Document expiry and timing: what goes stale first when you marry civilly in Mexico

1. Read this first

One more caveat specific to this page. Almost everything below is a published validity window — a number printed on a government trámite sheet or written into a state code. Published windows are not the same as counter practice. Where a statute and a counter sheet disagree, we show both and say which one we would plan against. We never smooth the disagreement away, because the disagreement is the actual risk.

A second framing note. English-language wedding checklists tend to present the Mexican packet as a flat list of eight or nine items. It is not a list. It is a dependency graph with deadlines, and the reason couples lose weddings is not that they missed an item — it is that they collected a valid item too early, or started a slow item too late. If you want the flat list, that is on the state-by-state requirements page. This page is only about the clocks.

2. The short answer: which clock is shortest, and what that forces

The shortest clock in the packet is the prenuptial medical certificate and laboratory analysis, and it is roughly fifteen days in every state that publishes a number. Baja California Sur states it in the most demanding form available: the analyses “must be current on the day of the wedding, validity fifteen days.” Puerto Vallarta words it the same way from the other end — the validity of both the certificate and the clinical result must fall “within the fifteen natural days of the date of your marriage.”

Official registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx — Registro de Matrimonios; puertovallarta.gob.mx — requisitos de matrimonio (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

That single sentence structure — valid on the wedding day rather than valid on the filing day — is what makes the whole packet awkward. It means the test cannot be the first thing you do. It must be one of the last. And because these are Mexican laboratory and health-service documents, it has to be done in Mexico, close to the wedding, on a trip you are also using to file paperwork.

The second shortest clock is the filed solicitud itself. Three of the four states cap the ceremony at eight days after filing: Quintana Roo (Código Civil Art. 683), Baja California Sur (Art. 101) and Nayarit (Código Civil Art. 97) all use the same formula — the marriage shall be celebrated within the following eight days, at the place, day and hour the Registro Civil officer sets. Read as a validity window, a filed marriage file in those three states dies after eight days. Jalisco is the outlier and the easy one: its Ley del Registro Civil Art. 88 expressly permits the marriage to be celebrated simultaneously with the presentation of the application, so there is no minimum notice and no statutory expiry of a filed solicitud.

Official Código Civil de Quintana Roo, Art. 683 (PDF); Código Civil de BCS, Art. 101 (PDF); Código Civil de Nayarit, Art. 97 (PDF); Ley del Registro Civil de Jalisco, Art. 88 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

The longest clock is the one everybody worries about most and should worry about least. No state we checked publishes any maximum age for a foreign birth certificate or its apostille. Not Playa del Carmen, not Cozumel, not the Quintana Roo code, not the Baja California Sur state Registro Civil, not the BCS code, not Nayarit's state ficha, not the Nayarit code. The single numeric cap anywhere in our sources is Puerto Vallarta's “recent, not older than one year,” and it appears in the general birth-certificate line rather than in the foreigner clause.

Official playadelcarmen.gob.mx — Matrimonio Extranjero en oficina; cozumel.gob.mx; tramites.nayarit.gob.mx — ficha 192; puertovallarta.gob.mx (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

So the ordering is forced, and it is the reverse of the order most couples work in:

• Do first, months out: the apostille and the certified translation. No published expiry, long real-world lead time, and the only items you cannot start once you are in Mexico.
• Do next, weeks out: book the ceremony date, then confirm the exact document list in writing with the specific oficialía. Not the state; the oficialía.
• Do last, in Mexico, inside the final fortnight: the medical certificate and blood analysis, then the filing of the solicitud. In Quintana Roo, Baja California Sur and Nayarit these two must both land inside the same short window as the wedding itself.

The rest of this page is the detail behind that ordering, and the several places where two official sources give different numbers for the same thing.

3. The clocks, one by one

3.1 The prenuptial medical certificate and laboratory analysis — about 15 days

This is the shortest and the most variable item in the packet, and the wording differs enough between offices to matter.

Baja California Sur is the clearest. The state Registro Civil requires análisis pre-nupciales issued by a Centro de Salud — a public health centre, not a private laboratory — and states that the examinations “must be current on the day of the wedding, validity fifteen days.” The state code names the panel by disease rather than by test: Art. 100 fr. IV requires laboratory examinations showing the parties do not have syphilis, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome or tuberculosis, nor any chronic and incurable illness that is also contagious or hereditary. The code takes this seriously enough to police it: Art. 108 refers doctors and laboratory heads who falsify the certificate to the Ministerio Público, and Art. 117 allows the officer to demand sworn statements from the certifying physicians.

Official registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx; Código Civil de BCS, Arts. 100 fr. IV, 108, 117 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Jalisco, at the Puerto Vallarta counter, splits the requirement into two separate documents, each with the same fifteen-day window counted backwards from the wedding date. The certificado médico must carry the issuing doctor's signature and cédula profesional. The análisis clínicos are named explicitly — blood group and V.D.R.L., the syphilis screen — and must also be signed with a cédula profesional. Puerto Vallarta is the only office in our sources that names the tests on its own sheet.

Official puertovallarta.gob.mx — requisitos (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

The Jalisco statute behind it sets content but no clock. Ley del Registro Civil Art. 82 fr. IV requires a medical certificate reporting an analysis performed by a public health institution laboratory or a private laboratory, in which the physician certifies under oath that the parties do not have HIV/AIDS, contagious or hereditary diseases, or any illness or physical deformation constituting an impediment. It also permits the impediment to be dispensed if both parties sign a written statement of prior knowledge and consent and produce proof from a public health institution that they were informed about the illness. No number of days appears anywhere in the article: the fifteen-day window is Puerto Vallarta's municipal rule, not Jalisco law.

