Eleven municipalities, three rates: the property acquisition tax in Quintana Roo, one by one

If you look up how much property acquisition tax you pay when buying in Quintana Roo, the answer you will find almost everywhere is 2%.

That number is wrong for any municipality where you are likely to be buying. And the interesting part is that it is not wrong through carelessness: it is wrong for a structural reason that explains why the error keeps repeating.

We will show you where the 2% comes from, what the real rate is in each municipality, and why the difference can cost you tens of thousands of pesos.

Where the 2% comes from

There is a state law called the Ley del Impuesto Sobre Adquisición de Bienes Inmuebles de los Municipios del Estado de Quintana Roo, the state statute on the tax for acquiring real property. Its artículo 9 says the tax is calculated by applying a rate of 2% to the value of the property.

That law is still in force. It was not repealed. If you look it up, you find it, and it says 2%.

What almost nobody reads is its artículo 1, which is where the detail lives. The law does not apply across the whole state: it is of general observance only in the municipalities of Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Lázaro Cárdenas. Two, out of eleven.

It was not always two. Artículo 1 has been amended five times, and every amendment does the same thing: cross off the list whichever municipality has just issued its own Ley de Hacienda, its municipal revenue law. Decreto 033 in December 2016, decreto 289 in December 2018, decreto 023 in December 2019, decreto 080 in December 2020 and decreto 201 in December 2021. The state Congress has been removing them one by one, as each city council takes the tax into its own legislation and sets whatever rate it decides.

So it is not a residual rule that applies by default to whoever has not legislated. It is a list being trimmed.

And of the two that remain, one has its own law saying something else. Felipe Carrillo Puerto issued its Ley de Hacienda in December 2024 and set 3% there, without anyone having removed it yet from artículo 1 of the state law. Which means the figure that dominates the internet applies cleanly in exactly one municipality out of eleven: Lázaro Cárdenas.

When a website publishes "the acquisition tax in Quintana Roo is 2%", it is citing a real law that is genuinely in force. It is just citing the one that governs two municipalities where you are almost certainly not buying.

That is the mechanism. And it explains why the figure survives for so many years: whoever checks it finds legal backing, takes it as good, and never gets to artículo 1.

The real rates

These are all eleven, each one checked against the statute that sets it. The Fundamento column is left in Spanish on purpose: it is what you would type into a search box or read out to a municipal treasury over the phone.

Three municipalities at 4%, five at 3%, three at 2%. And three of those cases deserve a line of their own.

Bacalar is at 2%, but not because of the state law. Its own Ley de Hacienda sets that rate in artículo 57, on the highest of the agreed price, the cadastral value and the appraisal. It is the case worth keeping in mind, because it shows that the rate and the statute that sets it are different things: matching the state 2% does not mean being under the state regime, and the day Bacalar moves its law, it moves without touching a word of the state one.

Felipe Carrillo Puerto has two laws in force that contradict each other. Artículo 1 of the state law still names it, with its 2%, while its own Ley de Hacienda from December 2024 sets 3% in artículo 29. Which one prevails is not settled by reading both. If you are buying there, calling the municipal treasury before signing is not advisable: it is mandatory.

Lázaro Cárdenas is the only place where 2% is the clean, correct answer. Its Ley de Hacienda, amended in December 2025, has no chapter on the acquisition tax at all: its taxes title covers property tax, entertainment and vehicles, and nothing else. That is why it is still named in artículo 1 of the state law, and why artículo 9 applies to it.

What this means in money

The gap between what circulates and what is charged is not symbolic.

On a property of 6 million pesos, buying in Playa del Carmen at the real 4% instead of the 2% many sources advertise is 120 mil pesos more than you had budgeted. On one of 12 million, 240 mil.

And there is a second factor almost nobody explains: the tax is not calculated on the price you paid. It is calculated on the highest of three figures: the transaction price adjusted for inflation, the cadastral appraisal and the commercial appraisal.

If the appraisal comes in above the agreed price, the base goes up and so does the tax. This is normal and it is in the law, but it catches a lot of people by surprise at the signing table.

Three recent changes worth keeping in mind

Playa del Carmen went from 3% to 4% on December 10, 2025. Before 2020 it was at 2%. So this municipality doubled its rate in six years, in two moves.

The municipality of Solidaridad is now called Playa del Carmen. It sounds like trivia, but it has a practical effect: if you search for "Ley de Hacienda de Solidaridad" you can land on earlier versions of the statute and read a rate that has already changed.

And Cancún did not follow Playa del Carmen. In the December 2025 round of amendments, Benito Juárez did not move its rate. It stayed at 3%. A good reminder that these municipalities do not move as a bloc, even when they are neighbors and share a market.

How to check it yourself

This is public, verifiable information, and you do not need to be a lawyer.

Call the treasury of the municipality where the property is. Ask for the rate in force for the impuesto sobre adquisición de bienes inmuebles and the date of the last amendment. They give that out over the phone.

Ask your notario before signing, not on the day of the signing. The notario, the Mexican civil-law notary who formalizes the transaction, calculates and withholds this tax under their own liability, so they know exactly which rate applies. Asking in advance lets you adjust your budget.

Distrust any figure without a date. On this subject the rate changes by decree, and amendments are usually published in the Periódico Oficial del Estado, the state official gazette, in December, though not always: Isla Mujeres moved its article in July 2025. A figure with no reference date is of no use to you.

While preparing this article we found several sources publishing 2% with a 2026 date, including the page of a professional association in the sector. We do not say this to single anyone out: we say it because it shows that not even the sources you would expect to be current are current.

Why we wrote this

Something happened to us while we were working on our analysis of what a fideicomiso costs.

We were about to publish that the rate in Cancún was 4%, because that is what the sources we had consulted said. Checking against the municipal Ley de Hacienda, it turned out to be 3%. On a 10 million peso purchase, that is 100 mil pesos of difference in a figure we were about to publish under our own name.

And it happened again with this article, in the opposite direction. While preparing the table we assumed that Bacalar and José María Morelos, which have had their own Ley de Hacienda for years, would not be at 2%. José María Morelos is indeed at 3%. Bacalar is at 2%, only by its own artículo 57 and not by the state law. It was a reasonable inference and it did not survive the check.

We leave it written here because it says more about how this work gets done than anything we could assert: the distance between an inference and a fact is opening the document.

We corrected it before publishing, both times. But the episode made it clear that the problem is not that the information is hard to get. It is that it circulates unverified, gets copied between sites, and at some point everyone is citing everyone else without anyone having opened the law.

That is why we publish this table with its legal basis alongside. So you can check it, and so that if it ever changes, you know exactly where to go and look.

A note on currency: the rates in this article correspond to the municipal and state legislation consulted in August 2026. Amendments to these statutes are usually published in the Periódico Oficial del Estado in December. Confirm the applicable rate on the date of your transaction.

This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute tax or notarial advice.