Almost none of the permits a Mexican home needs is a form you post. One is a certificate that has to hang inside the property; another is a clearance that ends with an inspector at the door; a third obliges you to tell the neighbours what the house is used for. We hold that file for you, keep it current and renew it before the date, and the obligations that are fiscal rather than documentary sit on compliance.
An owner who spends two weeks a year in Mexico is not late because they are careless. They are late because a certificate that lapses with the fiscal year sends no reminder, and because a visit is not rescheduled to suit a flight.
Registration is the easy half. The half that catches owners who live elsewhere is what each authority expects to find in the house afterwards. In Mexico City the tourism law requires the host to display the emergency numbers and the certificate with the folio issued by the Secretaría in a visible place inside the property, to inform the immediate neighbours that the property is used for tourism, to register a complaints channel for each property, and to guarantee the safety requirements under the civil protection and risk management rules.
In Quintana Roo the municipal rules being landed in Benito Juárez have been reported as four documents and three objects — the state tourism registration, the ReturQ certificate, the municipal operating licence and the Protección Civil clearance, with an extinguisher, a first-aid kit and the emergency numbers on display inside the property. The three objects are the whole argument for having someone on the ground: a house nobody visits does not have them on the morning somebody knocks. State press reports the same obligation for hosts across the state to hold a municipal operating licence.
So the question this service answers is not only which registrations your house needs. It is who is standing in it when they are checked.
Nothing on this list renews itself, and no two clocks run together. This is the shape of the year for a house that is let; the version for your property is written against its own file.
| Document | Where it applies | The clock on it |
|---|---|---|
| COFE, issued per property | Quintana Roo — Tulum, Cancún, Playa del Carmen | Issued per property and renewed each year between January and February |
| Municipal operating licence | Solidaridad — Playa del Carmen | Valid for the fiscal year, and resolved in five working days once the Protección Civil clearance and the commercial land-use certificate have been filed, with the property tax paid |
| Host registry entry | Mexico City | One year, renewed in the previous thirty days, with an occupancy report due in January and July, failing which the entry is removed from the registry |
| State lodging certificate | Guanajuato — San Miguel de Allende | Issued for three years, alongside a municipal change of land use that has no expiry but does bring an inspection |
| INAH works authorisation | San Miguel de Allende, inside the monuments zone | Runs for one year and may be extended for another, which is why the permit is timed with the works and not months before |
| State taxpayer registration | Baja California Sur — Los Cabos | Filed within fifteen days of starting operations, counted from the day the house operates |
| Registro Nacional de Turismo | Federal, wherever the house stands | Held under the General Tourism Law, and updated whenever the address, the use or the holder changes |
Rates and filing deadlines for the taxes attached to letting are a different subject, and they live on compliance and inside vacation rental management. This page is about documents that stop being valid.
Two of the places we work have stopped waiting for owners to come forward, and one has started writing to them individually.
There is one more threshold worth knowing before it arrives. In Mexico City, from the fourth property registered onwards a host must register the commercial establishment code, and a decree of 3 October 2024 provides that registration will not be renewed for properties occupied more than 50% of the nights in the year, with the possibility of registering again after a year. An owner buying a third and a fourth apartment changes regime without asking to.
A foreign owner holds coastal property through a bank trust authorised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and that trust is not a document you sign once. The trustee institution expects notices and renewals on dates of its own, which line up with none of the clocks above.
We file them when they are due, and the line appears on your monthly statement with its receipt, like any other movement of the house. Of the places we work, San Miguel de Allende and Mexico City are inland and outside that regime entirely.
Holding the file is part of looking after the house, not a separate invoice: it belongs to full-service management and it is what makes letting lawful rather than merely possible. The fees charged by each authority belong to the property and reach you as a line with a receipt.
This is a description of how the obligations work, not legal or tax advice, and we do not give either: rules change by decree and your case is confirmed with your accountant and your notary. If the open question is which service the house actually needs, the services overview puts them side by side.
Three layers, and the order matters: the condominium regulation, which in some developments prohibits letting outright, then the state registration of the property, then the federal entry in the Registro Nacional de Turismo. On top of those, most municipalities now want something of their own, from an operating licence to a change of land use.
The filings largely can; what follows them cannot. A civil protection clearance ends in a visit, a certificate has to hang inside the property, and in Mexico City the neighbours have to be told the house is used for tourism.
Nothing announces itself, which is the whole problem: the COFE is renewed between January and February, a Mexico City entry has a thirty-day renewal window, and a Solidaridad licence dies with the fiscal year. We prepare each renewal before its window opens, so a lapse never coincides with a house full of guests.
Yes. A fideicomiso is held with the trustee institution on its own calendar of notices and renewals, unrelated to any tourism or municipal date, and we file them when they fall due.
No. Keeping the file current is part of managing the house, our fee is a percentage of income net of expenses, and the duties charged by each authority are costs of the property that appear on your statement with their receipts.
Tell us where the house is, how it is held and whether it has ever been let. We will answer in writing with the registrations it already has, the ones it is missing and the order in which they are resolved.