Official Ley del Registro Civil de Jalisco, Art. 82 fr. IV (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Nayarit publishes the requirement and none of the parameters. The state Registro Civil ficha asks for a certificado médico prenupcial and blood analysis issued by an official state health facility — Servicios de Salud de Nayarit / Centro de Salud — and states no validity period and no list of tests. The code is no help either: since the reform published 29 September 2022, Código Civil Art. 94 fr. IV requires only a medical certificate so that each party has full knowledge of the other's state of health, with the scope, effects, risk and preventive measures set out if either is ill. No window, no named tests. Do not assume Jalisco's fifteen days crosses the state line.

Official tramites.nayarit.gob.mx — ficha 192; Código Civil de Nayarit, Art. 94 fr. IV (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

3.2 The solicitud-to-ceremony window — eight days in three states

Quintana Roo, Baja California Sur and Nayarit all cap the ceremony at eight days after the application is filed and accepted. That is a ceiling, not a floor: none of the three imposes a statutory minimum waiting period. Functionally it means a complete, filed solicitud has a life of eight days.

Baja California Sur then layers an administrative lead time on top that does not obviously fit inside it. The state Registro Civil states that all marriage procedures are by prior appointment, that you must check the available diary, and that the documentation must be presented ten days before the scheduled date, with payment made. Ten days before a date, in a system where the code says the ceremony must fall within eight days of filing. We flag that as a conflict in section 7 rather than resolving it; the workable reading is that the ten-day rule governs document intake and the eight-day rule governs the formal solicitud, but no source says so.

Official registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx; Código Civil de BCS, Art. 101 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Quintana Roo has the same shape of problem in a different place. Playa del Carmen publishes a twenty-working-day tiempo de resolución del servicio for the foreigner-marriage trámite and tells you to reserve the wedding date in advance; Cozumel publishes a four-working-day response time. Twenty working days is a calendar month. Art. 683's eight days is a calendar week. Both numbers are published by Quintana Roo authorities about the same kind of transaction.

Official playadelcarmen.gob.mx MEO-010; cozumel.gob.mx — checked 15 Sep 2026

Nayarit's published sequence is more legible. You file the solicitud form with all requirements in original plus copy; the intake officer then shows the available dates and you choose the day and hour; payment may be made at filing or on the wedding day, the latter only if the ceremony is held inside Registro Civil premises. The stated resolution criterion is simply that once the requirements are met, the date is scheduled. Nayarit also inserts a separate in-person step before the ceremony: under Arts. 96 and 109 the officer has the parties acknowledge their signatures before him and separately, and the two witnesses ratify their declarations under oath. That is an appearance distinct from the wedding itself, and it has to fit inside the same eight days. Jalisco has an equivalent step at Art. 84, with the officer additionally empowered to verify the authenticity of the signature on the medical certificate, and Art. 97 lets the officer demand any further sworn declarations or documents he considers necessary.

Official tramites.nayarit.gob.mx — ficha 192; Código Civil de Nayarit, Arts. 96, 109 (PDF); Ley del Registro Civil de Jalisco, Arts. 84, 97 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

3.3 Birth-certificate recency — a rule that mostly does not exist

The wedding-industry literature repeats a “within six months” rule for the foreign birth certificate. We could not find it in any primary source for any of the four states, and we are not going to print it.

What the sources actually say. Playa del Carmen requires the original birth certificate duly apostilled or legalised and translated into Spanish by a perito certified in the State of Quintana Roo, with no maximum age stated — and notes the document is demanded only when the couple wants the parents' names to appear on the marriage act, so for two foreigners it is conditional rather than automatic. The wording is identical across all three Playa del Carmen marriage trámites. Cozumel goes further: for the foreign spouse the only identity document listed is a valid passport, so no birth certificate, no apostille and no age limit is imposed on the foreign party at all. The Quintana Roo code is disjunctive and silent on recency: Art. 682 fr. I asks for the birth certificate, official identification or passport of each party, plus the CURP.

Official playadelcarmen.gob.mx MEO-010, MMO-008, MEFO-011; cozumel.gob.mx; Código Civil de Quintana Roo, Art. 682 fr. I (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Baja California Sur asks for an original birth certificate that is actualizada — updated — apostilled and translated by a perito authorised by the state's Tribunal Superior de Justicia. No number of days or months is published. That silence is meaningful, because the same office does publish explicit freshness rules when it has them: elsewhere on the site a comprobante de domicilio for a birth registration must be no more than three months old. An office that states windows when it has them, and does not state one here, probably does not have one. The BCS code is silent too — Art. 100 fr. I asks for a certified copy of the birth certificate or personal identification card, or failing that a medical opinion establishing age, with no recency requirement.

Official registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx; registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx — trámites y servicios; Código Civil de BCS, Art. 100 fr. I (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Puerto Vallarta is the one place a number appears. Its sheet requires certified birth certificates that are “recent, not older than one year,” plus two plain copies of each. The foreigner-specific line then says something slightly different: present a recent birth or naturalisation certificate, apostilled or legalised according to your country, translated into Spanish by peritos authorised within Puerto Vallarta, and identify yourself with your passport and a copy of your lawful-stay document. “Recent” with no number. Plan against one year, because that is the only figure the office publishes, but understand that the cap is written into the Mexican-acta line and not the foreigner line.

Official puertovallarta.gob.mx (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Nayarit states none. The state ficha asks for birth certificates of the parties, apostilled or legalised as applicable if foreign, with no maximum age. The code matches: Art. 94 fr. I asks for the birth certificate with no age limit, and Art. 36 Bis states flatly that certified copies of birth certificates issued by the Registro Civil officer do not expire — a rule about Mexican-issued actas, but a clear statement of the state's posture.

Official tramites.nayarit.gob.mx — ficha 192; Código Civil de Nayarit, Arts. 36 Bis, 94 fr. I (PDF); Jalisco statute silent, Ley del Registro Civil de Jalisco, Art. 82 fr. I (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

3.4 The translator — the appointment expires, the translation does not

This is the clock nobody looks for, and it is the one that behaves least like the others: no state assigns any validity period to a certified translation. What expires is the perito's own appointment. Every state publishes a list of peritos vigentes, which is another way of saying the appointments run in terms and lapse.

