How Much Is a Flight to Mexico? (2026 Data)

How much is a flight to Mexico? For most travelers the answer starts with Cancun, the country's busiest airport on US routes, where a round trip from the US averages $514¹ over the past 12 months. Across nine Mexican cities, average round trips run from $413² to Monterrey to $672³ to Veracruz, and the month you fly can move the typical fare by more than the choice of city.

Demand has never been higher: nonstop flights between the two countries carried 40,527,947⁴ passengers in 2025, the most in 36⁵ years of records. Below: fares for each city by month, weekday and US departure city, flight times, the busiest routes and airlines, and the roughly $194.28⁵ of government taxes and fees built into a round trip via Cancun.

The average fare to Mexico in 2026

There is no single price for Mexico: each airport has its own market, and the gap between the cheapest and the dearest of the nine cities below is $259⁵ per round trip. All figures are averages of round-trip prices seen over the past 12 months from any US airport, so they mix nonstop and connecting trips and include taxes.

How much is a flight to Cancun?

A round trip to Cancun averages $514¹. January has the lowest median fare, $453¹, while December ($563¹) and August ($541¹) are the priciest months. Cancun is also the cheapest of the big beach airports to reach, below Los Cabos ($569⁶) and Puerto Vallarta ($581⁷).

How much is a flight to Mexico City?

The capital averages $495⁸ round trip, a little below Cancun. Its cheapest month is September, with a median of $433⁸, and its dearest is December at $669⁸. The time of departure matters too: night departures average $433⁸ and morning departures $603⁸, a $170⁵ difference.

How much is a flight to Cabo?

Los Cabos, served by San Jose del Cabo airport, averages $569⁶. It is the only one of the nine cities whose priciest month is June ($624⁶); January is the cheapest at $499⁶. The table below lists the cheapest and the two priciest months for every city; these monthly figures are medians of all round-trip prices seen for each month, with the top 0.1% removed.⁶

How much is a flight to Puerto Vallarta?

Puerto Vallarta has the highest average of the five busiest airports, $581⁷, and even its cheapest month, January, has a median of $537⁷. December is the dearest at $653⁷.

How much is a flight to Guadalajara, Mexico?

Guadalajara averages $423⁹, and in September its median round trip drops to $353⁹, the third-lowest monthly median of the nine cities. In December the median rises to $605⁹.

How much is a flight to Monterrey, Mexico?

Monterrey, the industrial north's main airport, is the cheapest city on the list at $413². January has a median of $305², the lowest monthly median on this page, and the December median is $580², $275⁵ more. Beyond the month, the weekday and the hour of departure shift fares as well, as the next table shows for every city.

Oaxaca, Veracruz and Tijuana

Smaller airports cost more. As for how much is a flight to Oaxaca, Mexico, the round trip averages $650¹⁰, with a September median of $588¹⁰ and a December median of $826¹⁰. The answer to how much is a flight to Veracruz, Mexico is the highest of the nine: $672³ on average, with December's median at $844³. Nonstop service is thin: in 2025 Veracruz had regular nonstop flights only from Houston (725⁴ flights) and Dallas/Fort Worth (722⁴), and Oaxaca from Dallas/Fort Worth (862⁴), Houston (809⁴) and Los Angeles (470⁴); every other US airport had three flights or fewer to either city all year.

And how much is a flight to Tijuana, Mexico? About $492¹¹ round trip, with a September median of $344¹¹; Tijuana is the one city where May, not December, is the priciest month ($535¹¹).

