How your US retirement income is actually taxed here.
Straight from the same profile Glidepath's engine taxes against - not a marketing summary of it.
Worldwide taxation: IRA/401k withdrawals + US capital gains taxable at progressive ISR (top 35%, only above ~$279k); US SS exempt by treaty (Art. 19).
US investments: the 10% Bolsa rate does not apply to US securities gains - that rate is for the Mexican exchange only. US dividends also carry a separate 10% surtax you cannot credit, applied here to the estimated dividend share of your taxable account on top of ISR.
No wealth tax. US still taxes everything (citizenship) with foreign tax credit relief.
What could change this.
A Mexican AFORE retirement account is a PFIC for US purposes; whether it is ALSO a foreign trust (Forms 3520/3520-A) is genuinely unsettled, and conservative advisors file. If you fund one, your reporting burden - and penalty exposure - could be larger than modeled.
When: No IRS ruling; filing-position dependent
A US-Mexico totalization agreement was signed in 2004 but never entered into force. Self-employment or business income can owe full 15.3% US SE tax with no offset against Mexican contributions. Pure investment/pension retirees are unaffected.
When: Signed 2004, never ratified; no near-term change
Compliance traps that catch US retirees here.
Local investment wrappers that look ordinary to a local resident can be a US tax trap for a US citizen - these are the ones specific to Mexico.
AFORE retirement account is a PFIC, not a treaty-protected pension
A Mexican AFORE gets no US tax deferral - the IRS generally treats it as a foreign mutual fund / PFIC (Form 8621), plus FBAR and Form 8938. Because a fiduciary holds the assets, some practitioners also file Form 3520/3520-A treating it as a foreign trust (genuinely unsettled). A US retiree should generally avoid funding one rather than untangle the compliance.
Fideicomiso is NOT a foreign trust (a widely-repeated myth)
Under IRS Rev. Rul. 2013-14, a standard fideicomiso that merely holds Restricted-Zone residential real estate is not a foreign trust, so Forms 3520/3520-A are generally NOT required for the trust itself. The relief is narrow - it fails if the bank holds any asset other than the property or has powers beyond bare legal title. You still report rental income, sale gain, and any associated bank account on FBAR.
Non-creditable 10% tax on US dividends; Bolsa-only gains rate
As a Mexican tax resident, US-source dividends are fully taxable on the ISR scale AND carry a separate 10% tax (due by the 17th of the next month) that cannot be credited in the annual return. The favorable flat 10% capital-gains rate applies only to shares sold through the Mexican Stock Exchange; ordinary US brokerage gains are taxed at progressive ISR.
No totalization: double Social-Security exposure on earned income
There is no in-force US-Mexico totalization agreement (one was signed in 2004 but never entered into force). A US person with self-employment/business earnings can owe full 15.3% US SE tax with no offset against Mexican IMSS contributions. Pure investment/pension retirees are unaffected.
Healthcare as a retiree.
Legal residents (Temporal/Permanente, not tourists) can buy into the public IMSS system via voluntary enrollment (Modalidad 33) for a flat age-banded annual premium paid in advance, but IMSS excludes pre-existing/chronic conditions and imposes waiting periods, so most expat retirees pair it with, or rely entirely on, private/international insurance plus the affordable out-of-pocket private system.
IMSS voluntary premiums are ~$60–95/mo by age band (cheap) but exclude pre-existing/chronic conditions. The ~$5,000/person figure is a midpoint for comprehensive private/international insurance (the expat average is ~$5,900; 65+ international plans run $7,000–10,000+). A younger, healthier retiree using cash-pay private care can spend far less.
Models the IMSS-SSF-plus-cash-pay base case for a couple in their 70s (~MXN 88,000/yr). The fully-private GMM path runs MXN 180,000-330,000/yr per couple instead, with 12-15% observed medical inflation.
The retirement visa route.
Residente Temporal: ~$4,200–4,400/mo income (last 6–12 mo) or ~$70–74k savings (12-mo avg). Residente Permanente (retirees): ~$7,400/mo income or ~$300k savings. Thresholds are UMA/minimum-wage-indexed, recalculated yearly, and vary by consulate.
What could this actually cost you?
A fast, illustrative estimate for Mexico - no login, nothing stored. Every country page carries its own, tuned to that country's tax treatment.
Your monthly spending power in Mexico on about $1M
A modest lifestyle in Mexico
Day to day, that looks like a modest two-bed in an ordinary area, one reliable mid-range car owned outright, home cooking plus regular casual dining. For health, public care plus basic supplemental cover.
As a US citizen, you keep filing US taxes wherever you live.
Mexico: US treaty: foreign tax credit (pay the higher of US or Mexico tax, never both)
This is a fast estimate, not the full simulation, and not financial advice. It only flags the tax question. The full plan works out what you'd actually owe on each side of the border. It also models real balances, every account type, and healthcare, year by year.
The terms you'll actually run into.
- ISR (Impuesto Sobre la Renta)
- Mexico's federal income tax, an 11-band progressive scale topping at 35% (which only bites above ~MXN 5.11M / ~$279k of annual income).
- SAT
- The Servicio de Administración Tributaria - Mexico’s federal tax authority (the IRS equivalent), which administers ISR and inflation-indexes the brackets yearly.
- Residente Temporal / Permanente
- The two long-stay statuses (not a tourist permit) that unlock IMSS voluntary enrollment and Mexican tax residency; Temporal renews up to four years, Permanente is open-ended.
- IMSS voluntary enrollment (Modalidad 33)
- The public health system’s opt-in for legal residents at a flat age-banded annual premium, but it excludes pre-existing/chronic conditions and imposes waiting periods.
- AFORE
- Mexico's privatized individual retirement-fund account; for a US person it is generally a foreign mutual fund (PFIC) and a reportable foreign account, with no US tax deferral.
- Fideicomiso
- A Mexican bank trust required for a foreigner to hold residential real estate within the 50 km coastal / 100 km border Restricted Zone.
Nothing on this page is invented.
Confidence: verified. Last verified June 1, 2026. Every figure above comes from one of the sources below - the same profile the paid engine uses to actually compute your projection.
See the full country-by-country build sheet on the coverage page.