Jalisco is the most precisely documented. The Consejo de la Judicatura del Estado de Jalisco publishes the Lista de Auxiliares de la Administración de Justicia by branch and judicial district. The current list was approved by the Pleno in its Décima Sexta Sesión Ordinaria on 22 April 2026 and is valid 1 May 2026 to 30 April 2027, under Arts. 148 fr. XXV and 225 of the state's Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial, which require the Pleno to draw the list up annually in April. The appointment is renewed by refrendo, with the window for the current cycle running 5 to 16 January 2026 through the CJJ's peritos portal. The convocatoria is unusually demanding of translators: an applicant must prove C1-level or equivalent command of the language by certificate from an official authority — “fluency is not sufficient” — and must have registered a seal and signature.

Official CJJ — lista de auxiliares 2026–2027 (PDF); CJJ — convocatoria peritos 2026–2027 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Puerto Vallarta then adds a municipal layer on top of the state one. Its sheet requires the translation be done by peritos authorised within Puerto Vallarta, not merely any Jalisco-state perito — and the municipality's own 2026 revenue law prices a municipal “credencial de traductor” at $352, which is evidence that a distinct municipal credential exists. What no source states is the relationship between that credential and the CJJ list.

Official puertovallarta.gob.mx (PDF); Ley de Ingresos de Puerto Vallarta 2026, Art. 92 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Nayarit runs on a different calendar again. The Órgano de Administración Judicial's Padrón de Peritos y Auxiliares en la Administración de Justicia covers 1 March 2026 to 28 February 2027, issued by Pleno acuerdo 87/OAJ/E/XVII/2026, and contains a dedicated section for peritos traductores e intérpretes. Its convocatoria is blunt about what listing means: listed peritos may act as auxiliaries and serve private parties “without having the character of public servants and without any certification or endorsement of their knowledge being granted.” Applications ran through January 2026.

Official Poder Judicial de Nayarit — padrón de peritos 2026–2027 (PDF); convocatoria peritos 2026–2027 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Quintana Roo requires a perito certified in the state and runs a live “Lista de Peritos Vigentes” search portal through the Tribunal Superior de Justicia; for birth inscriptions the sheet allows a perito on the Poder Judicial padrón or one from the country of origin where no official translator exists. Baja California Sur requires a perito authorised by its Tribunal Superior de Justicia, with the list administered by the Consejo de la Judicatura as trámite SG-03, grounded in Arts. 128 to 141 of the state's Ley Orgánica del Poder Judicial, Arts. 61 to 66 of its Reglamento, Art. 91 fr. V of the Consejo's internal rules, and Chapter Two of Acuerdo General 009/2022 of the Consejo's Pleno. Consultation is free and immediate.

Official peritos.tsjqroo.gob.mx; playadelcarmen.gob.mx IN-002; tribunalbcs.gob.mx — listado de peritos SG-03; registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx — checked 15 Sep 2026

The practical implication runs in an unexpected direction. Because the translation itself carries no window, a translation commissioned a year early is not stale. But a translation sealed by a perito whose annual appointment has since lapsed carries a defensible risk of rejection — and no located norm says whether it survives. If you are translating far ahead of the wedding, note which appointment cycle your perito sits in, and check the list again before you travel.

One requirement hides inside this clock and catches people every season: Quintana Roo also wants the passport itself translated by a state-certified perito if it is not in Spanish. That is a second translation job, on a document you were not thinking of as a document.

Official playadelcarmen.gob.mx MEO-010 — checked 15 Sep 2026

3.5 The apostille — no published clock, and the longest real lead time

Every state that asks for a foreign birth certificate asks for it apostilled or legalised, and the federal layer says the same. INM's Lineamientos para trámites y procedimientos migratorios, Art. 9, requires foreign public documents — expressly including birth certificates and marriage certificates — to be apostilled or legalised to be valid in Mexican territory, and requires documents in another language to carry a translation by officially recognised peritos. It states no validity window on the apostille.

Official INM — Lineamientos para trámites y procedimientos migratorios, Art. 9 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

As a matter of treaty design, the Apostille Convention of 5 October 1961 contains no expiry provision: an apostille certifies a signature and seal, and any age limit is imposed by the receiving authority rather than by the certificate. Neither the Quintana Roo municipal sheets, nor the BCS state sheet, nor Nayarit's ficha imposes one. We flag a limit on our own confidence here: the HCCH status-table page loaded but rendered no table content when we tried to read it, and we did not retrieve the HCCH Apostille Handbook in full, so we cite the treaty's structure rather than an HCCH statement that apostilles never expire.

Official hcch.net — Apostille Convention status table (page loaded, body did not render on extraction) — checked 15 Sep 2026

So the apostille has no expiry and the slowest real-world queue. That combination is why it goes first. It is also the one item on the list you cannot begin after your flight has left, and the reverse journey — apostilling the Mexican acta for use at home — has the same property in the other direction. That return trip has its own page.

3.6 The documents with requirements but no published clock at all

Four items are demanded without any stated validity window, which is its own kind of planning problem: you cannot tell whether getting them early is safe.

