Foreign tourists to Mexico up 2.7 % in September; total dips
Visitors who stay overnight are growing in number and spending more, while day trips slip and Mexicans' spending abroad climbs faster.
Mexico received 3,297,654 international tourists in September 2026, 2.7 % more than a year earlier, the national statistics agency INEGI said on Thursday in its International Travelers Survey. A tourist is a foreign resident who spends at least one night in the country.
Total arrivals moved the other way, falling 0.5 % to 7,248,583 travelers. The gap comes from day visitors, who cross without staying overnight and numbered 3,950,929, or 54.5 % of all arrivals.
Going the other direction, 6,901,479 residents of Mexico traveled abroad, up 3.7 % from a year earlier: 1,821,832 as tourists and 5,079,648 as day visitors.
Who spends
Visitors left $1,943.7 million, 5.7 % more than a year ago. The average traveler who arrived spent $268.2, up 6.2 %.
| Category | Million dollars | Annual change |
|---|---|---|
| Travelers who arrived | 1,943.7 | +5.7 % |
| Tourists | 1,718.6 | +8.6 % |
| Day visitors | 225.1 | -12.2 % |
| Residents who left | 1,353.2 | +15.6 % |
A tourist spent $521.2 on average; a day visitor, $57.0. That is why fewer day trips barely dent the total: tourists accounted for $1,718.6 million of the $1,943.7 million.
Of the 1,475,451 tourists who did not come overland from the border region, 69.0 % live in the United States. Of those, 60.3 % came for vacation or leisure and 28.3 % to visit family or friends. Border tourists numbered 1,822,203, up 4.2 %; non-border tourists rose 0.9 %.
All amounts are in current U.S. dollars, as INEGI publishes them, and the figures are preliminary. The next release of the survey is due Dec. 14.
