Shelter Companies in Mexico: How They Work and When You Need One

A shelter company in Mexico is a Mexican company that holds an IMMEX program in the albergue, or shelter, modality and lets a foreign manufacturer produce under it. You bring the equipment, materials, process and quality system, and you run production. The shelter is the legal employer and the importer of record into Mexico, and it runs most day-to-day customs, payroll and labor administration.

Article 183 of Mexico's income tax law protects shelter clients from permanent establishment with no time limit, on the conditions below, as the law stands on September 30, 2026. This guide covers how shelter companies in Mexico work, who they fit, how their clients are taxed and nine established providers.

What is a shelter company in Mexico?

Article 3, section IV of the IMMEX Decree defines the albergue modality as one where foreign companies supply "la tecnología y el material productivo, sin que estas últimas operen directamente el Programa": the technology and the productive material, without operating the program directly.

Only a Mexican-resident legal entity can hold an IMMEX program, so the shelter holds it and you produce under it. Shelter programs date in federal regulation to at least the 1989 Maquiladora Decree.

How does a shelter company work?

The shelter holds the program, temporarily imports your materials and machinery, employs the workforce and files the customs and tax returns; under Article 14 of the Decree it is liable for the foreign-trade taxes. You run the plant floor and keep exposure of your own:

Item	Who holds it
IMMEX program and Mexican importer of record	The shelter
Legal employer	The shelter
VAT (IVA/IEPS) certification	The shelter, at its tier, per providers
Machinery, equipment and materials	You; one SEC-filed contract lends the equipment under a comodato
US importer of record	Usually you
Income tax on the operation	Legally yours; the shelter pays and is jointly liable
Quality system, process and product regulation	You
Social security if the provider defaults	Can reach you under LSS Article 15 A

How shelters sit under the 2021 subcontracting rules is unsettled in primary guidance, so your contract's labor clauses carry weight.

Who does a shelter company fit?

A shelter fits export production you want running before you build a Mexican administration: a first operation, a customer program measured in months, or headcount too small for your own back office. With no time limit in Article 183, it can also be a long-term home.

It fits less well when Mexico is also your market. Article 183 bars sales of Mexican-made products without an export pedimento, so output leaves physically or as a virtual export to another IMMEX plant under RGCE 2026 rule 5.2.5. Routine sales to Mexican customers require your own entity.

For a scored read on your own project before you talk to providers, the Mexico Entry Readiness Diagnostic takes about three minutes: eleven questions covering ownership structure, site, regulatory routing, landed cost and timeline.

What are the benefits and risks of a shelter?

Area	What you gain	What you manage
Speed	Production in months	Fastest timelines assume move-in-ready space
Tax	Permanent-establishment protection, no time limit	Your status rests on the shelter's compliance
VAT	A 100 percent credit on VAT for temporary imports (LIVA Article 28-A) through the shelter's certification	Yearly renewal at the shelter's tier
Administration	Most payroll, customs and labor administration run by the shelter	Less direct control
Cost	No entity to build	Fees scale with headcount or hours

How long does it take to start manufacturing under a shelter?

Provider-published estimates cluster at about 2 to 4 months to first production: 30 to 60 days per Tecma, 3 to 4 months per Tetakawi, and 90 to 120 days per Prodensa, whose shelter page puts full production in a dedicated or build-to-suit shelter at 10 to 15 months. Thirty days is a best case for move-in-ready space.

Your own entity runs on legal clocks of 15 business days for an IMMEX ruling and 60 days for VAT certification. Incorporation, a qualifying lease, the site inspection and hiring fill the rest; industry estimates put the total at 6 to 12 months.

What services does a shelter company include?

Tecma says its fee covers accounting, HR, facilities, EHS compliance, customs brokerage, IT and cafeteria services. As program holder, the shelter also runs the Anexo 24 inventory control, the IMMEX annual report due in May and the Article 183 filings on your behalf. In one SEC-filed shelter contract, rent, utilities, customs costs, freight and licenses were billed separately, while wages, payroll taxes, profit sharing (PTU) and client-ordered severance passed through.

How are shelter clients taxed in Mexico?

Article 183 of the Ley del Impuesto sobre la Renta (LISR, last reformed April 1, 2024) says foreign residents supplying raw materials, machinery or equipment to an authorized shelter "no se considerará que tienen establecimiento permanente en el país": they have no permanent establishment in Mexico.

The 2013 text capped that protection at four consecutive years. The reform in force January 1, 2020 removed the cap and ended the tax-free years, so you now owe Mexican income tax from your first day of operation.

Condition	What the law requires
Not related	No related-party link to the shelter
Filings	RFC registration without tax obligations; provisional and annual returns through the shelter; the DIEMSE by June of the following year (RMF 2026 rule 3.20.7); a cessation notice within a month of stopping
Information exchange	A comprehensive agreement in force between Mexico and your jurisdiction; the US and Canada qualify
Export pedimento	No sale of Mexican-made products without an export pedimento
No asset sales	No sale of machinery, equipment or inventory to the shelter

The safe harbor

Article 183-Bis has the shelter compute each client's taxable profit separately, as the higher of 6.9 percent of assets used or 6.5 percent of operating costs, taxed at 30 percent. The asset leg counts only fixed assets and raw-material inventories; the cost leg excludes materials bought on your own account, financial expenses, inflation effects and extraordinary items.

