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I'm a citizen of Belarus and have an Italian student residence permit. I'm planning a travelling to Mexico, but I'm not sure whether it is still needed a visa for Belarusians or not. I've found some controversial sources in Internet and unfortunately in Belarusian local segment there is no actual information about this question.

As far as I know it was always required a visa for Belarusians to travel to Mexico. But I've just read about recent changes in Timatic:

1) Visa required, except for Passengers with a Permanent Residence Permit issued by Italy for a maximum stay of 180 days.

From this link it's not very clear whether my student residence permit is considered Permanent. As far as I understood - yes, but in one source I read that students residence cards are not enough, so I'm looking for a more reliable source of information.

2) Visa required, except for Passengers with a valid visa issued by Canada, Japan, USA, United Kingdom or a Schengen Member State For details, click here for a maximum stay of 180 days.

Sounds good, but may be there is anyone who has already travelled to Mexico with the same travel documents can share his experience? Does this rule work?

UPD. The first question is answered: student residence permit itself is not valid for visiting Mexico without a visa.

As for the second one according to the Embassy of Mexico in Moscow the second rule perfectly works, but I don't have any written confirmation yet.

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    Your student residence almost certainly isn't permanent (permanent means it doesn't expire) -- but you do have a valid visa issued by a Schengen Member State, which seems to satisfy the second option.
    – Urbana
    Commented Aug 7, 2016 at 23:26
  • @davidvc all residence permits issued in the EU these days expire. The permanent residency does not expire, but the document itself does.
    – phoog
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 5:33
  • @phoog I can't tell if your comment means mine is incorrect or not.
    – Urbana
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 6:56
  • @davidvc it's not necessarily incorrect; it's arguably imprecise. Permanent residence as you say does not expire, but the card does expire; one could read the comment as if it refers to the card, in which case the comment is incorrect, or to the residence, in which case the comment is correct.
    – phoog
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 7:06
  • @davidvc, yes, you are rigth. I mixed up these two notions as italian-english translation was a little bit ambiguous. But now the situation is even more confusing. I don't have and will not have a valid Shengen visa, because I have this student residence permit. From the formal point of view visa is not equal to permit, hm.
    – maty
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 12:00

1 Answer 1

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I'm not sure what you put into Timatic to cause it to display "Visa required, except for Passengers with a valid visa issued by Canada, Japan, USA, United Kingdom or a Schengen Member State For details, click here for a maximum stay of 180 days." This seemed wrong to me, as I wasn't aware of any such exception, and when I entered the information into Timatic, it did not appear.

Since you explicitly stated you're looking for a more reliable source of information, here it is: The Mexican government.

Instituto Nacional de Migración states on its web site which countries' nationals require a visa to visit Mexico (and what exemptions exist), and which countries' nationals do not require a visa (but must still have a tourist card).

As you can see, Belarus is on the list of countries whose nationals require a visa to visit Mexico.

Further, you can see the list of exemptions, which makes no mention of Schengen visas at all.

No requerirá visa mexicana el extranjero que presente alguno de los siguientes documentos:

a) Documento que acredite residencia permanente en Canadá, Estados Unidos de América, Japón, el Reino Unido de la Gran Bretaña e Irlanda del Norte, o cualquiera de los países que integran el Espacio Schengen.

b) Visa válida y vigente de los Estados Unidos de América.

c) Tarjeta de Viajero de Negocios de APEC (ABTC) aprobada por México.

(and two other exceptions for airline and ship crews)

So, if you have a visa for the US, then it's OK. And if you have permanent residence in Canada, US, UK, Japan or one of the Schengen states, it's also OK. But there doesn't appear to be any exemption for your case.

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  • Hm, I put the following National Belarus (BY) , /Embarkation Italy (IT), Destination Mexico (MX) and got the exception mentioned in the starting post. Unfortunately the date of the last update of the link you've provided is 10/02/2016 and policy changes I'm talking about were made in may 2016.
    – maty
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 21:35
  • @maty Congratulations, I think you have found an error in Timatic. Eventually I think that is going to cost some airline some big fines.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 21:36
  • @maty There may have been a policy change in May 2016, but I can find no evidence of it anywhere. Not on an official Mexican web site, not on the embassy's web site, nowhere.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 21:38
  • Yep, the main problem was to find any reliable confirmation. I've made a call today to the Embassy of Mexico in Moscow (where in general belarussians obtain mexican visas) and they confirmed that this exception perfectly works.
    – maty
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 21:44
  • @maty That is good to hear. Please tell them to update their web sites :)
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Aug 8, 2016 at 21:44

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