Mexico Mishaps: License Plate Stolen

We’ve lived in Mexico for 10 months, and have driven 7,000 miles through 15 states. Here’s a little story y’all might find entertaining: Before crossing the border last December, I made sure to get all our ducks in a row. One of the many tasks involved making sure our car was legal to drive in Mexico, as well as maintaining legality in the US. Mexico requires a Temporary Import Permit “TIP” (which is a continuing process, involving paperwork each time our Mexican residency is extended), and Mexican car insurance. The US varies by state; Louisiana requires us to maintain insurance, in order for the registration to remain valid. I diligently had our full-coverage Mexican car insurance begin the day before we crossed the border, and had our US car insurance cancel the day after, so there was no gap in coverage. We checked all the boxes, had our photo copies in triplicate, and were good to go! Or so I thought…

But wait, there’s more! Ironically, that same week, we had our Louisiana license plate stolen. We noticed it was gone the night before we had to drive through five states, from house-sit #2 in Guanajuato to house-sit #3 in Oaxaca. LOL!!! 😅 After spending four hours verifying the plate hadn’t been taken for a parking infraction (because they legally do that here) we were allowed to file a police report. Get this: It’s legal to drive *with no license plates* as long as we carry the police report. Sure enough, the next day, we drove over 500 miles without anyone batting an eye!

So how did we get new license plates? Easy. It’s a well-known Expat loophole to get South Dakota car title, registration, and plates, because they don’t require residency in the state, or proof of insurance. Even better, a real person answered the phone on the second ring, emailed me a packet for out-of-country registration within ten minutes, and we received our plates in half the estimated time. Thanks, South Dakota! To be clear: I don’t blame Mexico. This is not a “dumping on Mexico” video!!! We’ve had much worse (and much more expensive!) thefts in the US and Canada.

Viva México! 🇲🇽✨🇲🇽✨🇲🇽

Our YouTube video with a more in-depth look at this license plate drama ⌄