Late last year, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump wasn't even in the White House yet when he threatened Mexico with a new 25% tariff.
When he did that, Mexico slapped back fast. The country's senate turned around and declared that cruise ship passengers—who are largely American, and who sail largely on American-owned cruise lines—would no longer be exempt from the immigration tax that other international tourists in Mexico have had to pay for years.
The bill for $42 per person was originally scheduled to come due starting in January 2025, but implementation was delayed and, after an uproar from cruise line executives, the numbers were adjusted.
As of July 1, though, the tax by the Mexican government is now here. All cruise passengers to Mexico must now pay the fee as part of the total fare levied by the cruise lines.
For the rest of 2025, cruise passengers who visit Mexican ports must pay another $5 in each cruise fare. In August 2026, the amount doubles to $10. In July 2027, the rate rises to $15.
In August 2028, the tax to visit Mexican ports will rise to its full, revised figure of $21 per person.
Mexican officials have said they intend to use the money for port security and to drive down the national deficit without slashing social services.
Cruise executives attack Mexico's passenger tax
The industry group Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association, which reports that roughly 3,300 cruise ship visits totaling about 10 million passengers will stop in Mexican ports in 2025, has been borderline hyperbolic in attacking the new tax.
The group warned in December that because of the tax, there will now be "fewer visitors willing to bear the additional expense of travel" and there will be "workers dependent on cruise tourism facing significant financial losses."
That's a bit much. As we pointed out when the exemption was first canceled, if you're already paying more than $1,000 for a cruise vacation, even that original $42 fee probably wouldn't have been enough to dissuade you.
Now that the final fee will be just $21—and lower than that for the next few years—there's even less reason to think that most vacationers will care much, no matter how much cruise VPs scream bloody murder.
Most vacationers will simply absorb the cost as part of the price of vacationing.
We're travelers. We're used to it. After all, we've paid $21 for ham sandwiches at the airport. Every day, people fork over as much as $24 to get on a Star Wars ride at Disney World. London's Heathrow Airport is the most popular two-runway airport in the world despite the fact that it also charges the highest landing fees in the world.
It makes sense that cruise corporations don't want to pay the tax, because avoiding tax is what corporations are built for these days.
Unfortunately for cruise executives, this tit-versus-tat political squabble was widely covered in the press. If it hadn't been, most cruise customers probably wouldn't even have noticed the extra fee.
But now that a big issue has been made of the charge, more cruise passengers will notice the tax on their bills. And they may simply decide to spend $21 less on optional ship amenities to offset the fee.
It's worth mentioning that Carnival Cruise Line recently hiked the price of its daily drinks package by $82.60 for a weeklong cruise—which, of course, is far more than this newly enforced tax adds. Carnival's hike is just one of many price increases cruisers have been experiencing on board lately as cruise lines double down on their nickel-and-dime à la carte pricing strategies, as the "free" areas of many ships are whittled down to make room for surcharged areas.
Let's be honest—the cruise lines know that the more fees we're charged, the more appraising we will become as consumers. Any decline in onboard spending is what the cruise lines actually fear the most.