• Quintana Roo — the REDAM check. Código Civil Art. 680, final paragraph, requires the Registro Civil judge on receiving the solicitud to search the signatories in the state's Registro de Deudores Alimentarios Morosos and inform them immediately and in writing if either is listed. Playa del Carmen lists the Constancia de Inexistencia de Registro como Deudor Alimentario Moroso as requirement number nine. No validity window is published.
• Baja California Sur — the non-existence-of-marriage certificate, twice over. The state requires a constancia de inexistencia de matrimonio issued in BCS, and those born in another state must additionally produce one from their place of origin. It appears in the foreigner trámite too. The state derechos law prices it at $216.00. No window published.
• Jalisco and Nayarit — the pre-marital course. Required by Jalisco's Ley del Registro Civil Art. 82 fr. VIII and Código Civil Art. 267-Bis (a minimum of two hours, designed and delivered by DIF), and by Nayarit's Código Civil Art. 94 fr. VIII. Neither norm states an expiry, and neither trámite sheet does either.
• The acta de matrimonio itself. The one document with an explicit answer, and the answer is comfortable: Playa del Carmen states the validity of the document obtained is “Sin vigencia,” and Cozumel says the marriage registration “No tiene vigencia.” It never expires. Buy extra certified copies while you are still in the country — Cozumel prices a certified copy at $109.00, and Quintana Roo's state catalogue prices copies at 2 to 6.5 UMA.

Official Código Civil de Quintana Roo, Art. 680 (PDF); playadelcarmen.gob.mx MEO-010, MMO-008; registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx; Ley de Derechos y Productos de BCS, Art. 27 fr. II (PDF); Ley del Registro Civil de Jalisco, Art. 82 fr. VIII (PDF); Código Civil de Nayarit, Art. 94 fr. VIII (PDF); cozumel.gob.mx; catalogoestatal.qroo.gob.mx — copia certificada de acta — checked 15 Sep 2026

4. State by state, side by side

The same packet, sorted by state, with only the time-bound elements shown. Everything in this table is sourced in section 3 or section 5.

All figures as published on 15 September 2026 — verify with your oficialía before booking. The full requirement lists, fees and state conflicts sit on the state-by-state reference.

Two structural notes that explain why the table is shaped as it is. In Quintana Roo the celebration of marriage is a municipal function — Benito Juárez, Solidaridad, Tulum and Cozumel each publish their own trámite sheet and their own fee schedule under their own municipal revenue law, while the state Dirección General del Registro Civil holds the books and issues copies. In Baja California Sur the requirement list and the tariff are statewide and apply in every oficialía, including Los Cabos and La Paz. That is why the Quintana Roo column contains two different numbers for the same thing and the BCS column contains one.

Neither state imposes a residency requirement. Quintana Roo's Código Civil Art. 2 applies the state's laws to everyone in the state regardless of nationality, whether domiciled there or merely passing through; BCS Art. 12 is the equivalent, reaching nationals and foreigners, domiciled or transeúntes. Both states set the minimum age at eighteen, and Quintana Roo's Art. 697 prohibits any dispensation from that requirement for any cause.

Official Código Civil de Quintana Roo, Arts. 2, 697 (PDF); Código Civil de BCS, Art. 12 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

5. The federal layer: INM, SEGOB and the CURP

Above the states sits a federal layer that is, on the evidence, partly obsolete and still partly enforced. It matters to timing because one of its elements has a hard expiry and one of them may not exist at all.

5.1 The INM marriage authorisation, and why it is only half there

INM publishes a trámite sheet titled “Autorización para que un extranjero pueda contraer matrimonio con mexicano.” Its requirements are: a copy of the valid forma migratoria; a copy of the passport data, validity and photo pages only if the forma migratoria is an FMM; a letter signed by both prospective spouses declaring under oath that neither has a legal impediment and naming the oficialía or registry court, the state, municipality and locality, and the date of the marriage; a document proving the Mexican party's nationality; the Mexican party's current official identification; and proof of payment of $2,980.00 MXN under Art. 13 fr. I of the Ley Federal de Derechos. Filing is through the electronic Formato Migratorio para Trámite de Estancia with the foreigner's wet signature.

Official INM — Autorización para contraer matrimonio (PDF); INM — tarifas de derechos migratorios 2026 — checked 15 Sep 2026

Three things follow from that list, and they matter more than the fee.

First, requirement number two contemplates an FMM holder — the tourist card. Whatever else the permit is, it was designed to be obtainable on tourist status.

Second, the sheet states no validity period for the permit once granted. It asks you to name the wedding date in the application, which is a form of expiry by other means: the authorisation is tied to a date you declare before you have it.

Third, and most useful if both of you are foreign: every substantive element presupposes one Mexican party. A document proving the Mexican party's nationality. The Mexican party's official ID. There is no path through the form for two foreigners, and INM publishes no equivalent authorisation trámite for a marriage between two foreigners. Neither the Ley de Migración nor the Lineamientos creates one. Marrying on a tourist FMM is not a remunerated activity under Ley de Migración Art. 52 fr. I, so visitor status does not itself bar it. Be careful with the inference, though: the absence of a published requirement is not an affirmative statement that none exists, and INM has published nothing either way.

Official Ley de Migración (INM copy, PDF); INM — Autorización para contraer matrimonio (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

There is a third federal conflict, and it lives inside a state code. Baja California Sur's Código Civil still carries the old federal requirement on its face: Art. 100 fr. VIII requires, for a marriage of a Mexican with a foreigner, a copy of the authorisation issued by the Secretaría de Gobernación, and Art. 104 fr. IX requires the acta to record the details of that authorisation where either or both parties are foreign. The consolidated text published by Contraloría BCS carries a last reform published 6 July 2011 — it predates the Ley de Migración regime and has not been cleaned up. The operative state trámite sheet does not ask for it. That is a live drafting conflict a Los Cabos or La Paz oficialía could in principle invoke.

Official Código Civil de BCS, Arts. 100 fr. VIII, 104 fr. IX (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

One federal exposure is real and has nothing to do with permits: Ley de Migración Art. 150 penalises sham marriage, imposing a fine of 100 to 500 days of minimum wage on a Mexican who marries a foreigner solely so the latter can reside in the country, and the same fine on the foreigner. That is a penalty, not a prohibition on marrying.

