At the outbreak of the civil war is moved to Valencia, staying at the House of culture. With Gil-Albert, Dieste, Gaya and Sanchez Barbudo, collaborated in the founding of the magazine time in Spain. The Republic sent to the United States in 1937, in mission of cultural propaganda, thence passes to the Aztec capital. Moreno Villa, married Consuelo Nieto, widow of the Mexican diplomat Genaro Estrada. In Mexico publishes numerous poetic books including severe door (1941), the night of the verb (1942), music that wore (1949), and his posthumous voice in flight to its cradle (1961).

Their circumstances of exile in Mexico sprout some of the most accomplished poems of Moreno Villa of all time. There he continues his activity literary and intellectual in La Casa of Spain, then Colegio Mexico, as historian and art critic. Apart from Cornucopia of Mexico (1940), twelve hands Mexican (data for literary history) (1941), Mexican colonial sculpture (1942) and Mexican in the plastic arts (1948), three books his most cited are her interesting autobiography, life in clear (1944), reading, teaching book full of contextual suggestions, and, finally, the authors as actors (1951). Under his direction and the poets Prados and Altolaguirre, Rejano Giner de los Rios, the Malaga Coast Magazine, lived in Mexico, his third time. He collaborates in workshop, directed by Octavio Paz, journal and magazines of Spanish exile, such as Romance, the Spains, overseas, independence and bulletin of the Union of Spanish intellectuals. He also cultivated the painting. Jose Moreno Villa dies in Mexico on April 25, 1955 at 68 years of age the common line of the final poems of the Malaga poet determined by memories and the assumption of the destination itself, is a constant evocation of his native Malaga. His voice had a serene melancholy and nostalgic bitterness: lies your land beyond the water.