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Costs · 2026

What Mexican citizenship actually costs in 2026.

One federal fee, the same for every route, plus a handful of costs nobody itemises for you. Here is the whole bill, including the expensive mistake of failing twice.

The fee: MXN 9,500

The federal fee — the derecho — for a carta de naturalización is MXN 9,500 for 2026, whatever route you qualify under. It is set in Anexo 4 of the Resolución Miscelánea Fiscal 2026, published in the Diario Oficial on 28 December 2025, and it applies from 1 January to 31 December 2026.

MXN federal fee
9,500
fee, every route
1
MXN for the appointment
0
the 2026 rate expires
31 Dec

You pay it before you file, at a certified bank or through the bank’s website, and you bring the original receipt to your appointment. The appointment itself is free: SRE says plainly that it grants no appointments through gestores or outside websites, and anyone charging you for one is selling you something SRE gives away.

The fee is re-ratified in the DOF every late December. If you are reading this in another year, check the current figure on SRE’s own costs page before you pay.

What the fee does not cover

The MXN 9,500 buys the decision on your application. Everything that goes into the file is yours to pay for, and this is where budgets go wrong. Real amounts vary by state, by country of origin and by translator, so treat these as ranges to plan around rather than quotes.

  • Apostille on your birth certificate. Paid in the country that issued it, in that country’s currency. It is often the single largest extra for applicants from outside Latin America.
  • Translation by a perito traductor. A court-authorized translator in Mexico, priced per page. A birth certificate is short; a marriage certificate with annotations is not.
  • Criminal-record certificates. You need both the federal one and the one from the state where you live. Fees and issuing times differ by state.
  • A fresh certified copy of your birth certificate, if the one you have is old or the apostille has to be issued against a recent copy.
  • Travel. Both exams are in person, so if you do not live near an SRE office that gives them, add transport and possibly a night.
  • Your passport and CURP after you win. Collecting the carta is the start of the next set of trámites, not the end of spending.

The cost of failing

This is the part almost nobody prices in. You get two attempts at the exam. If you fail both, or miss the second appointment, you wait one year from the day after your last exam and start again — and you pay the MXN 9,500 again.

So the real question is not whether MXN 9,500 is a lot. It is whether you are certain enough about 10 questions in Spanish to bet the fee on it twice. What happens if you fail

What is genuinely free

  • The appointment. Pre-registration in SINNA and the appointment itself cost nothing.
  • The study guide. SRE publishes the only official guide to the history and culture exam and does not charge for it. How to study it
  • Advice for refugees. UNHCR Mexico gives free guidance on the naturalization process.
  • Practice. Mexico Ready starts free: 40 Core questions, 40 flashcards and the full Guía document checklist, with no account.

Questions people ask

Is the fee different for marriage or for Latin American origin?

No. The federal fee is the same for every route. What differs by route is the years of residency and the document that proves the tie, not the price.

Do I pay before or after the appointment?

Before. You pay at a certified bank or through its website and bring the original receipt to your appointment. A missing receipt means an incomplete file.

Can someone get me an appointment faster for a fee?

No, and that offer is the most common scam in this trámite. SRE states that the appointment is free and that it does not grant appointments manually, through gestores, or through external websites. How SINNA works

Do I get the fee back if my application is refused?

The derecho pays for processing the application, not for a favourable answer, so do not plan on a refund. Ask SRE directly about your case before you file if this matters to you.

What does a lawyer cost on top?

Nothing here assumes one. Many people file without a lawyer. If your case is unusual — a complicated marriage record, a name that differs between documents, a refused application — paid advice can be worth it, but it is an extra, not a requirement.