What is your REPSE number?
It should arrive immediately, not after a call with a manager. The registry is public and verification takes minutes. Ours is STPS/UTD/DGIFT/AR153245/2024.
Most of what is written about this was written before 2021, and the rules changed completely that year. This page covers what the reform changed, why one registration decides whether your invoices are deductible, what a worker really costs once you load it properly, and the six questions worth asking any provider before you sign. We sell this service, so read it with that in mind. We have still tried to write the version we would want to read.
Outsourcing specialized services is legal. Outsourcing generic personnel is not. Mexico's labor reform of April 2021 banned the subcontracting of personnel for activities that form part of the client's own corporate purpose, and restricted external staffing to specialized services delivered by companies holding an active REPSE registration with the Ministry of Labor. So the real question is never "can we outsource to Mexico". It is two narrower ones: does the specific service qualify as specialized and distinct from what your company does, and is the provider registered. Both are answerable before you sign, and both are frequently skipped.
If you are reading advice that does not mention REPSE, it predates the reform and should be discarded.
The practical consequence is that the compliance question moved upstream into procurement. It is no longer something your Mexican subsidiary sorts out after the fact. Whoever signs the supplier contract is now the person who decides whether the invoices will be deductible.
Base salary is roughly half the picture. The fully loaded cost adds social security and housing fund contributions, the statutory work risk premium tied to how your activity is classified, mandatory benefits including the year-end bonus and the vacation premium, and profit sharing exposure. In industrial corridors it also includes attendance bonuses, transport and canteen, which are discretionary on paper and effectively required in practice to retain anyone. A quote presented as base salary plus a flat percentage is an estimate, not a budget, and the gap usually shows up in month two as turnover.
Two variables move that number more than negotiating does. Your risk classification determines the work risk premium and derives from the activity you actually perform. And location sets the market rate far more than any salary survey: in a corridor where four plants are recruiting the same profile within a short drive, whoever runs the transport route sets the price.
Including us. A provider who hesitates on any of these is telling you something useful.
It should arrive immediately, not after a call with a manager. The registry is public and verification takes minutes. Ours is STPS/UTD/DGIFT/AR153245/2024.
SISUB and ICSOEX acknowledgements. A registration that exists but whose filings lapsed is a registration on its way to being cancelled, and your deductibility goes with it.
Ask them to explain why for your specific case, not to reassure you. If the activity is part of your own corporate purpose, the answer may be no, and a provider who says so is protecting you.
If the answer names a company other than the one you are talking to, you are buying through a layer. That may be fine, but you should know it before signing rather than during a dispute.
Not the salary. The total including contributions, risk premium, statutory benefits and the local benefits that profile expects. Ask for it written out line by line.
Dismissal in Mexico is more demanding than in the United States or Canada. Establish before signing whether the process, the calculation and the exposure sit with the provider or bounce back to you.
If the activity you want to contract is your business, the structure does not apply and no provider can make it apply. A software company cannot outsource software development as a specialized service distinct from its own corporate purpose. Trying to force it is how companies end up with a reclassification problem.
If you need one remote employee and nothing else, a global platform is probably cheaper in total effort than contracting a local firm, and the margin buys you a console you can run yourself.
And if your plan depends on the labor being dramatically cheaper than the offshore alternative, check the fully loaded numbers before you commit. Nearshoring to Mexico wins on overlap and proximity. It is usually cheaper than hiring locally in the United States, and usually not cheaper than offshoring further away.
Ask whether it fits your casePlant and field crews, technical teams, back office, seasonal capacity, market entry.
The activity that defines your business. It cannot be a specialized service distinct from itself.
A single remote hire. Often simpler through a platform than through a firm.
Any plan whose business case rests on the labor being dramatically cheaper.
We will tell you whether it qualifies, what it would really cost loaded, and how long it takes. Including when the honest answer is that the structure does not fit your case.