“Embrace It” Tourist Tax 2026
If you’re flying into Los Cabos, La Paz or Loreto this year, there’s a small piece of pre-trip paperwork worth handling before you ever reach the airport. Baja California Sur’s visitor contribution — branded “Embrace It” — continues in 2026, and the amount ticked up at the start of the year.
It’s a minor expense, but it’s the kind of detail that can cause a frustrating delay if you arrive unaware. Here’s the plain-English version.
What it is and what it costs
The Embrace It contribution is a state visitor fee that Baja California Sur introduced in 2025 and confirmed for 2026. As of January 1, 2026, the fee rose from 470 to 488 Mexican pesos per person — roughly $25 USD, depending on the exchange rate.
The state is candid about where the money goes: environmental protection, tourism infrastructure improvements, and social and cultural projects meant to keep the destination sustainable for future visitors. Given how much pressure record tourism has put on Baja Sur’s beaches, reefs and small towns, a conservation-linked fee is increasingly common across the region and beyond.
Who has to pay
The fee applies to international visitors aged 12 and older who stay in the state for more than 24 hours, whether you arrive by air through Los Cabos (SJD), Cabo San Lucas, La Paz or Loreto, or overland via a land border crossing. Day-trippers staying under 24 hours generally fall outside the requirement.
How to pay — the easy way
The simplest approach is to pay online before you travel at the official portal, embraceit.bcs.gob.mx. The process takes a couple of minutes:
- Enter passport details, an email address and your travel dates for each traveler over 12. You can register up to nine people in a single transaction.
- The site calculates your total automatically based on the number of travelers.
- Pay with any major credit card.
- Save the electronic certificate with its unique QR code that the system generates.
Hold onto that QR code. Authorities can request proof of payment on a random basis at airports and ports of entry, and having it ready on your phone is far easier than sorting it out on arrival. Payment can also be made upon arrival, but doing it in advance avoids lines and any confusion at a busy terminal.
A note on the confusion
Reporting around the fee has been muddier than it needs to be — different outlets have cited different amounts and rules, partly because the program is still young and partly because Baja California Sur and the neighboring state of Baja California have separate systems. The detail that matters: if your destination is in Baja California Sur (Los Cabos, La Paz, Todos Santos, Loreto), the official site above is your single source of truth, and $25 per adult is the figure to budget for in 2026.
The bottom line
For the price of a couple of fish tacos, you clear a requirement that funds the beaches and lagoons you came to enjoy. Pay online, screenshot the QR code, and you’ve turned a potential arrival headache into a non-event. It’s the kind of small prep step that separates a smooth Baja trip from a stressful one.