Why Some Tourists Pay 550 Pesos for a 285-Peso Visitax

Tulum's fifth councilman, Eugenio Barbachano Losa, has called for the elimination of the Visitax, Quintana Roo's mandatory fee for foreign visitors, and for an investigation into websites that charge tourists well above the official rate.

The official amount is 285 pesos per person, Barbachano said. Some online platforms that offer to process the payment charge as much as 550 pesos for the same fee, a markup of 265 pesos.

For the councilman, the problem reaches past the markup. He said the Visitax undermines the competitiveness of the Mexican Caribbean and adds to what visitors already spend on transportation, lodging, and admission to attractions, at a time when Tulum has yet to recover its earlier levels of hotel occupancy and commercial activity.

Barbachano asks the governor to explain the Visitax price gap

Barbachano directed his request to Governor Mara Lezama Espinosa. He asked her administration to review how the Visitax is applied and to clarify why the amount a traveler pays changes from one platform to another.

"We complain that tourism isn't arriving, but when it arrives, we welcome it with irregular charges," he said.

His list for state authorities ran longer. He asked them to evaluate whether the fee should remain in place at all, to step up oversight of the websites that offer to handle payments, and to clearly tell tourists how much they owe and how to pay it.

The last two requests stand on their own. Even if the state keeps the Visitax, clearer public information would address the price gap he described.

One fee, several prices online

The Visitax has been collected since 2022. Its formal name is the fee for the use of public domain assets, and the state sets it at 2.5 UMA, the indexed unit Mexico uses to calculate fines and government charges. Because the UMA is updated each year, the peso amount shifts slightly over time.

The state tax agency, known as SATQ, runs the official payment portal at visitax.gob.mx. Travelers who pay there receive a digital receipt they can show on departure.

Confusion often starts with a search engine. A traveler looking up the fee can land on private sites that present themselves as payment services, some of which add their own charges. State tourism secretary Bernardo Cueto Riestra has previously said authorities detected at least 20 fraudulent websites collecting the Visitax from foreign tourists.

Not every third-party processor operates outside the rules. The state has authorized private payment channels before: the travel trade publication PAX reported on a Quintana Roo government letter confirming the platform Travelkore as one of them. Barbachano's complaint, as he stated it, centers on how much the amount varies between intermediaries and on the lack of clear public information about it.

A suggestion of interests, without names or documents

Barbachano also questioned the transparency of the platforms and raised the possibility that interests lie behind their operation.

He did not name any company or present documents to support that claim.

The 2.5 billion peso budget cut tied to the fee

A repeal would run counter to the state's recent fiscal planning. For 2026, the Lezama administration had proposed making hotels collect the fee directly from guests, a change it expected would multiply revenue without raising the rate. The hotel sector refused to act as collector, and the state withdrew the proposal late last year.

The effect showed up in the budget. Quintana Roo's 2026 spending plan was approved at 53.981 billion pesos, roughly 2.5 billion pesos below the original proposal, a reduction linked to the decision to drop the Visitax collection change.

So far, state authorities have not announced any change to how the Visitax is applied. Until they do, the fee remains mandatory for foreign visitors, and the official rate is the one posted on the state's own portal.

Have you paid more than the official rate for the Visitax through a third-party website? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.