Payroll outsourcing · 20 years in Mexico · PwC-audited
Payroll Outsourcing and Administration in Mexico
In Mexico a payroll mistake is not an administrative problem, it is a tax problem. Every payslip has to be stamped as a CFDI to be deductible, contributions are self-determined and filed through SUA, income tax withholding follows tables that change, and state payroll tax runs on its own rules in each of the eight states we operate in. None of it is reviewed by a person: the SAT and IMSS cross-check what you filed against what you stamped, and the discrepancy finds you. We have run payroll outsourcing in Mexico for twenty years, with PwC-audited processes and a written guarantee — Zero Errors or We Pay the Fine.
Quote my Mexican payroll
Tell us about your operation. A bilingual specialist replies within one business day — by email or WhatsApp, your choice.
Prefer a call? 800 9000 001 (Mexico) · WhatsApp +52 657 101 0544 · luis@staffing-people.com
Manufacturers whose people we recruit, manage and pay in Mexico
What we run
What payroll administration in Mexico includes
Payroll outsourcing in Mexico does not move your people anywhere: they stay on your entity and remain your employees. We take over the calculation, the stamping and the filings — and you see every run in real time, before it is paid, not in a report a month later.
Gross-to-net, every cycle
Weekly, biweekly or monthly runs: ordinary and overtime hours, Sunday and holiday premiums, attendance and productivity bonuses, absences, loans and garnishments, with the ISR withholding and employment subsidy of the current tables.
Payslip stamping
Every payslip issued as a payroll CFDI and stamped through an authorised provider, with the catalogues the SAT requires for each concept — the step that turns your payroll into a deductible expense.
SUA, IMSS and INFONAVIT
Enrolments, terminations and salary changes filed on time, bimonthly and monthly contributions determined in SUA, work-risk premium recalculated annually, and the INFONAVIT credit deductions the institute orders.
Payroll tax, state by state
The state payroll tax is a local tax: the rate, the return and the filing calendar are not the same in Chihuahua as in Nuevo León or Querétaro. We file where you have people, on each state’s rules.
Statutory calculations
Aguinaldo, vacation and vacation premium under the 2023 reform, profit sharing (PTU) with its caps, savings funds and food vouchers with the tax treatment each one carries.
Severance and terminations
Finiquito and liquidación calculated correctly the first time, with the documentation that closes the file and the CFDI concepts that keep the payment deductible.
The mechanism nobody explains
Why deductibility hangs on the CFDI stamp
Most providers list “CFDI stamping” as a bullet. It deserves a paragraph, because it is where Mexican payroll compliance stops being an HR chore and becomes a tax exposure.
In Mexico an expense is deductible only if it is backed by a valid digital invoice, and wages are no exception: each payslip is issued as a payroll CFDI and stamped by an authorised certification provider, which returns it with a fiscal folio. That stamped document is the proof. Stamp it late, stamp it with the wrong concept catalogue, or fail to cancel and re-issue when a figure changes, and the deduction behind it is exposed — along with the credit for the contributions built on the same numbers.
The second half is that nothing here is reviewed by hand. The tax authority already holds every CFDI you stamped, and it reconciles them against your returns and against what IMSS shows for the same people. A salary base that disagrees with the stamped payslips, a termination filed in one system and not the other, an employee still enrolled after leaving — these surface as automated discrepancies, months later, with interest attached.
Which is why the honest question to ask a payroll provider is not whether they stamp. It is what happens when they get it wrong. See everything we run in Mexico on our workforce solutions hub.
“Zero Errors or We Pay the Fine”
Our guarantee on the payroll we process, in writing and in the contract: if a filing or calculation error of ours triggers a penalty from the SAT, IMSS or INFONAVIT, we pay the penalty. Not a credit note against next month’s fee — the fine.
We can offer it because the payroll is processed in-house by people we employ, under processes audited by PwC. It is not a marketing line; it is the reason the process is built the way it is.
How it works
From your current provider to a clean first run
1 · Diagnostic
We review your current payroll: headcount, structure, benefits above the statutory minimum, contribution base salaries and what has been filed. Migrations usually surface something, and it is better found now than by an auditor.
2 · Parallel run
We process a full cycle alongside your current provider and reconcile the two to the peso. Nothing switches over until the numbers agree and you have seen why any difference exists.
3 · Cutover
We take over the calendar, the stamping and the filings, with your calendar and your approval step before any payment goes out. Your team keeps the final say on every run.
4 · Operate and evidence
Each cycle closes with the compliance evidence — stamped payslips, contribution filings, state payroll tax returns — delivered with the invoice, not gathered at year end when someone asks.
Who we do it for
Operations we process payroll for
The hardest payroll in Mexico: multiple shifts, overtime and premiums, attendance schemes, high turnover and constant enrolments and terminations. It is where we started and where most of our volume still is.
Plants or branches in more than one state, where the payroll tax rate, the return and the calendar change with the state line.
You already incorporated, and you would rather not build a payroll and compliance department to run behind it. Reporting in the format your corporate uses, in English.
Migrations from an accountant or a small provider, where the first job is to find what has been filed and what has not.
Compliance
What to verify before handing over your payroll
Payroll administration is a professional service. If your people stay on your entity and we only calculate, stamp and file, you are not contracting personnel and you remain the employer. What you are buying is process quality and the liability behind it.
REPSE enters when personnel do. The moment a provider supplies people who work for you, that is a specialized service under Mexico’s 2021 labor reform and the provider must hold an active REPSE registration with the Ministry of Labor. Contracting an unregistered one makes your company jointly liable for wages and contributions and can make the invoices non-deductible, with fines from 2,000 to 50,000 UMA per infringement. We hold that registration, which is what lets us also employ your people under EOR / PEO or staff your plant directly when that is what you need.
Either way, ask for three things before signing: who stamps your CFDIs and under which authorisation, what the provider’s liability is when a filing is wrong, and whether the monthly compliance evidence comes with the invoice or on request. Spanish reading: maquila de nómina.
Coverage
Nationwide, with consolidated operations — and local payroll tax knowledge — in eight states.
Cost
What drives the cost of payroll services in Mexico
Payroll services in Mexico are quoted per employee per month. We do not publish a rate card, because the work behind the number varies more than buyers expect:
- Headcount and pay frequency. A weekly plant payroll is four times the cycles of a monthly office payroll.
- Complexity of the payroll itself. Shift differentials, overtime, attendance and productivity schemes and union agreements add rules to every calculation.
- Turnover. Enrolments, terminations and severance calculations are the highest-effort transactions in Mexican payroll.
- Number of states. Each one adds a payroll tax return with its own rate and calendar.
- Benefits above the statutory minimum, each with its own tax treatment.
- Condition of the starting point. A clean migration and one that has to be reconstructed are not the same project.
The comparison worth running is the fee against what you spend today on payroll staff, software and the accountant who reviews it — and against the cost of one filing error that nobody catches for a year.
FAQ
Payroll in Mexico: frequently asked questions
What is the difference between payroll outsourcing in Mexico and an EOR?
What exactly is CFDI payroll stamping and why does it matter?
How does the “Zero Errors or We Pay the Fine” guarantee work?
Can you take over payroll for plants in more than one state?
How long does a migration take?
Do we lose control or visibility of our own payroll?
Is payroll outsourcing in Mexico legal after the 2021 reform?
Get your Mexican payroll quoted, and your current one reviewed
Send us headcount, states and pay frequency. You get an itemized quote for payroll outsourcing in Mexico and an honest read on what the diagnostic is likely to find — from the founder, in English, the same business day.