Official Ley de Migración, Art. 150 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

5.2 The CURP — the only federal document with a hard expiry

Nayarit's state ficha lists a CURP certificada among the requirements, alongside the apostilled foreign birth certificate, with no carve-out for foreigners. Puerto Vallarta's sheet does not ask for CURP at all — it takes passport plus proof of lawful stay. Nayarit's own code is narrower than its ficha: Art. 43 requires the CURP to be transcribed into the act only where the person has already been assigned one.

Official tramites.nayarit.gob.mx — ficha 192; Código Civil de Nayarit, Art. 43 (PDF); puertovallarta.gob.mx (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

The permanent CURP for a foreigner is tied to residency, not tourism. SEGOB/RENAPO trámite SEGOB-2021-069-009-A covers assignment of CURP to foreign persons with temporary or permanent resident status; the sole requirement is the NUE, the unique foreigner number issued by INM, and the process runs through an INM module. Response is immediate and the resulting CURP has no expiry.

The tourist-track alternative does expire, and this is the one hard federal clock in the packet. The Clave Única de Registro de Población Temporal para Extranjeros is issued for 180 to 365 natural days. RENAPO states the difference in exactly those terms: the temporary CURP has a validity of 180 up to 365 days, and the permanent one has none. It is obtained at an INM module, it is individual — each family member needs their own — and the printed constancia on plain paper is valid before public and private bodies. The governing instrument, the Instructivo Normativo para la Asignación de la CURP published in the DOF on 18 October 2021, confirms the ceiling of 365 natural days and restricts assignment to four channels: Registro Civil, SRE, INM and COMAR. It also assigns the temporary CURP to foreigners who have, or are in the process of obtaining, a regular stay condition, and issues the Constancia Temporal expressly with an exception carved around Ley de Migración Art. 52 fr. III.

Official gob.mx — SEGOB-2021-069-009-A, CURP para personas extranjeras residentes; SEGOB/RENAPO — CURP temporal, preguntas frecuentes; Instructivo Normativo para la Asignación de la CURP, DOF 18-10-2021 (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

Put those together and you get the most consequential unresolved gap on this page. Nayarit's counter wants a certified CURP. The permanent track needs INM residency. The temporary track needs a regular stay condition and carves out a Ley de Migración fraction. No source we located states how a foreign couple on tourist FMM status satisfies that line. If you are marrying in Bahía de Banderas — Nuevo Vallarta, Sayulita, Punta de Mita — resolve this before anything else in your packet. It is upstream of every other clock.

6. A schedule worked backwards from the wedding day

This is not advice and it is not a rule. It is the ordering the published windows force, written as a calendar. Call the wedding day W. Adjust every figure for your own state and, more importantly, for your own oficialía.

• W minus 4 to 6 months — apostille and translate. Order certified birth certificates at home, get them apostilled by the competent authority of the place that issued them, then have them translated by a perito registered where you are marrying. Nothing here expires. Everything here queues. Check which appointment cycle your perito sits in: a Jalisco perito's listing runs to 30 April 2027, a Nayarit perito's to 28 February 2027. If you are marrying in Quintana Roo, add the passport to the translation order.
• W minus 3 months — settle the venue's state, then get the requirement list in writing. Puerto Vallarta is Jalisco; the hotel corridor north of it is Nayarit. Two states, twenty minutes apart, different packets. Ask the oficialía itself, not the resort, and ask three specific questions: does it still require the prenuptial exam, does it require a SEGOB or INM permit, and does it require a CURP for a foreigner.
• W minus 2 months — book the date and start the slow local documents. In BCS the appointment is mandatory and the diary is the constraint. This is also when to start the items with no published window but real production time: the BCS constancias de inexistencia de matrimonio from both BCS and your place of origin, the Quintana Roo REDAM constancia, the DIF pre-marital course in Jalisco or Nayarit.
• W minus 10 days — the BCS documentation deadline. If you are marrying in Baja California Sur, complete documentation must be presented ten days before the scheduled date, with payment made. That is the earliest hard date in the sequence, and it collides awkwardly with a fifteen-day lab window that must still be live on W.
• W minus 8 days — the outer edge of the solicitud window. In Quintana Roo, BCS and Nayarit the ceremony must fall within eight days of the filing. File earlier than this and the file is outside its statutory frame; file later and you are compressing everything after it.
• W minus 7 to 14 days — the medical certificate and blood analysis, in Mexico. This is the item that pins the whole schedule. Fifteen natural days in Playa del Carmen and Puerto Vallarta; fifteen working days in Cozumel; fifteen days in BCS counted so that the result is still valid on W. In BCS it must come from a Centro de Salud, in Nayarit from an official state health facility, in Jalisco from a public institution per the state page — book the appointment before you fly, because a public clinic's diary is not a private lab's.
• W minus 7 days — Cozumel's filing lead. Cozumel asks for the clinical analyses, medical certificates and payments to be presented one week before the registration. Inside a fifteen-working-day lab window that is comfortable; inside a fifteen-natural-day one it is not.
• W minus 1 to 3 days — the ratification appearance. In Nayarit the officer has each party acknowledge their signature separately and the witnesses ratify under oath; Jalisco has the equivalent step. Neither is the ceremony. Budget a separate morning for it, with the witnesses available.
• W — the ceremony. Bring original identification for the couple and the witnesses. Cozumel says so explicitly; Puerto Vallarta's sheet warns the ceremony is cancelled if the couple or the witnesses do not arrive at the appointed hour.
• W plus 0 to 3 days — buy certified copies of the acta while you are still there. The acta never expires and the copies are a counter service. This is the only step in the chain where being physically present costs you nothing.
• W plus weeks — the Mexican apostille on the acta, for use at home. Different authority, different country, different queue. Covered separately.

Official — sequence assembled from registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx; playadelcarmen.gob.mx MEO-010; cozumel.gob.mx; cozumel.gob.mx — matrimonio mexicano; puertovallarta.gob.mx (PDF); tramites.nayarit.gob.mx; and the four state codes cited above. The day counts are the offices'; the ordering is ours. Checked 15 Sep 2026

7. Where the official sources contradict each other

These are the most valuable lines on the page, because they are the ones a checklist cannot give you. In each case two government sources say different things about the same requirement. We show both and name the safer planning assumption.