The tax is legally yours, "determinado por cuenta del residente en el extranjero". The shelter pays it and is jointly liable, and billing it back to you is market practice. If the shelter breaches Article 183-Bis and does not cure within 30 calendar days of a SAT requirement, you are deemed to have a permanent establishment.

The APA option was repealed from 2022 and the last maquiladora APAs expired December 31, 2024 (Garrigues), so the safe harbor is the practical no-PE route, apart from a closing bilateral-APA window for groups with open 2020 to 2024 APAs.

This summary is not legal or tax advice.

How are shelter services priced?

Shelter fees are usually quoted per employee per month or per paid hour, on a sliding scale. Published 2026 ranges, all from providers or aggregator sites, run from under $100 to about $400 per employee per month, and quotes for the same scope can differ widely. Wages, benefits, PTU and severance generally pass through to you; rent, utilities and freight sit outside the fee. For pricing models and quote comparison, see what a shelter program costs.

Who are the main shelter companies in Mexico?

Mexico has no official count of shelter providers, and the market runs from single-client operators to a handful of large multi-site firms. The nine established providers below describe themselves as follows, from their own published materials as of September 2026; the list is not exhaustive and the order is not a ranking.

Provider	Founded	Base and Mexican footprint	Model	Distinguishing feature
Tetakawi	1986, as The Offshore Group	US-based. Sonora (Empalme, Guaymas, Hermosillo), Saltillo and Mazatlán	Full-service shelter on manufacturing campuses it owns	Owns the campuses its clients occupy
Tecma	1985	El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juárez. Tijuana, Juárez, Torreón, Silao (Guanajuato), Matehuala	Full-service shelter plus facility space	Border and Bajío sites, plus a transportation division
NAPS	1991	Solana Beach, CA. Tijuana, Mexicali, Ciudad Juárez and the Bajío	Shelter and administrative services	Border cities plus the Bajío
Prodensa	1985	Monterrey. Northwest, northeast and central Mexico	Shelter plus consulting and real estate	Consulting, real estate and shelter in one group
IVEMSA	1982	Mexicali, with a US office in San Diego. Baja California, Sonora, the Bajío and Monterrey	Full-service shelter plus managed services	Also serves standalone entities
American Industries	1976	Chihuahua, with a US office in El Paso. Chihuahua, Juárez, Monterrey, Reynosa, Guadalajara and the Bajío	Full-service shelter plus its own industrial real estate	Shelter and the building from one firm
Entrada Group	2002	US-based. Campuses in Fresnillo (Zacatecas) and Celaya (Guanajuato)	Shared-campus shelter with ready-built space	Campus model in the interior, off the border
Co-Production International (CPI)	40 years of experience, by its own account	San Diego. Tijuana, Mexicali and Tecate, plus Guadalajara, Monterrey, Mérida and Puebla	Full-service shelter and administrative services	A stated path to your own corporation
TACNA	1983	San Diego and Tijuana. Baja California only	Full-service shelter, plus BPO and manufacturing divisions	Baja specialist; 25 to 1,500+ employees

For a closer look at the matchups buyers compare most often, see alternatives to Tetakawi, Prodensa vs Tetakawi, Tecma vs Tetakawi, Entrada Group vs Tetakawi, and IVEMSA vs Tetakawi.

Tetakawi

Tetakawi, founded in 1986 as The Offshore Group, owns the manufacturing campuses its clients occupy in Sonora, Saltillo and Mazatlán. It pairs that real estate with full administration.

Tecma

Tecma traces its start to 1985 in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez and has added several border shelters by acquisition since 2003. It operates in Tijuana, Juárez, Torreón, Silao and Matehuala, with facility space.

NAPS

NAPS (North American Production Sharing), established in 1991 in Solana Beach, California, provides shelter and administrative services in Tijuana, Mexicali and Ciudad Juárez and across the Bajío, from Querétaro to Aguascalientes and San Luis Potosí.

Prodensa

Prodensa, founded in 1985 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, combines consulting, real estate and a shelter program, configured for each project.

IVEMSA

IVEMSA, headquartered in Mexicali with a San Diego office, serves Baja California, Sonora, the Bajío and Monterrey. It also serves manufacturers operating as standalone entities.

American Industries

American Industries, a Mexican firm founded in 1976 in Chihuahua, pairs a full-service shelter with its own industrial real estate arm. The same firm can be your entity of record and your landlord.

Entrada Group

Entrada Group, founded in 2002, runs shared campuses in Fresnillo, Zacatecas and Celaya, Guanajuato, away from the border. It pairs ready-built space with turnkey administration.