The cheapest time to fly to Mexico

Start with the calendar. December is the priciest month for seven of the nine cities,^{1 8 6 7 9 2 10 3 11} and the gap between a city's cheapest and priciest month reaches $281⁵ in Veracruz and $238⁵ in Oaxaca. The cheapest months split into two groups: January for Cancun, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta, Monterrey and Veracruz, and September for Mexico City, Guadalajara, Oaxaca and Tijuana.^{1 8 6 7 9 2 10 3 11}

The day of the week matters less. At Cancun, Tuesday departures average $513¹ and Thursday departures $562¹, a $49⁵ gap. Thursday is the cheapest day for Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey and Veracruz, while Tuesday is cheapest for the three beach airports.^{8 9 2 3 1 6 7} The hour matters more often: afternoon flights are the cheapest for seven of the nine cities, and morning flights the dearest for seven.^{1 8 6 7 9 2 10 3 11}

Booking early pays on most routes, but the best window differs by city. Cancun fares are lowest about 3 weeks¹ before departure, Mexico City's about 13 weeks⁸ ahead and Monterrey's 24 weeks² ahead. Last-minute trips, booked within two weeks of departure, are not always dearer: they run 9%⁹ above the average at Guadalajara but 8%² below it at Monterrey.

Traffic has its own calendar. On nonstop flights between the two countries, December 2025 was the busiest month with 3,928,005⁴ passengers and September the quietest with 2,312,867⁴, so the peak month carried 1.70⁵ times as many people. March came close to the December peak at 3,918,998⁴.

Flights from your part of the US

Where you start matters as much as where you land. From the cities with the most nonstop service to Mexico, averages run well below the all-airport figures above.

So how much is a flight from Texas to Mexico? From San Antonio, round trips average $302⁸ to Mexico City, $278² to Monterrey and $411⁷ to Puerto Vallarta. For Dallas travelers wondering how much is a flight from DFW to Ciudad de Mexico, the lowest good-deal round trip to Mexico City from Dallas/Fort Worth was $296⁸, and the cheapest fare found from Dallas in the past five days was $280⁸.

On the West Coast, the question of how much is a flight from Los Angeles to Mexico has five answers on this page: Los Angeles round trips average $322¹¹ to Tijuana, $343⁹ to Guadalajara, $429³ to Veracruz, $443⁶ to Los Cabos and $469¹⁰ to Oaxaca.

East of the Mississippi, the Florida airports lead. How much is a flight from Florida to Mexico? Orlando round trips to Cancun average $391¹, and the average roundtrip flight price from Miami to Cancun is $402¹, both more than $100 below the all-airport Cancun average.

New York is farther and pricier. As for how much is a flight ticket from New York to Mexico, the cheapest round trips found from New York in the past five days were $330¹ to Cancun, $487¹⁰ to Oaxaca and $527³ to Veracruz. These are single low fares, not averages. The table below shows the fare below which a round trip counts among the cheapest 25% of prices seen, and the lowest such fares by departure city.¹

How long the flight to Mexico takes

For the average flight time from the US to Mexico, the departure city decides: nonstop flights run from 1 hour 50 minutes¹, New Orleans to Cancun, to 5 hours 45 minutes⁸, Boston to Mexico City. From the big hubs in Texas and the Southwest, most beach and city airports are two to four hours away. From the Northeast, Cancun is under four hours from Washington and Philadelphia,¹ while nonstops from New York to Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos and from Boston to Mexico City take about 5 hours 20 minutes to 5 hours 45 minutes.^{7 6 8}

For the West Coast's most popular beach run, the average flight time from Los Angeles to Cabo San Lucas is about two and a half hours: a nonstop listed from Los Angeles takes 2 hours 33 minutes⁶ to San Jose del Cabo and 2 hours 35 minutes⁶ back. Cabo San Lucas itself is served by San Jose del Cabo airport.

How many people fly between the US and Mexico

Mexico is one of the busiest international air markets for the US. In 2025, 40,527,947⁴ passengers flew nonstop between US and Mexican airports, counting both directions and every nationality: 31.4%⁵ more than in 2019 and 4.20⁵ times the 9,653,222⁴ of 1990. The pandemic cut traffic to 14,063,281⁴ in 2020, 45.6%⁵ of the 2019 level, and by 2022 it was already above the old peak. Growth has slowed since: 2025 was only 0.6%⁵ above 2024.

