your annual operating cost, by state
headcount and square footage. eight mexican manufacturing corridors. 2026 benchmark data.
total across all shifts
production floor plus office
placeholder: 1 kwh per sq ft. replace with your own draw.
placeholder for employer imss, infonavit (5%) and state payroll tax. replace with your own.
On 2026 benchmarks, that operation runs between $1,632,697 and $2,210,517 a year depending on where you put it. The spread is $577,819 annually, or $2,889,097 across a five-year lease.
| location | labour | lease | power | annual total | vs. lowest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AguascalientesAguascalientes | $1,292,596 | $282,400 | $57,701 | $1,632,697 | baseline |
| GuadalajaraJalisco | $1,319,533 | $324,400 | $58,468 | $1,702,401 | +$69,704 |
| QuerétaroQuerétaro | $1,526,840 | $271,200 | $57,701 | $1,855,742 | +$223,044 |
| San Luis PotosíSan Luis Potosí | $1,548,561 | $257,600 | $55,163 | $1,861,324 | +$228,626 |
| MonterreyNuevo León | $1,544,580 | $314,000 | $51,308 | $1,909,887 | +$277,190 |
| Mexico CityCDMX + Estado de México | $1,363,766 | $513,600 | $57,153 | $1,934,519 | +$301,822 |
| TijuanaBaja California | $1,536,077 | $378,000 | $40,532 | $1,954,609 | +$321,912 |
| SaltilloCoahuila | $1,844,815 | $308,000 | $57,701 | $2,210,517 | +$577,819 |
Cost ranks the eight. It does not pick one. Aguascalientes comes out lowest here, with 128K formal manufacturing jobs. Main sectors: Automotive, textiles, electronics. Port and border access: Highway 45 corridor between the Bajío and the northern border. If your supplier base, your certification path or your border transit time point elsewhere, the cheapest line on this table is the wrong answer.
Labour is the IMSS average daily wage for manufacturing jobs in each corridor (30 September 2026) times 365 days, plus the on-cost percentage above; profit sharing is excluded. Lease is Newmark's latest asking rent per square foot per year. Power is a model built on CFE's October 2026 GDMTH charges for a flat, round-the-clock load. Sources and dates are on the corridor benchmarks page. Figures exclude incentives, which is the point: a negotiated state package moves these numbers materially, and it is negotiated before you sign, not after.
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take the diagnosticwhere these numbers come from
Mexico cost tables usually show you rates. A rate is not a budget. This one takes your headcount, your square footage and your power draw, multiplies them against each state's 2026 benchmarks, and gives you an annual figure you can put in front of a board.
Labour is the IMSS average daily wage for manufacturing jobs in each corridor (September 2026), times 365 days, plus an employer on-cost percentage you can change. Lease is Newmark's latest asking rent per square foot per year. Electricity is a model built on CFE's published October 2026 charges for a flat, round-the-clock load. Every source and date is on the corridor benchmarks page.
What the table leaves out is the thing that moves the result most: the state incentive package. That gets negotiated before you sign, and it changes the arithmetic materially. A real multi-state competition run through the state economic development ministries is how that number gets found.
the number this table leaves out
A state incentive package gets negotiated before you sign. If your decision is live, that competition between states can actually be run.
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