PASSENGERS are being forced to pay hundreds of pounds at the airport when travelling to a popular winter sun destination.
The little-known rule is in place for tourists heading to Mexico.
Your laptop could end up costing you £616 when travelling to Mexico[/caption]
The rules state that tourists can only bring in “one laptop, notebook, omnibook, or other portable computing device,” Forbes reports.
This means passengers cannot travel with both a laptop and a tablet, such as an iPad.
While this has been in place for years, airports such as Cancun have been cracking down on tourists breaching the rules.
One woman said she was forced to pay 3,690 Mexican pesos (£149) because she had both.
If she didn’t pay the tax for her laptop, she was told she would have to surrender it to airport staff.
Another traveller told USA Today she was also stopped at Cancun Airport, despite previously travelling through with no problems, only to have to pay £162 for her second device.
And other travellers have complained on forums such as Reddit for being caught out, being forced to pay hundreds at the airport.
The price could even be more than this, as the cost is 19 per cent of the estimated value of the item.
If you have the newest Macbook Pro, costing £1,599, you could be forced to pay £300.
But the cap on item value is $4,000 (£3,246) – meaning a top fine of £616.
Other limits in place include the following per person:
- Two cameras
- Three mobile phones
- One video game console
- One GPS device
The rules are per person, so this can be doubled if travelling as a couple.
The UK government website does not explicitly warn of the strict device rules, although links to the Mexican Consulate and states: “If you do not declare goods, customs officials may seize them and you could get a fine.”
The current entry and exit rules it warns of are departure taxes, although these are often included in the cost of a plane ticket.
This does not include Quintana Roo, where an entry tax must be paid before or during your stay.
And the passport entry stamp must be shown when leaving the country.
Not only that, but passengers may need to show a return plane ticket, proof of accommodation and evidence of income to support the entire holiday.
Families may need to show evidence of relations to their kids, and the reason for travel.
Here are three airports where you could be caught out with a £55 fine for not having a physical boarding pass.
And more than 16,000 people were fined in 2019 at Stansted Airport for train ticket confusion – with new changes set to stop it.
The strict rules are in place across all Mexican airports[/caption]