A straight line fitted to 1990-2025, leaving out 2020 and 2021, reaches about 55.5 million⁵ passengers in 2050. It is our calculation, not a forecast, and assumes the airports and the airlines keep adding capacity at the pace of the last 35 years.

Flights grew more slowly than passengers. There were 312,058⁴ nonstop passenger flights in 2025, about 855⁵ a day, 20.6%⁵ more than in 2019 and 3.06⁵ times the 1990 count. The average flight carried 129.9⁵ passengers in 2025, against 119.2⁵ in 2019 and 94.5⁵ in 1990. Since 1990 the gain came mostly from fuller planes: seats per flight barely moved, from 158⁵ to 164⁵, while the share of seats filled rose from 59.8%⁵ to 79.2%⁵; since 2019 the planes have also grown, from 144⁵ to 164⁵ seats per flight.

Seats tell the same story from the airlines' side. Airlines offered 51,184,725⁴ seats on these flights in 2025, 37.5%⁵ more than in 2019. Passengers filled 79.2%⁵ of them, against 82.8%⁵ in 2019, so capacity has grown faster than demand since 2019. The same trend fit reaches about 435 thousand⁵ flights a year by 2050, also our calculation and not a forecast.

Airports, routes and airlines

Which Mexican airports get the most US flights?

Cancun is in a league of its own. It handled 11,542,861⁴ passengers on US flights in 2025, 28.5%⁵ of the total, more than Mexico City (8,633,374⁴) and 2.1⁵ times Guadalajara (5,581,465⁴). The five busiest airports carried 80.2%⁵ of all passengers, spread across 47⁴ Mexican airports with at least some US service. Tulum ranks tenth, with 489,290⁴ passengers.

By state, Quintana Roo, home to Cancun, Tulum, Cozumel and Chetumal, leads with 12,366,557⁵ passengers, ahead of Mexico City (8,633,374⁵) and Jalisco, with Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta (8,243,873⁵). 28⁵ of Mexico's 32 states had an airport with US flights.

Which US airports fly the most people to Mexico?

Dallas/Fort Worth is the biggest US gateway, with 5,056,330⁴ passengers to and from Mexico in 2025, 12.5%⁵ of the total. Los Angeles and Houston follow, and the top three together handled 33.4%⁵. Texas alone has two of the top three, and California two of the top 10.

The busiest routes

The single busiest route is not a beach run. Los Angeles-Guadalajara carried 1,099,191⁴ passengers in 2025, about 3,011⁵ a day, narrowly ahead of Dallas/Fort Worth-Cancun at 1,085,225⁴. Mexico City appears five times in the top 10, Cancun four times. 669⁴ airport pairs had passengers in 2025.

Which airlines carry the most passengers?

American Airlines carried the most passengers between the two countries in 2025, 7,363,559⁴ or 18.2%⁵, followed by the Mexican low-cost airline Volaris with 6,710,745⁴ (16.6%⁵). The five largest US airlines together carried 54.4%⁵ of passengers and the three largest Mexican airlines 32.5%⁵. Regional partners that fly under a big airline's brand are counted under their own names in the other group.

Mexico's busiest airports in 2026

Mexico's own airport statistics count every passenger, domestic and international, so they show the full size of each airport. In January-July 2026, Mexico City handled 25,982.6 thousand¹² passengers, 1.2%¹² more than a year earlier, and Cancun 17,245.7 thousand¹², 5.2%¹² fewer. Puerto Vallarta fell the most, 12.3%¹², while the new Felipe Angeles airport north of the capital and Merida grew by 8.7%¹² and 7.0%¹². Across all airports, traffic was 0.2%¹² lower than in January-July 2025.

Taxes and fees inside a Mexico ticket

Every fare above already includes a layer of government charges, collected by the airline and passed on. On a nonstop round trip from the US to Cancun, Mexico City or Los Cabos, the American side charges the international departure and arrival taxes of $23.40¹³ each and the September 11 Security Fee of $5.60¹⁴ once, on the leg that starts in the US. Three fees apply on the way home: customs ($7.39¹⁵), immigration ($7.00¹⁶) and agricultural inspection ($3.84¹⁷). The US departure airport adds a Passenger Facility Charge of up to $4.50¹⁸ per boarding.¹⁹ A nonstop round trip has one US boarding, so it pays it once, while a connection in the US adds a second one.