1. Quintana Roo's prenuptial exam: repealed by statute, still demanded at the counter. The SCJN invalidated the requirement in AI 29/2024 on 24 June 2025 and the Congress derogated Art. 682 fr. II in the reform published 23 July 2026. Playa del Carmen's three marriage sheets, last updated 29 January 2026, still require a certificate with laboratory results and a fifteen-day life; Cozumel still requires one too. We found no post-July notice resolving it. Safer assumption: obtain the exam anyway, and confirm with the oficialía. Its cost is small; a cancelled filing is not.
2. Fifteen natural days or fifteen working days? Playa del Carmen says 15 días naturales. Cozumel says 15 días hábiles. Those are a week apart, in the same state, for the same test. Safer assumption: plan to the shorter one — fifteen calendar days — unless your own oficialía tells you otherwise in writing.
3. Jalisco's witness count: two, or four? The Ley del Registro Civil says two. Art. 82 fr. III requires the sworn declaration of two witnesses of legal age who know the parties, who must identify themselves before the officer and leave a copy of their ID; Art. 86 requires the parties or their special attorneys and two witnesses who prove their identity to be present at the ceremony. Puerto Vallarta's own sheet also says two, with the couple's and the two witnesses' IDs copied onto a single legal-size sheet. But the state Dirección General del Registro Civil page says two witnesses per contrayente — four. No norm resolving this was found. Safer assumption: bring four. Nobody is turned away for having too many witnesses.
4. Jalisco's laboratory: public only, or private allowed? The state Registro Civil page requires a medical certificate from public health institutions, expressly excluding private hospitals, covering blood type and freedom from contagious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, syphilis and tuberculosis. Art. 82 fr. IV of the statute permits a laboratory of a public health institution or a private laboratory. Safer assumption: use a public institution. A statute that allows more does not oblige a counter to accept more.
5. Nayarit's witness count depends on which source you read, and both are official. The state ficha ties it to the venue: two witnesses with photo-ID copies inside Registro Civil offices, four outside — which is the destination-wedding case. The code is stricter regardless of venue: Art. 94 fr. III requires two witnesses who know both parties, failing which two per party, and Art. 98 requires two witnesses for each party at the ceremony. Safer assumption: four, everywhere in Nayarit.
6. BCS: ten days before, inside a window of eight. The state page requires documentation ten days before the scheduled date; Art. 101 requires the ceremony within eight days of the qualifying application. Both are current and both are official. Safer assumption: treat the ten-day document deadline as the binding operational date and let the office manage the statutory frame — but ask, because the lab window has to be threaded through both.
7. Quintana Roo: twenty working days' resolution, inside a window of eight. Playa del Carmen publishes a twenty-working-day resolution time for the foreigner-marriage trámite while Art. 683 caps the ceremony at eight days after filing. Cozumel publishes four working days for the equivalent transaction. Safer assumption: start the paperwork a month out, and do not read the eight-day rule as permission to arrive a week early with nothing prepared.
8. BCS's own code still requires a SEGOB authorisation its own trámite sheet does not ask for. Arts. 100 fr. VIII and 104 fr. IX against the current state Registro Civil page, on a code text whose last reform is published 6 July 2011. Safer assumption: ask in writing, keep the reply.
9. The INM permit against Ley de Migración Art. 9. Set out in full in section 5. A 2010-Manual-based INM cédula and a Jalisco transparency-portal sheet demand a SEGOB permission; the 2011 Ley de Migración forbids registrars from conditioning civil-status acts on immigration status; four of the five operative counters do not ask for it. Safer assumption: not abolished, not universally required — ask your oficialía, early.
10. Nayarit's CURP line against RENAPO's eligibility rules. The ficha demands a certified CURP without exception; RENAPO's tracks both presuppose a regular stay condition or residency. Safer assumption: treat this as unresolved and resolve it with the oficialía before booking anything.
11. Nayarit's published fee against its own revenue law. The state ficha quotes a minimum of $1,757.00 and a maximum of $4,144.00, citing the 2025 Ley de Ingresos. The 2026 law, published in the Periódico Oficial on 29 December 2025, sets Registro Civil derechos in UMA: 15.5 UMA for marriage and registral acts inside Registro Civil offices and 36.6 UMA outside them, plus a mandatory $5.00 levy for the Cruz Roja under Art. 62. INEGI set the 2026 UMA at $117.31 daily, in force from 1 February 2026. Safer assumption: the ficha's figures are a year out of date; budget from the current UMA and expect the office to be the authority on the total.

Official SCJN Comunicado 173/2025; Código Civil de Quintana Roo (PDF); playadelcarmen.gob.mx MEO-010; cozumel.gob.mx; Ley del Registro Civil de Jalisco (PDF); sgg.jalisco.gob.mx; puertovallarta.gob.mx (PDF); tramites.nayarit.gob.mx; Código Civil de Nayarit (PDF); Ley de Ingresos de Nayarit 2026 (PDF); INEGI — UMA 2026 (PDF); registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx; Código Civil de BCS (PDF) — checked 15 Sep 2026

8. What we could not verify

Each item below was searched against primary sources and not found. These gaps are real. We would rather you knew which parts of the picture are missing than have the page read more confidently than the evidence supports.

