Mexico City Bans Purchasing Other State’s Cars

As approved on Dec. 15, 2021 by Mexico City’s Congress, the purchasing and registering of vehicles outside of the state to avoid its fees and circulation laws will be deemed illegal and violators will be subjected to a fine.

According to Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, half of the cars circulating in Mexico City are registered and have license plates from the State of Mexico, while five percent have plates from Morelos. The primary reason behind this is that automobile owners prefer to pay the less expensive fees offered by other states, as well as avoiding fines for infractions occurring in Mexico City as the car is not registered in its system.

As such, the city’s government ruled through the Economic Packet 2022 for Fiscal Code under Article 160 “Tax Over Tenure or Use of Vehicles” that vehicles for residents of the city cannot have license plates from another state as of Jan. 1, 2022. Fines for vehicles violating this law currently stand between MX$521 (US$26.66) and MS$911 (US$44.87).

According to Mexico City's Ministry of Finance and Administration, the sanction is not a fine or a transit infraction and thus cannot be handed out by the city’s police officers. Instead, tolls will be applied at traffic booths to vehicles with license plates from other states when they enter Mexico City. “It is not an obstacle for the realization of any proceedings in the city, and it will not be a motive for impeding at the time the realization of such procedures,” the Ministry said. The sanction will not be applied to residents who already own cars from other states or changed their license plates prior to the beginning of the year.

Earlier this month, Sheinbaum assured that this is not a new regulation but claimed that more actions are required due to how normalized registering a vehicle in a neighboring city or state has become.

The Economic Packet for 2022 also includes a 2 percent tax on delivery technologies such as Mercado Libre, Amazon, Uber Eats, DiDi Food, Rappi and other popular delivery apps, which massively grew during the last two years as a result of the pandemic.