How to send money from the US to Mexico

Families in Mexico received US$62,472 million in remittances in 2025, according to revised figures from the Banco de México (Banxico), and 99.1% of that money moved electronically. Electronic is not the same as deposited, though: almost half of it was still handed over in cash at a counter. This page prices a typical transfer from the US, compares SPEI deposits with cash pickup, lists the details a Mexican recipient has to give you and sets out the rules on both sides of the border, from the new US tax to Mexican account caps. The money transfer guide covers how international transfers work in general.

How much does a transfer to Mexico cost?

On World Bank averages for the third quarter of 2025, sending $200 cost 4.54% of the amount and sending $500 cost 2.99%. The flat fee did most of the damage: $6.51 on $200 and $9.83 on $500, against exchange-rate margins of 1.28% and 1.02%.

The averages hide a wide spread. A few of the quotes the World Bank collected on this route beat the market reference rate and made their money on the fee instead, while one bank charged a flat $35, or 17.5% of a $200 transfer. The provider you pick matters more than any average suggests. The table converts three amounts at the latest mid-market rate and with markups of 1% and 2.5%, close to the survey's typical margin and a costly one.

A markup is the distance between the rate a provider offers and the mid-market exchange rate, the midpoint of wholesale buying and selling prices. Banxico publishes a wholesale benchmark of its own every business day, the FIX, which makes a handy yardstick for peso quotes. The guide to exchange-rate markups shows how to turn any quoted rate into a percentage, and our exchange rate methodology explains the reference rates on this page.

Which payout suits your family: SPEI deposit, card or cash?

For a relative with a Mexican bank account, a SPEI deposit is usually the fastest route; for one without an account, cash pickup remains the standard choice.

SPEI, the Sistema de Pagos Electrónicos Interbancarios, is the real-time payment system Banxico runs for banks, brokerages and other financial institutions. Once your provider's Mexican partner sends a payment into SPEI, the receiving institution credits it within seconds, around the clock, subject to one limit covered in the timing section below. A payment can be addressed to an 18-digit CLABE, the standardized interbank account number, to a 16-digit debit card number or, where both sides support it, to a 10-digit mobile number linked to the account. Every SPEI payment carries a tracking key, the clave de rastreo, and the recipient can download an electronic payment receipt, the CEP, from Banxico to prove the money arrived. The SPEI guide covers the system in depth.

Check which identifiers your provider accepts before asking your relative for details. A card number reaches the account behind a debit card, which helps when your relative does not know their CLABE, but the number changes whenever the card is replaced, while a CLABE stays fixed for the life of the account. SPEI participants include non-bank institutions as well as banks, so accounts at some regulated non-bank firms have CLABEs too.

Cash pickup is still everywhere. In 2025, 49.6% of the value of electronic remittances to Mexico was paid out in cash and 50.4% was credited to accounts, Banxico's data show. Payout points include bank branches, pharmacies and convenience-store chains, and cash is often ready within minutes of payment in the US. The recipient brings the reference number and an official photo ID, such as an INE voting card or a passport, in the name on the transfer. According to Condusef, Mexico's financial consumer protection agency, the payout location should not charge the recipient a commission, so what you pay in the US is the whole price.

What details does a recipient in Mexico need to give you?

A deposit needs the account holder's full name plus an 18-digit CLABE or 16-digit card number; cash pickup needs the name exactly as printed on photo ID.

Mexicans normally use two surnames, the father's and then the mother's, so give both in the order they appear on the ID. A relative who changed name after marriage should tell you which version their current ID shows, because payout staff compare the transfer with the document, and a provider can hold a deposit whose name does not match its records. Copy the CLABE from a bank statement or the banking app rather than from an old message: the check digit catches most typing slips, but not a closed account or a number that belongs to someone else.

Account type matters for larger sums. Banxico sorts simple deposit accounts into levels capped in UDIS, an inflation-indexed unit, and each cap counts every deposit in a calendar month, remittances included. Using the UDI value of October 31, 2026, the November limits work out to about MXN 6,656 for a level 1 account, MXN 26,625 for level 2 and MXN 88,750 for level 3, while level 4 accounts have no Banxico cap. A level 2 Bis account, created in June 2026 for Mexican nationals living in Mexico, takes up to 15,000 UDIS a month, about MXN 133,000, of which only 3,000 UDIS can be cash.

Rules on the US side: a 1% tax and cash reporting at the border

A federal excise tax took effect on January 1, 2026: 1% of the amount sent, on transfers paid with cash, a money order, a cashier's check or a similar physical instrument. Transfers funded from a bank or other financial-institution account, or with a US-issued debit or credit card are not taxed. The provider collects the tax when you pay, on the amount transferred rather than the fee, and the Treasury's proposed regulations from April 2026 are not yet final. The remittance transfer tax guide covers refunds, receipts and the open questions.