1. Any stated maximum age for a foreign birth certificate or apostille, in any of the four states. Not published by Playa del Carmen, Cozumel, the Quintana Roo code, the BCS state Registro Civil, the BCS code, Nayarit's ficha or the Nayarit code. The BCS sheet's word actualizada is undefined and carries no number. Puerto Vallarta's “no older than one year” sits in the general birth-certificate line, not the foreigner clause, and whether its counter applies that cap to apostilled foreign acts is undocumented. The commonly repeated “within six months” has no primary basis we could find.
2. No validity window for an apostille anywhere in Mexican federal or state primary sources. We also did not retrieve HCCH's Apostille Handbook in full, and the HCCH status-table page loaded without rendering its table, so Mexico's accession and entry-into-force dates could not be read off the primary source. The widely circulated 14 August 1995 date was available to us only from secondary sources and is therefore not asserted here.
3. Cancún (Benito Juárez) and Tulum have no publicly verifiable marriage trámite sheet we could reach. The Cancún trámite portal was reachable but we could not surface a marriage-specific ficha with requirements and validity windows; Tulum's catalogue returned an index page with no retrievable marriage entry. Cancún is the highest-volume destination-wedding municipality in Mexico. Everything on this page about Quintana Roo municipal practice rests on Solidaridad and Cozumel. Do not extrapolate Playa del Carmen's fees or document list to Cancún.
4. The Quintana Roo state Dirección General del Registro Civil site was unreachable — timeouts and server errors on every attempt — so no state-level marriage requirements page for Quintana Roo was read.
5. Whether Quintana Roo oficialías are in practice still enforcing the prenuptial exam after the repeal published 23 July 2026. The statute repeals it; the municipal sheets predate the repeal and still list it. No later municipal or state notice resolving the contradiction was found.
6. Which specific tests Quintana Roo municipalities require. The Playa del Carmen and Cozumel sheets say only “certificado médico prenupcial, con resultados de laboratorio.” No Quintana Roo government source names a panel. Only BCS names one, and it does so by disease rather than by test.
7. Nayarit's prenuptial exam: which tests, and how many days a result is valid. The ficha names neither; the code has named neither since the 2022 reform. No Servicios de Salud de Nayarit page setting a panel or a window was located. Do not assume Jalisco's fifteen days applies.
8. How long a filed and granted solicitud remains valid. Three codes cap the ceremony at eight days after filing, which functions as an expiry, but none publishes a separate rule on the authorisation's life or extension, and we found no rule for what happens if the eight days lapse. We have not invented one.
9. Whether Quintana Roo witnesses must attend the filing. Art. 684 and the Playa del Carmen sheet both place witnesses at the ceremony and require only ID copies at filing, but nothing expressly says they need not appear. BCS is clear by contrast — declarations at filing under Art. 100 fr. III, ratification before the ceremony under Art. 102, presence at the ceremony under Art. 103.
10. No official Bahía de Banderas municipal Registro Civil trámite page was found. Nuevo Nayarit, Sayulita and Punta de Mita sit in that municipality; only the state ficha was located as a primary source. Whether the Bahía de Banderas oficialía imposes extra local filing lead time is unverified.
11. Whether the INM “Autorización para contraer matrimonio” is formally abrogated, and whether it has any validity period once granted. INM still hosts the sheet; it is expressly based on the 2010 Manual; the 2011 Ley de Migración Art. 9 is squarely inconsistent with it; and we could not retrieve a gob.mx ficha or a DOF notice abrogating it. The cédula states no validity period for the permit. The $2,980 figure could not be cross-checked against the line items of INM's 2026 tariff page.
12. Whether any INM trámite exists for a marriage between two foreigners. None was found. Absence of a published requirement is not an affirmative statement that none is needed; INM has published nothing either way.
13. Whether Puerto Vallarta in practice still requires the SEGOB permit. A Jalisco transparency-portal municipal sheet lists it and the national acta form has a field for it, but the current Puerto Vallarta sheet does not. That transparency-portal sheet is undated and belongs to a different Jalisco municipality's oficialía.
14. Whether a foreign tourist can in fact obtain the CURP that Nayarit's ficha demands. The permanent track requires INM residency and a NUE; the temporary track requires a regular stay condition or a pending application and carves out a Ley de Migración fraction. No primary source states how a couple on tourist FMM status satisfies the line. This is the most consequential unresolved gap on the page.
15. Nayarit's “constancia de no deudor alimentario moroso” for foreigners. The ficha requires it and the 2026 revenue law prices it, but no source explains how a person with no Mexican registry history obtains it, or whether it is waived.
16. Any validity window on a certified translation, in any of the four states or federally. Not published. Nor could we establish the term length of perito appointments in Quintana Roo and BCS — both publish “vigentes” lists, implying finite terms, but we did not retrieve the term from Acuerdo General 009/2022 or the Quintana Roo equivalent. Whether a translation sealed by a perito whose appointment has since lapsed is still accepted is undocumented.
17. Whether a Jalisco-state CJJ perito is accepted in Puerto Vallarta without the separate municipal credential. The PV sheet says peritos authorised within Puerto Vallarta, and the PV revenue law prices a municipal translator credential, but no norm states the relationship between the two.
18. Whether the Jalisco DIF pre-marital constancia carries a validity period. Neither the Jalisco norms nor Nayarit's Art. 94 fr. VIII states an expiry, and neither trámite sheet does.
19. Puerto Vallarta's marriage fee for a working day and hour in office. The 2026 revenue law prices marriages in office on a non-working day or hour but no in-office working-hours line was located. The figures printed on the PV trámite sheet are undated and do not match the enacted 2026 law.
20. Version risk in two state codes. The BCS consolidated text we used shows a last reform published 6 July 2011 and a commercial aggregator references a later 2024 reform we could not obtain officially — BCS article numbers cited here should be re-verified against the current official text. The Jalisco Código Civil copy on the state transparency portal still shows superseded definitions of marriage and age of majority, so no Jalisco Código Civil article is relied on here except Art. 267-Bis, and that only as corroboration of the Ley del Registro Civil.
21. Los Cabos and La Paz municipal surcharges. BCS marriage fees are set at state level and the Los Cabos municipal services page lists no Registro Civil marriage entry, but we could not affirmatively confirm the absence of a municipal surcharge. Cozumel's published amounts carry no fiscal year and do not resolve to a clean multiple of the 2026 UMA, so they may be from an earlier exercise.