Together that is $75.13⁵ today. Two fees change on October 1, 2026: customs rises to $7.61²⁰ and agricultural inspection to $3.98¹⁷ for tickets bought from that date, which lifts the US total to $75.49⁵.

Monterrey and Tijuana are different. They lie within 225 miles²¹ of the US border, and flights between the US and that zone pay the domestic-style 7.5%²¹ ticket tax and the per-segment tax instead of the two $23.40 taxes, so the totals below do not apply to them.

Mexico's charges are almost as large. The entry document fee for foreign visitors, 983 pesos²² in 2026, is collected by the airline inside the ticket for foreign visitors arriving by air (Mexican citizens do not pay it), and a second federal fee of 231.55 pesos²² applies when leaving Mexico on an international flight. At 17.2454 pesos²³ per dollar that is $57.00⁵ and $13.43⁵, together $70.43⁵, close to the whole US bundle.

On top comes the airport-use fee (TUA) charged at the Mexican airport you fly home from, which differs by airport. The airports publish it before the 16%²⁴ value-added tax (IVA) that the airline adds in the ticket.^{25 26} Cancun's international rate is $42.00²⁵, or $48.72⁵ with IVA, the amount airlines charge.²⁷ Mexico City's is 992.254 pesos²⁶ in September 2026, 1,151.01 pesos⁵ with IVA, about $66.74⁵.

Mexico City's fee is set in pesos every month from a dollar-based tariff, so it moves with the exchange rate. The chart shows the published rates, before IVA. In 2026 the international rate has ranged from 971.523 pesos²⁶ in March to 1,030.045 pesos²⁶ in April, and the domestic rate from 511.691 pesos²⁶ to 542.418 pesos²⁶.

Added up, the fixed charges on a nonstop round trip come to about $194.28⁵ via Cancun and $212.30⁵ via Mexico City. Because the fares above already include them, they are a share of the price, not an extra: 37.8%⁵ of the Cancun average and 42.9%⁵ of the Mexico City average.

What these numbers mean for your trip

For a family of four, the Cancun average adds up to about $2,056⁵ in round-trip fares, of which roughly $777.12⁵ is taxes and fees that no sale can remove. The rest depends on choices. Flying from a nearby hub helps most: Orlando and Miami round trips to Cancun average $123⁵ and $112⁵ less than the all-airport figure. Picking the right month helps next: a January trip to Cancun has a median of $453¹ against $563¹ in December.

How Mexico compares with other beach destinations

Against its Caribbean rivals, Cancun is mid-priced. A round trip to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic averages $571²⁸ over the past 12 months, $57⁵ more than Cancun. Jamaica's average, $490²⁹, is lower, but it covers prices found in the last month only, so it is not a like-for-like comparison.

Conclusions

1. Mexico is many markets, not one price. Average round trips run from $413² to Monterrey to $672³ to Veracruz, and Cancun, the busiest airport, sits in the middle at $514¹.
2. The three busiest airports cost less than the small ones. Cancun, Mexico City and Guadalajara together handled 63.6%⁵ of US passengers in 2025, and all three average less than the smaller airports of Oaxaca and Veracruz.
3. Timing beats city choice. The cheapest month can save $281⁵ on a Veracruz round trip, more than the $259⁵ spread between the cheapest and the dearest city.
4. More than a third of a Cancun fare is fixed. Government taxes and fees of $194.28⁵ are 37.8%⁵ of the average round trip for a foreign visitor, and Mexico's two federal fees alone ($70.43⁵) nearly match the US bundle.
5. Demand is at a record, but growth has slowed. 40,527,947⁴ passengers flew nonstop in 2025, only 0.6%⁵ more than in 2024, while seats grew faster than passengers.