In parts of Texas and New Mexico, cash brings extra paperwork. A FinCEN geographic targeting order, in force from September 3, 2026 through March 1, 2027, requires an ID check and a currency transaction report for cash transactions of $1,000 to $10,000 at money services businesses in listed ZIP codes in Texas and New Mexico. The ZIP codes sit in Cameron, El Paso, Hidalgo, Maverick and Webb counties in Texas and in Bernalillo, Doña Ana and San Juan counties in New Mexico; earlier versions of the order also reached parts of Arizona and California. Everywhere else, that report starts above $10,000 in cash in a day. A lawful transfer has nothing to fear from either rule, but splitting a payment to stay under a threshold is a federal crime called structuring.

Federal consumer rules require the provider to show the fee, the rate and the amount your family will receive before you pay, let you cancel within 30 minutes after paying, for a full refund and give you 180 days from the date the receipt said the money would be available to report an error; remittance transfer rights explains how.

Does Mexico tax or report the money your family receives?

Mexico does not tax family support as income, and money credited by electronic transfer is not reported to the tax authority as a cash deposit.

Mexico's income tax law exempts gifts between spouses and gifts from parents or grandparents to their children and grandchildren, whatever the amount. Money that adult children send their parents is exempt too, as long as the parents do not pass it on to another child or grandchild. Gifts from anyone else, such as a brother or a cousin, are exempt only up to a capped annual amount, and anyone whose gifts, loans and prizes add up to more than MXN 600,000 in a year must declare them on an annual return even when no tax is due. A family pooling money for land or a house should talk to a Mexican accountant before the transfers start.

Banks do report heavy use of cash. Each month they tell the SAT, Mexico's tax agency, about customers whose cash deposits across all their accounts at that bank exceed MXN 15,000. The law leaves electronic transfers out of that count, so a SPEI credit never triggers the report. Cash collected at a pickup point and later paid into an account does count, which is one more reason to choose a deposit when your relative already has an account.

When do transfers to Mexico slow down or peak?

SPEI runs around the clock every day, but overnight, at weekends and on bank holidays banks only have to process transfers of up to MXN 8,000 straight away.

Banxico's rules define those extended hours as the stretch from 6 p.m., when the SPEI operating day rolls over, to 6 a.m. Mexico City time. A larger deposit sent on a Saturday or a holiday can therefore wait until the next business day, and cash pickup follows the opening hours of each payout location. The table lists the days to watch. The 2027 dates follow Mexico's labor law and the closures the banking regulator, the CNBV, ordered for 2026; its official 2027 list had not been published at the time of writing.

Demand follows the family calendar. May was the strongest month of 2026 through August, at US$5,625 million, as families sent money ahead of Mother's Day. Autumn is the other high season: in 2025, October brought in US$5,635 million, more than November or December, in the run-up to the Day of the Dead on November 1 and 2, and December, with the Guadalupe and Christmas holidays, brought in US$5,384 million, more than November. Sending a few days ahead of these dates leaves time to fix a name mismatch or wait out a closure. Delivery times on other routes are compared in how long international transfers take.

Scams aimed at families sending money to Mexico

Virtual kidnapping is the scheme most tied to this route. A caller says a relative has been abducted and demands a quick ransom, keeping you on the line so you cannot check. The FBI says the demand is usually a wire payment to Mexico of $2,000 or less, that the calls do not come from the supposed victim's phone, and that many of these schemes have been run from inside Mexican prisons. Hang up, call or message the relative directly, and agree on a family code word in advance.

Immigrants are also targeted by callers posing as immigration officers, who threaten deportation unless a fee or a bond is paid at once. The FTC warns that ICE and USCIS never take payment by gift card, cryptocurrency or wire transfer, and USCIS says it will never ask anyone to send money to an individual. Treat any demand to settle a government fine through a money transfer as fraud.

Pickup references work like cash, since anyone holding the number and a convincing ID can try to collect, so send the code only to the person collecting. Never pay a fee to release a prize, a parcel or a loan, and never forward money for someone you have only met online. Other common patterns are covered in money transfer scams.

How big is the US-Mexico remittance corridor?

Mexico took in about US$65 billion in 2025 on the World Bank's measure, roughly 3.5% of its GDP.

The World Bank's series adds the pay of Mexicans working abroad for short periods to personal transfers, so it runs above Banxico's remittance count. On Banxico's revised figures, remittances fell 3.9% in 2025 to US$62,472 million, with an average transfer of US$394. The decline has since leveled off: January to August 2026 brought in US$41,802 million, 2.2% more than a year earlier, though August alone slipped 3.6% to US$5,452 million, with an average transfer of US$412. Over the 12 months to August, inflows totaled US$63,370 million.

Relative to the size of its economy, Mexico leans on remittances far less than its Central American neighbours. Remittances are worth about a fifth of GDP in Guatemala and more than a quarter in El Salvador and Honduras, as the guides to sending money to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras show.