9. Every source, listed

Forty government sources. All checked 15 September 2026. Every factual claim above traces to one of them; this page uses no industry sources.

Quintana Roo

1. Official Playa del Carmen — Matrimonio Extranjero en oficina (MPDC-SG-RC-MEO-010) — playadelcarmen.gob.mx/mpdc-sg-rc-meo-010
2. Official Playa del Carmen — Matrimonio Mixto en oficina (MMO-008) — playadelcarmen.gob.mx/mpdc-sg-rc-mmo-008
3. Official Playa del Carmen — Matrimonio Extranjero fuera de oficina (MEFO-011) — playadelcarmen.gob.mx/mpdc-sg-rc-mefo-011
4. Official Playa del Carmen — Inscripción de Matrimonio (IM-012) — playadelcarmen.gob.mx/mpdc-sg-rc-im-012
5. Official Playa del Carmen — Inscripción de Nacimiento (IN-002) — playadelcarmen.gob.mx/mpdc-sg-rc-in-002
6. Official Cozumel — Registro de Matrimonio Mixto (Mexicano–Extranjero) — cozumel.gob.mx
7. Official Cozumel — Registro de Matrimonio Mexicano — cozumel.gob.mx/oficina/registro-de-matrimonio-mexicano
8. Official Código Civil para el Estado de Quintana Roo, consolidated text (last reform POE 23-07-2026) — documentos.congresoqroo.gob.mx (PDF)
9. Official Ley de Hacienda Municipal (Quintana Roo), Art. 63 fr. II — documentos.congresoqroo.gob.mx (PDF)
10. Official Catálogo Estatal de Trámites Quintana Roo — copia certificada de acta de matrimonio — catalogoestatal.qroo.gob.mx
11. Official TSJ Quintana Roo — Lista de Peritos Vigentes — peritos.tsjqroo.gob.mx
12. Official SCJN — Comunicado 173/2025, Acción de Inconstitucionalidad 29/2024 — internet2.scjn.gob.mx

Baja California Sur

13. Official Registro Civil BCS — Registro de Matrimonios — registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx/registro-de-matrimonios-2
14. Official Registro Civil BCS — Trámites y servicios — registrocivil.bcs.gob.mx/tramites-y-serivicios
15. Official Código Civil para el Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California Sur — contraloria.bcs.gob.mx (PDF)
16. Official Ley de Derechos y Productos del Estado de BCS (Arts. 1, 16, 27) — static.asebcs.gob.mx (PDF)
17. Official Tribunal Superior de Justicia BCS — Listado de Peritos, trámite SG-03 — tribunalbcs.gob.mx

Jalisco and Puerto Vallarta

18. Official Puerto Vallarta — Registro de Matrimonio, requisitos — puertovallarta.gob.mx (PDF)
19. Official Ley del Registro Civil del Estado de Jalisco — transparencia.info.jalisco.gob.mx (PDF)
20. Official Dirección General del Registro Civil de Jalisco — registro de matrimonio — sgg.jalisco.gob.mx
21. Official Jalisco transparency portal — municipal Registro Civil requirements sheet — transparencia.info.jalisco.gob.mx (PDF)
22. Official Consejo de la Judicatura Jalisco — Lista de Auxiliares de la Administración de Justicia 2026–2027 — cjj.gob.mx (PDF)
23. Official Consejo de la Judicatura Jalisco — Convocatoria Peritos 2026–2027 — cjj.gob.mx (PDF)
24. Official Ley de Ingresos del Municipio de Puerto Vallarta para el Ejercicio Fiscal 2026 — congresoweb.congresojal.gob.mx (PDF)

Nayarit

25. Official Trámites Nayarit — ficha 192, matrimonio — tramites.nayarit.gob.mx/ciudadano/ficha/192
26. Official Código Civil para el Estado de Nayarit — congresonayarit.gob.mx (PDF)
27. Official Ley de Ingresos del Estado Libre y Soberano de Nayarit 2026 — congresonayarit.gob.mx (PDF)
28. Official Poder Judicial de Nayarit — Padrón de Peritos 2026–2027 — tsjnay.gob.mx (PDF)
29. Official Poder Judicial de Nayarit — Convocatoria Peritos 2026–2027 — tsjnay.gob.mx (PDF)

Federal

30. Official Ley de Migración, Cámara de Diputados consolidated text — diputados.gob.mx (PDF)
31. Official Ley de Migración, INM copy — inm.gob.mx (PDF)
32. Official INM — Autorización para que un extranjero pueda contraer matrimonio con mexicano — inm.gob.mx (PDF)
33. Official INM — Lineamientos para trámites y procedimientos migratorios — inm.gob.mx (PDF)
34. Official INM — Tarifas de derechos migratorios 2026 — gob.mx/inm
35. Official INEGI — formato de actas de matrimonio — inegi.org.mx (PDF)
36. Official INEGI — valor de la UMA 2026 — inegi.org.mx (PDF)
37. Official SEGOB/RENAPO — CURP para personas extranjeras residentes, SEGOB-2021-069-009-A — gob.mx
38. Official SEGOB/RENAPO — preguntas frecuentes, CURP Temporal para Extranjeros — gob.mx/segob-renapo
39. Official Instructivo Normativo para la Asignación de la CURP, DOF 18-10-2021 — sre.gob.mx (PDF)
40. Official HCCH — Apostille Convention status table (loaded without rendering its table) — hcch.net

Related on this site

• Getting legally married in Mexico — the full state-by-state reference, with every official fee schedule and all four source conflicts set out.
• Symbolic vs civil vs religious — which ceremony actually marries you, and why a symbolic ceremony makes every clock on this page disappear.
• Apostilling a Mexican marriage certificate — the return trip: where the apostille comes from and why it cannot be started after you fly home.

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