Mexico wants your visitors to pay a third more to get in, City Hall is cutting a payroll it cannot afford, the most dangerous hurricane weeks start now, and your Mexican phone number may have a deadline.
This week in three items
Visiting Vallarta would cost 35.8 percent more at the border
The federal 2027 budget proposes raising the visitor fee, the Derecho de No Residente, from 983 to 1,334.50 pesos. It was 860.56 in 2025, so that is 55 percent in two years, or about $300 for a family of four. The same package raises airline navigation charges 10 percent. Hotel groups and the Consejo Coordinador, which speaks for more than 20 business chambers in Vallarta and Bahía de Banderas, want it reconsidered, and the timing is bad for them: Governor Lemus says hotel occupancy here is down 20 percent this year, after February's violence and a strong peso that sent Americans elsewhere. Congress has to approve the fee, and it has not yet.
What to do. If you hold temporary or permanent residency, you do not pay it. Your visiting children, friends and renters do, built into the airfare.
Vallarta Daily · Contralínea, business council · Milenio, the amounts · Vallarta Daily, airline fees · Vallarta Independiente, occupancy
City Hall's payroll: 117 people where 18 were budgeted
Councilwoman Melissa Madero published figures showing Mayor Luis Munguía's office carries 117 people on a budget for 18, costing 38.95 million pesos a year against 12.2 million approved. The advisors' unit alone has 23 people for three budgeted posts. Munguía called it a smear; the council has since ordered a payroll review. The city says the first September payroll had 110 fewer people and 1.8 million pesos less, all in administrative and support jobs. Municipal workers told Meridiano the opposite: that street crews are the ones being let go, some without their severance or their September 15 pay. Money is tight on both ends: federal transfers are coming in below budget, and the council has signed the city up for a federal stabilization fund to cover the gap. On the night of the 15th, part of the crowd booed Munguía through the Grito.
What to do. Nothing, yet. But if trash pickup or street repair in your colonia slows this fall, this may be why.
Vallarta Independiente · Contralínea, the city's figures · Meridiano, the workers · Tribuna, federal funds · Meridiano, the Grito · Vallarta Daily
The riskiest weeks of hurricane season start now
A low south-southwest of Mexico has an 80 percent chance of becoming a tropical storm within seven days, and Jalisco civil protection says it could pass near the coast Tuesday or Wednesday with heavy rain, strong gusts and high surf. The track can still change. More broadly, meteorologist Víctor Manuel López Cornejo says that from late September storms stop curving out to sea and start running parallel to this coast, and October is historically the most dangerous month.
What to do. This weekend, not Tuesday: water, cash, a charged battery pack, prescriptions, and anything loose on the terrace. Follow @PCJalisco, or Protección Civil Nayarit if you are on the Bucerías side.
Tribuna de la Bahía · Vallarta Daily · Contralínea, the season
Local
Bucerías plays volleyball in protest today
After a video showed a Hotel Decameron Los Cocos employee pulling down a family's volleyball net on the beach in front of the hotel, residents have called a "mega reta" there today, Sunday, at 5 p.m., and asked people to bring nets. Bahía de Banderas says the beach is federal zone and not its call. Nayarit congresswoman Andrea Navarro filed a bill to ban advertising that promises "private" or "exclusive" beaches, which she says adds up to 40 percent to prices for something that does not legally exist.
Meridiano · Vallarta Independiente, the municipality · Vallarta Independiente, the bill · Vallarta Daily
Cruises will start and end here from 2029
The federal government awarded Jalisco the project to make Vallarta a cruise home port. Construction starts next year: Pier 1, beside Puerto Mágico, gets lengthened for ships up to 340 or 360 meters, and the Navy dredges the basin. There is no room to add piers, so the growth comes through the same terminal.
Contralínea · Banderas News
El Salado could become a crocodile refuge
Governor Lemus proposed using the Estero El Salado reserve, in the hotel zone, as a place to relocate crocodiles that turn up in neighborhoods. It is only an idea: Semarnat would have to approve it after feasibility studies. Earlier in the week Jalisco ruled out moving crocodiles out of Vallarta in bulk.
Banderas News · Vallarta Daily, no mass relocation
Also this week
- The Amado Nervo bridge, which extends Avenida Federación across to Nayarit, is finished and should open in the coming days once the signals are in. Tribuna de la Bahía
- Munguía says he is working with the state on rent subsidies to bring anchor stores back to Morelos and the Malecón. Tribuna de la Bahía
- The city is studying reopening Avenida México between Venezuela and 31 de Octubre to cars. Vallarta Daily
- The Lo de Marcos delegation is fighting a lawsuit over a lot it says is a natural storm channel, and warns that filling it puts homes at risk. Vallarta Independiente
- Construction has begun on the 26-kilometer Las Varas to Platanitos highway, due in 2028. Vallarta Daily
- Flair starts weekly Montreal flights December 16, and Volaris is bringing back nonstop Mexicali. Vallarta Daily · Banderas News
- GayCities readers named Vallarta the world's top LGBTQ+ destination, ahead of New York. Banderas News
Crime
Nayarit says every police force in the state is infiltrated
Nayarit's attorney general, Elvia Ludmila Heredia, says all 20 municipal police forces and the state police are under investigation, with the federal intelligence center, for leaking operations to organized crime. On the ground, the Army, Navy, National Guard and state police have stepped up joint patrols in Bahía de Banderas, with the municipal police moved to prevention work. If you live on the Nayarit side, expect more checkpoints.
Tribuna de la Bahía · Tribuna de la Bahía, the deployment
43 cartel-linked companies in the Vallarta corridor
A Vallarta Daily analysis of U.S. sanctions records counts 43 companies and people tied to the CJNG across Puerto Vallarta and Bahía de Banderas in the analysis. Doing business with a sanctioned company is a legal problem for any U.S. citizen, wherever the deal happens.
What to do. Before you sign, have your notario or lawyer check the seller, the developer and the rental manager against the U.S. Treasury's sanctions list. It takes five minutes.
Vallarta Daily
A Bahía de Banderas notary has spent eight months in jail
Notary 39 of Bahía de Banderas was arrested in the state's Nuevo Nayarit land-fraud sweep over a 2025 deed. His family says the underlying problem was a Public Registry error the state has since acknowledged. Whatever the outcome, it is a reminder to have title history checked independently on the Nayarit side, not just by the notary closing the sale.
Tribuna de la Bahía