When a buyer tells us they have already seen the whole Riviera Maya, it almost always means Playa del Carmen and Tulum. Cozumel gets skipped, and that omission is exactly the case for the island: real demand, very little new supply fighting over it.
We sell here. Our development THE STELLA sits on the west side, with units from 12,400,000 pesos. For this update we read the guides that currently rank for Cozumel. They all explain the fideicomiso well. None states what the municipality charges to acquire a property, none mentions the federal protected natural area covering the north and the eastern coast, and none warns that the twenty metre federal strip of firm land next to the beach is not part of the sale.
What makes an island market different
Cozumel has an economy of its own: the reef diving that made it famous, a cruise port with steady calls, and a community that lives off the island year round.
For an owner that means lodging demand spreads across diving, cruise traffic and the Mexican and North American high seasons, instead of hanging on one of them. And with little new supply, your property is not competing against twenty identical towers two blocks away.
The real logistics of island life
Buying on an island means buying its logistics too:
- The ferry from Playa del Carmen takes about 45 minutes, with several daily crossings, and the island has its own international airport with direct US flights.
- The west side, where San Miguel de Cozumel sits, is sheltered from the prevailing wind. The east side is wild and essentially undeveloped.
- Everything the island consumes crosses by boat, which makes construction more expensive and partly explains why new supply is scarce.
That same cost is the entry barrier protecting the value of what is already built. The monthly cost of living here is broken down in our cost of living guide.
Where to look on the island
Centro, San Miguel. Local life: the market, the malecon. You live without a car, and the typical product is a house or a condo in low-rise buildings.
The northern hotel zone. Along the west coast north of town, next to the island's classic hotels. THE STELLA is there. Do not confuse it with the northern tip of the island, which comes up further down.
Corpus Christi and the residential colonias. Lower entry prices and a more local profile, for buyers who want to live on the island more than rent to tourists.
Cozumel's municipal acquisition tax is 3%
Cozumel has its own municipal revenue law, and that is where the number we did not find in any guide actually lives. Article 28 says it in one line: the acquisition tax is calculated by applying a rate of 3% to the value of the property.
Three per cent. Every municipality in Quintana Roo sets its rate in its own revenue law, so Cozumel's does not match Solidaridad, the municipality of Playa del Carmen, which has charged 4% since December 2025. On a 5,000,000 peso deal that is 150,000. The full tax load is in our tax guide.
Three details from the same chapter that change the arithmetic:
- The base is not the agreed price. Article 27 takes the highest of three values: the price adjusted for inflation, the cadastral appraisal, and an appraisal by a registered valuer or a bank, the last two no more than 180 days old. Deeding below real value does not lower the tax, it raises your risk.
- The deadline is fifteen days from the triggering event (article 29), with the calculation under the notary's responsibility (article 30).
- There are family exemptions. Article 26 does not levy the tax on inheritance between spouses, ascendants and descendants in a direct line, nor on donation between those same parties (fracciones II and III). If you are planning who inherits the island house, those two change the arithmetic.
Buying someone else's trust rights does not avoid the tax
A shortcut circulates: instead of a new deed, I assign you my beneficiary rights in the existing fideicomiso and we skip the tax. The first half of that sentence is true.
Article 24 lists the taxable events and includes, in separate incisos, the transfer made when the trust is created, the one made by the trustee bank when it performs, and the assignment of settlor or beneficiary rights, deemed to exist whenever either one is substituted for any reason. Assigning trust rights is a taxable acquisition. The 3% is due either way; what changes is the notarial work.
If someone sells you that as a tax saving, you already have one warning sign. There are nine more in our real estate fraud guide.
Property tax: a bracket table and a calendar that rewards January
Cozumel's impuesto predial is charged on a bracket schedule. Article 15 sets seven of them by cadastral value, each with a fixed fee plus a factor on the amount above the lower limit. The only reliable figure is the one the municipal treasury issues against your cadastral key. What is useful for budgeting:
- It is paid bimonthly in advance, within the first ten days of January, March, May, July, September and November.
- Paying the full year in a single instalment, article 18 lets the Ayuntamiento grant up to 25% off before 31 January and up to 15% through the last business day of February, subject to its own resolution. The effective percentage is confirmed each year.
