All cruise itineraries that include one or more stops in Mexico will soon cost an additional $42.
Countries frequently adjust the arrival fees charged to tourists. Mexico has decided now is the time to enforce an existing tourist tax that previously excluded cruise vacationers.
The move by the Mexican legislature came just after incoming U.S. president Donald Trump threatened to slap 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico.
Up to now, cruise passengers were exempt from Mexico’s mandatory entry fee because they spend the night aboard ships instead of on land.
But last week a vote by Mexico’s Senate closes that exception and charges cruise passengers the same immigration tax that other tourists already pay.
As of July 1, 2025, anyone visiting Mexico by cruise ship will find another $42 folded into the charges levied by the cruise line.
Mexico says it will use two-thirds of the proceeds to fund its military, which is used to enforce security at cruise terminals, reserving the final third to improve the ports.
The Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA), an industry trade group, estimates that more than 10 million passengers arrive in Mexico by cruise ship every year, and some 3,300 cruise ships are expected to call on Mexican ports in 2025.
In response to the announcement, the FCCA issued a letter to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum that was signed by the leaders of the major cruise lines. The letter complained the newly enforced charge will effectively price Mexican ports “out of the cruise market” and force cruise lines to favor the Caribbean, where entry taxes tend to be lower.
But will $42 really price Mexico out?
In March, an oceanview cabin on a 7-night cruise on Norwegian Getaway from New Orleans is quoted at $1,192 on Norwegian Cruise Line’s website.
We’re tired of the incessant price hikes in every aspect of our lives, too. But, realistically, how many people would call it a deal-breaker when that cruise fare rises by $42 to $1,234? Not many.
The cruise lines, emboldened by strong demand for cruise vacations, have themselves been hoisting prices on a range of onboard amenities, charging customers ever-rising prices for the same services.
For example, since 2023 the full per-day price of an alcoholic drink package on Carnival Cruise Line has gone from $59.95 to $88.44. That’s an increase of $28.49.
The price of Wi-Fi on Carnival also jumped 22%, and now the line’s most basic internet plan goes for $22 a day.
Price hikes like that have been routinely (and quietly) introduced by the major lines across the cruise industry ever since the travel restrictions of Covid-19 ended and cruise vacations began selling out with more frequency.
But the execs of the cruise lines don’t want to draw your attention to onboard price inflation because they impose that themselves.
Instead, they want you to be angry at Mexico’s newly expanded fee, perhaps because it chips away at the executives’ own freedom to raise prices.
The bigger problem for Mexico is that so many regular cruisers have now visited the country’s staple destinations too many times. Some ports still attract massive numbers of cruisers—Cozumel drew 2.94 million people in 2022—but other Mexican ports are increasingly skipped by regular travelers as inauthentic, dull, or even dangerous.
On cruises that call on less-historic ports like Ensenada, a sizable portion of passengers don’t even bother to get off the ship, and some only disembark long enough to purchase off-market (and sometimes dangerous) pharmaceuticals that they can’t find affordably in the U.S. health care system.
The imposition of another $42 is fully within Mexico’s rights, and the country deserves to be able to charge entry fees just as any other nation does.
The amount, by itself, may not cause many travelers to cancel their cruise plans, but it will have more of us appraising the general value of every aspect of a cruise vacation.