Co-Production International (CPI)

Co-Production International, based in San Diego, runs a full-service shelter from Tijuana, Mexicali and Tecate and in several interior cities. Its Independent Corporation offering describes a path to transition to your own corporation.

TACNA

TACNA, formed in 1983 and based in San Diego and Tijuana, operates only in Baja California, with its own BPO and manufacturing divisions. It states it serves operations of 25 to more than 1,500 employees.

What separates one shelter provider from another?

Five questions narrow the field:

1. Footprint. Does it operate where your labor and suppliers are, and own the real estate?
2. Compliance record. Your PE protection rests on its filings, including the IMMEX annual report and Article 183-Bis. Ask for evidence.
3. All-in cost. Every fee, markup, pass-through and index adjustment, named.
4. Sector fit. Facilities, training records and change control that fit your quality system.
5. Contract and exit. Term, termination, severance and a written path to your own entity.

For the scorecard, RFP questions and reference checks, see how to choose a shelter company in Mexico.

Shelter, maquiladora and contract manufacturing are not interchangeable terms

A maquiladora is an operation inside Mexico's export-manufacturing program and tax regime, today the IMMEX program, which has five modalities, plus the maquila rules of the income tax law. The shelter, albergue, is one of those modalities. In contract manufacturing a third party makes your product in its own plant and you hold no operation in Mexico. The definitions and a decision matrix sit in shelter vs maquiladora vs contract manufacturing.

When do shelter clients move to their own entity?

Typical triggers are domestic sales, enough scale to carry your own administration, and incentives and assets held in your own name. The mechanics:

• Your own IMMEX. RGCE 2026 rule 7.1.8 lets a company that operated under Article 183 for the last three fiscal years, with a first IMMEX from the past 12 months, count the shelter's personnel, infrastructure and investment toward its own VAT certification.
• Machinery and inventory. Same-day virtual transfer moves them. It triggers VAT unless the receiving company is certified or has posted a guarantee, so certification comes first.
• Workers. Employer substitution under LFT Article 41 keeps seniority, with the shelter jointly liable for six months. Since April 2021 it requires the business assets to pass to the new employer, so confirm the structure with labor counsel.

Providers put the transition at 12 to 18 months. See shelter or your own entity in Mexico and entity and legal structuring.

Shelter companies in regulated industries

For medical devices, product-regulatory duties stay with you. FDA's Quality Management System Regulation, in force since February 2, 2026, incorporates ISO 13485, and foreign establishments making devices for the US market are required to register and list. No FDA text says who registers a shelter-hosted site; providers say the client does, which is worth confirming with FDA counsel. COFEPRIS states that NOM-241-SSA1-2025 does not apply to export-only devices. See medical device manufacturing under a shelter in Mexico.

What changed for shelters in 2025 and 2026?

When	Change	For a shelter client
2025 and 2026	416 IMMEX programs suspended and 170 cancelled in 2025; 441 and 189 in 2026 (DOF), for missing annual reports	Provider filing record matters
January 1, 2026	Customs reform: brokers jointly liable, pedimento files that prove the operation, transfers documented to the productive process	More documentation per import
January and March 2026	Minimum wage MXN 315.04 a day (MXN 440.87 on the northern border); employer IMSS pension rates rising each January to 2030; a 40-hour week by 2030, from 48 in 2026, with no pay cut	Higher pass-through labor cost per productive hour
September 8, 2026	2027 tax initiative leaves Articles 181 to 183-Bis unchanged and would exclude Article 182 maquila from a new deduction cap, except income from sales in Mexico	Not yet law (congressional deadlines October 20 and 31); reach to shelters open

Common pitfalls

• Treating the shelter as a full liability shield. Your income tax, PE status and possible social-security liability stay with you.
• Planning domestic sales inside the shelter. Article 183 bars sales without an export pedimento.
• Selling equipment or inventory to the shelter. Also barred; one SEC-filed contract lends the equipment under a comodato instead.
• Leaving severance unallocated. In one SEC-filed contract the client bears all severance, including at expiry.
• Budgeting six months to graduate. Provider estimates run 12 to 18 months.

A decision framework

Your situation	Usual fit
First operation, producing for export	Shelter
Deadline within months, move-in-ready space	Shelter
Output sold to other IMMEX plants	Shelter, via virtual exports
Routine sales to Mexican customers	Your own entity
Scaled operation wanting assets in its own name	Your own entity, planned transition
Overflow or test volume, no operation of your own	Contract manufacturing
Medical device for the US market	Either, with quality system and FDA registration settled first

The bottom line

A shelter is a mature way to manufacture in Mexico: the IMMEX Decree defines it, Article 183 protects it with no time limit, and the safe harbor sets the tax. It works best run as a compliance discipline you share with your provider.

Your choice of provider, and later of your own entity, turns on footprint, volume and whether Mexico is also your market. Calder & Vale is an independent advisory that sells no shelter services; you get a read on which model fits, help running the provider selection, and the entity and incentives work if you build your own. A complimentary 30-minute call is a good first step, with no pitch and a reply within 24 hours.