- Pensioners, retirees, people with a disability or a card from the INAPAN or the INSEN, as the law names them, may be granted 50% by the Ayuntamiento, provided the year is paid in a single instalment, on a single property that is their own home and up to forty thousand UMA of taxable value.
- In natural disaster emergencies declared by the state executive, the Ayuntamiento may grant stimuli of up to 50%. On a Caribbean island that paragraph gets used.
The northern tip and the eastern coast sit inside a federal protected area
This point decides whether a lot can be developed. The decree of 25 September 2012 declared the northern portion and the eastern coastal fringe of the island, terrestrial and marine, a protected natural area with the character of a flora and fauna protection area: 37,829-17-00.54 hectares, of which 3,872-16-90.41 are core zone and 33,957-00-10.13 buffer.
What that means for anyone buying land there:
- In the terrestrial core zone, changing land use is prohibited (article seven, fraccion I). In the buffer zone, prohibited on surfaces that still hold original ecosystems, along with affecting the mangrove except for protection, restoration, research or conservation works, and modifying the coastline (article ten, fracciones I, III and IX).
- Any public or private work inside must comply with the decree and the management program, and hold prior environmental impact authorisation where applicable (article eleven).
- In the buffer zone, infrastructure for permitted activities goes forty metres behind the first coastal dune ridge, preferably using regional materials (article nine, fraccion VI).
- No new population centres may be authorised (article eighteen).
- Owners and holders inside the polygon are subject to those conditions and bound to respect the management program (article twelve), whose summary was published on 29 October 2015 and is where the fine subzoning lives.
The boundary is described by coordinates on an official map held by Conanp. The only valid check for a lot is against that map, never against a mental picture of where the north begins.
On the waterfront the first twenty metres are not for sale
Article 119 of the Ley General de Bienes Nacionales makes clear something that matters double on an island: it applies on the mainland and on the islands. Where the coast has beaches, the federal maritime land zone is the twenty metre strip of firm, walkable land next to the beach. Semarnat performs the survey.
Beaches and that strip are common-use public property (article 7). Special use requires a concession, allocation, authorisation or permit, and since a 2020 amendment article 8 states that access to the beaches and the adjoining federal zone may not be inhibited, restricted, obstructed or conditioned, except in the cases the regulation establishes. Nobody sells you a private beach, and whoever offers one is selling something that is not theirs.
The municipality requires it in the paperwork. Article 30, fraccion VII, of the revenue law asks that, for sales of property adjoining that zone which use or enjoy it, with or without a concession, the certificate of use or non-use of concession be produced and, where there is one, the no-debt certificate, the last filing and the official receipt. The 2026 revenue budget carries the federal zone on two lines, 28,051,485 pesos from fiscal collaboration and 12,022,065 from the surveillance and cleaning fund. That is where it is collected and administered.
Ask for those documents before signing. The order of the review is in our buying process guide.
Buying in Cozumel as a foreigner
The entire island sits inside the restricted zone, the 50 kilometre coastal strip, so a foreign buyer closes through a bank trust. What rights it gives you and what the permit costs are in our fideicomiso guide. If what you are looking at is pre-construction, check first the warranties federal consumer law obliges the developer to give and the use the condominium regime assigns to the unit, because whether you can rent it by the night depends on that: pre-construction guide.
Who Cozumel is for, and who it is not
It is for you if you want a second home with real calm, if your thesis prefers little competition over lots of noise, or if your life revolves around the sea. It is not for you if you need Quinta Avenida or Tulum's scene ten minutes from your door. That is what the other two markets are for, and we work those too: Playa del Carmen, Tulum or Cozumel.
When we say no
We say no when the plan is to build inside the protected polygon and nobody can show where the lot falls. When the property adjoins the federal zone and nobody produces the certificate. When the number holding up the purchase is a rental projection nobody documents. And when the buyer expects the notary to act as their lawyer: the notary computes the tax under their own responsibility, but reviewing the file is the buyer's job.
If you want to see the island with us, write to us. Available inventory is in properties. This guide is informational and does not replace legal or tax advice.