There is no single answer to whether Mexico is safe, because safety advisories are not issued for Mexico. They are issued state by state, and the spread is enormous: Yucatán and Campeche sit at the lowest advisory level the United States issues, while six states carry a Do Not Travel warning.
Key facts
| How advisories are issued | Per Mexican state, not for the country as a whole |
| Level 1, normal precautions | Campeche and Yucatán only |
| Level 4, do not travel | Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas |
| Where most expats live | Mostly Level 1 or 2 states |
| Who issues them | US Department of State; other governments publish their own |
| Checked | August 2026, against an advisory reissued May 2026 |
The state-by-state picture
| Level | States |
|---|---|
| 1 — Normal precautions | Campeche, Yucatán |
| 2 — Increased caution | Aguascalientes, Baja California Sur, Chiapas, Coahuila, Mexico City, Mexico State, Hidalgo, Nayarit, Nuevo Leon, Oaxaca, Puebla, Queretaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosi, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Veracruz |
| 3 — Reconsider travel | Baja California, Chihuahua, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Morelos, Sonora |
| 4 — Do not travel | Colima, Guerrero, Michoacan, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas |
Two things to take from that table. Mérida sits in Yucatán, one of only two Level 1 states, which is a large part of why it has become the destination of choice for people whose first question is safety. And Guadalajara sits in Jalisco at Level 3, which surprises people who think of it as a mainstream expat city — the rating reflects conditions across a large state, not the neighborhoods foreigners actually live in.
How to read an advisory
A state-level rating is a blunt instrument applied to an area often larger than a European country. Jalisco contains both Guadalajara’s leafy Providencia and highway corridors with genuine cartel activity, and they share a rating.
The advisories are still worth reading, because the detail beneath the headline level is where the useful information sits: which specific municipalities are restricted, whether US government employees are barred from certain roads, and whether the restriction applies after dark. That granularity tells you more than the number does.
Note too that most of the risk driving high ratings is organized crime that does not target foreign residents. The threats expats actually encounter are ordinary urban ones: opportunistic theft, ATM skimming, unlicensed taxis and highway travel at night.
Frequently asked questions
Which are the safest states in Mexico?
By US State Department rating, Campeche and Yucatán are the only two Mexican states at Level 1, exercise normal precautions. Mérida, the most popular expat city in the region, is in Yucatán. A further seventeen states sit at Level 2.
Is Cancún safe?
Quintana Roo, which contains Cancún, is at Level 2, exercise increased caution — the same level as Mexico City and much of the country. The advisory language focuses on crime in areas away from the tourist zones and after dark rather than the resort and residential districts where most foreigners live.
Why is Jalisco rated worse than Quintana Roo?
Jalisco is at Level 3 largely because of organized crime across a large and varied state, including areas well away from Guadalajara. State-level ratings cover the whole territory, so a city can be considerably safer in practice than the state rating implies. Read the municipality-level detail rather than the headline number.
Do advisories change?
Yes, and states move between levels. The State Department reissues the Mexico advisory periodically, so check the live page at travel.state.gov before making decisions. Other governments — Canada, the UK, Australia — publish their own assessments, which sometimes differ.
Sources
- US Department of State, Mexico Travel Advisory, state-by-state levels, reissued May 2026.
- Levels above checked August 2026. Advisories are revised without notice — confirm at travel.state.gov before relying on them.
