractive to cruise ship operators. “On behalf of the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA) and our cruise line members, we are disappointed and surprised by the removal of the ‘in transit’ exemption that has applied to cruise passengers for more than two decades”, FCCA CEO Michele Paige told Seatrade Cruise News. “In the past year alone, our industry has delivered billions of dollars in commercial investment and economic impact to Mexico, transporting millions of visitors to the country and contributing approximately $1 billion in direct spending. It is our hope to find a pathway forward that ensures continued shared value for Mexico, its citizens, our guests and the cruise line industry for decades to come.”
Mexico’s Caribbean coast has been a very popular cruise destination over the last years, with Cozumel welcoming some 4 million cruise passengers per year, making it the busiest cruise port in the world. In order to avoid cruise companies choosing other Caribbean destinations over Mexico in the future, the Mexican Association of Shipping Agents is urging the Senate not to approve the measure.
“If this measure is implemented, it would make Mexican ports of call among the most expensive in the world, severely affecting their competitiveness with other Caribbean destinations,” the association said in a statement.
If the new law is adopted, two-thirds of the income from the immigration fee would go to the country’s defence department. Why exactly isn’t clear but, since 2020, Mexico’s army has been in charge of its seaports. The change was implemented by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in order to combat corruption and drug smuggling.
