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The rules for Mexican citizens changed on 29 February 2024. Most now need a visitor visa (temporary resident visa), except that a Mexican citizen flying to Canada on a valid Mexican passport can apply for an electronic travel authorization instead if they currently hold a valid US non-immigrant visa or have held a Canadian visitor visa in the past ten years.

Having held only an eTA in the past does not meet the condition, and anyone entering by car, bus, train or boat needs the visitor visa. A visitor visa application costs CAD 100, plus CAD 85 for biometrics. The officer decides whether to issue a single-entry or multiple-entry visa, valid for up to ten years or until the passport or biometrics expire, whichever comes first. Mexico was not part of the Student Direct Stream, which closed on 8 November 2024.

For a study permit, a single applicant outside Quebec must show CAD 23,448 for a year of living costs from 1 September 2026, separate from first-year tuition and travel, rising with family size.

The Mexican peso has floated since December 1994, with its exchange rate set by the market; the Banco de Mexico, the central bank, has at times intervened through rules-based mechanisms. Families buy Canadian dollars at the prevailing market rate through their bank, so the peso cost of a tuition bill moves day to day.

Within Mexico banks move money through SPEI, the central bank's interbank electronic payment system that settles peso transfers in real time; paying a Canadian school is then a separate cross-border transfer in foreign currency arranged through a Mexican bank or a licensed provider.

Mexico's educational-travel sector has an industry association, AMTE (Asociacion Mexicana de Turismo Educativo), which groups educational-travel agencies, international schools, diplomatic representations in Mexico and service providers, and promotes quality standards.

AMTE is a private association, so not every Mexican study-abroad agency belongs to it; families can ask an agency whether it is a member.

In the 2021 census, about 132,200 people living in Canada were born in Mexico, of whom about 90,600 were immigrants. The metropolitan areas with the most Mexico-born immigrants are Toronto (about 14,400) and Montreal (about 14,200), then Vancouver (10,100), Calgary (5,400), Windsor (3,700) and Edmonton (3,300).

Most private schools listed on MapleRank are in Ontario and British Columbia, home to the Toronto, Vancouver and Windsor communities, while the Montreal community is in Quebec.