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The four questions · 1 of 4

What does it cost to open a factory in Mexico?

It depends first on the route you take in. Under a shelter you don't set up a Mexican company at all; with your own company, one operator's estimate is USD 250,000 to 500,000 to start a 200-person plant, before the machines.

The short answer

Most first plants in Mexico start one of two ways. Under a shelter, a Mexican operator employs your people, holds the import program and files the taxes, while you run production. You form no company, so there's no set-up of that kind to pay for; you pay the operator a fee instead. American Industries Group, a shelter operator, puts that fee at 5% to 8% of operating costs (Apr 2026, its own figure).

With your own Mexican company, you carry the set-up yourself. The same operator puts the one-time start-up at USD 250,000 to 500,000 for a plant of 50,000 square feet (about 4,600 m²) with 200 workers, before production equipment. Workstations and equipment set-up add USD 500 to 2,000 a person, or USD 100,000 to 400,000 for 200 people. It adds that overruns of 20% to 40% above the first estimate are common, and it advises a contingency of 10% to 15% of the first year's operating budget, whichever route you take.

Your own company, 200 workers: the money before the first part

USD thousands, low and high end of one operator's range; bar at the high end

Your own company, 200 workers: the money before the first partOne-time start-up250 to 500Workstations, set-up100 to 400Together350 to 900
Source: American Industries Group, 6 Apr 2026

The shelter grew out of the maquiladora, the plant that brings in materials duty-free, transforms them and exports the result. Mexico's border industrialization program behind it began in 1965 (Wikipedia, Maquiladora). Today the same idea runs under IMMEX, the program for export manufacturing.

What moves the number

People. From 1 Jan 2026 the minimum wage is 315.04 pesos a day in most of the country and 440.87 pesos in the northern border free zone (CONASAMI). On top of pay, the employer's legal load (social security, the housing fund, the year-end bonus, the vacation premium, profit sharing and the state payroll tax) adds about 35% to 40%, by the same operator's estimate. The page on the worker rules sets out each item.

The building. Most foreign plants rent inside an industrial park, quoted in USD per square meter a month. The page on industrial rent has the market figures.

Parts from outside North America. From 1 Jan 2026 Mexico raised its general import duties by 5% to 50% on 1,463 tariff lines from countries without a trade agreement with it, China, South Korea and India among them (Diario Oficial, 29 Dec 2025, as Foley & Lardner set it out). IMMEX doesn't wipe this out: under the USMCA, relief on what a plant re-exports to the USA or Canada is capped, and a plant may owe some or all of the Mexican duty. PROSEC, the sector promotion program, can lower it on some inputs. Check your bill of materials line by line.

Waiting. Every month between signing the lease and the first shipment is paid for. The page on time to production gives the months.

Where the book goes deeper

Cover of Making It in Mexico, Book 3 of The Economics of Mexico, by J Rutan Flores
The Economics of Mexico

Making It in Mexico

Chapter 3: The Real Cost, and the Forgotten Costs
Chapter 6: The Five Routes Compared

Chapter 3 builds a plant's cost line by line: labor with every legal charge, rent, power, freight, the shelter fee, and the costs newcomers forget. Chapter 6 compares the five routes in, from the contract manufacturer to a plant of your own.

See the book

Your own numbers

These are market figures, and some are an operator's own estimates. What your plant will cost, and when it can ship, depends on your product, your route and your place.

Every engagement starts in writing. Write to info@rutanamex.com; we sign an NDA before you share anything, and we do not charge to look at your paperwork. The fee for the work is quoted in writing before it begins.

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The four questions every buyer asks first

Sources

Every source was read on 11 Nov 2026. A figure is as of the date its source gives.