Beginning in 2025, cruises to Mexico will value passengers $42 extra per particular person in the event that they e-book a crusing that features calls on any of the nation’s ports.
Mexico’s Senate on Dec. 3 voted to incorporate cruisers in an already present vacationer tax if their voyages cease at even one of many nation’s ports, as reported by the Related Press. These ports embody Caribbean Coast and Gulf Coast locations like Cozumel, Costa Maya and Progreso, typically discovered on Caribbean itineraries; and Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada alongside the West Coast, that are most frequently a part of Mexican Riviera and California coastal sailings.
This common vacationer tax — which is able to enhance from $35 to $42 per particular person, beginning in 2025 — has been in place for different vacationers for years. Till now, cruisers have been exempt as a result of they keep on the ship as an alternative of ashore, and never each passenger chooses to disembark when their ship visits a port.
Along with the bottom cruise fares, passengers already pay authorities taxes and port charges once they cruise. Since Mexico’s new price will likely be baked into that lump sum, it is unlikely passengers will discover the additional $42, which will likely be charged simply as soon as per passenger, whatever the variety of Mexico ports on the itinerary.
The Florida-Caribbean Cruise Affiliation says that greater than 10 million individuals arrive in Mexico’s high 5 ports by way of cruise ships annually. At $42 every, they will be paying Mexico $420 million a yr, two-thirds of which is able to go to assist the nation’s army, in keeping with the AP.
This is not the primary time cruise passengers have been charged a per-person price to cruise to Mexico. In 2007, Mexico’s Senate voted to impose a $5 per-passenger head tax on cruisers, as reported by Journey Weekly. It is also not the primary or solely area to cost cruise vacationers merely for visiting; Alaska has had per-person charges in place at each the state and port ranges for years.
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Regardless of the additional price levied on cruise passengers, it is unlikely cruise traces will cease calling on Mexico. Cozumel, one of many busiest cruise ports on the earth, is a well-liked cease on Caribbean itineraries whose different ports are already crowded, which may make it troublesome for traces to seek out options.
On the West Coast, traces hoping to proceed working California coastal itineraries must name on Ensenada to adjust to america authorities’s Passenger Vessel Companies Act, which requires foreign-flagged vessels to name on at the very least one international port throughout itineraries that each start and finish in U.S. ports.
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