
Mexico car rental industry: What you need to know
In October 2018, the Mexican government approved a law that will legalize and tax the rental of vehicles owned by private drivers.
The legislation will cost about $1,600 per month and allows owners of such vehicles to rent them out for a nominal fee of $5 per month.
The law does not address the car rental problem in Tijuana.
While a majority of Mexicans own a car, nearly one-third of Tijuana’s 1.2 million inhabitants own no vehicles, according to a 2016 survey by the National Statistics Institute.
It’s not clear how many of these vehicles were rented to private drivers, or whether these were driven off the streets.
There is no law regulating the rental sector in Tula, the capital of the state of Morelos.
“There’s no regulation or law to regulate the rental industry, so people have to figure out how to work around the rules,” said Ricardo de la Cruz, the state’s tourism director.
“I see people coming in from Tijuana with a rented car that they rent out to a couple of friends.”
De la Cruz is concerned that Tula’s new laws will allow illegal car rental operators to keep making money off their illegal operations.
In February 2019, the Interior Ministry announced a $4 million fund to crack down on illegal rentals.
De la Candre, however, said that many illegal rental operators are not registered to operate in Tuba and are thus not subject to the new law.
He also said that a crackdown is not imminent.
“Tuba is not a big area, so we are waiting for the regulations to be published,” he said.
“If there are some regulations, we will work with them.
But for the moment, I don’t see it.”
De La Cruz said that he is concerned about the safety of drivers who rent out their vehicles.
“In Mexico, the car owners are the ones who are driving the cars,” he told the Associated Press.
“That’s why we’re having this discussion.”
In March 2019, a federal judge ruled in favor of the owners of a vehicle owned by a car rental company in Tulucan.
The judge ruled that the company could not be held responsible for the rental because the car owner had not registered himself as a private driver.
The ruling also ordered the car’s owner to pay the rental company’s legal fees and $3,000 in restitution to the owner.
The case is being appealed to the Supreme Court.