Tools · Money
How much does an employee cost in Mexico?
Work out the total cost to a company of an employee in Mexico (salaried employees, figures): salary, legally required benefits, IMSS social security, INFONAVIT, taxes and extra benefits.
Salary
Seniority
Benefits
The legal minimums are filled in. Raise them to offer more than the law requires.
A year-end bonus paid before December 20. Someone who started mid-year gets the proportional part.
The legal minimum is 15 days.
The legal minimum grows with seniority: 12 days in the first year, 2 more each year up to 20 in the fifth, then 2 more every 5 years. Leave it empty to always use the minimum.
An extra payment on top of the salary for vacation days, so the employee has money while they rest. It's paid when they take their vacation (LFT art. 80), not on a fixed date. E.g. 12 days × $500 a day × 25% = $1,500.
The legal minimum is 25%.
Extra benefits (optional)
Company details
PTU (profit sharing)
By law, 10% of the company's taxable profit is shared among employees. No profit, no PTU. What is PTU?
Leave it empty to assume everyone earns the same as this employee.
Used for the cap: they can receive up to 3 months' salary or this average, whichever is higher.
Monthly cost to the company
Annual cost
Employee's net pay per month
For every $1 of gross salary
Cost to the company
| Item | Per year | Monthly average |
|---|
Employer IMSS contributions in detail
| Branch | Rate | Per month |
|---|
Benefits calendar
| Benefit | When | Amount |
|---|
What the employee receives
| Per period | Per month |
|---|
Employee IMSS contributions in detail
| Branch | Rate | Per month |
|---|
Per year
Other legal obligations
- Mandatory rest days: an employee who works one is paid triple (their day plus double). This year's dates are in the calendar.
- Sunday premium (prima dominical): 25% extra on the daily salary for each Sunday worked.
- Overtime: the first 9 hours a week are paid double; any beyond that, triple.
- Seniority premium (prima de antigüedad): 12 days' salary per year worked (salary capped at 2 minimum wages). Paid when employment ends through dismissal, death, or resignation after 15 years or more.
- Unjustified dismissal: severance of 3 months' salary, plus the seniority premium, back pay and, in some cases, 20 days per year worked.
- Final settlement (finiquito): when employment ends, the proportional aguinaldo, vacation and vacation premium are always paid.
What is PTU?
- Participación de los Trabajadores en las Utilidades, or employee profit sharing. It's mandatory, not an optional benefit: the company shares 10% of its taxable profit for the year (taxable income under the Income Tax Law) among its employees.
- There's no minimum. If the company had no taxable profit, there's no PTU. Many startups that are still losing money pay nothing.
- How it's split: half in equal parts by the days each employee worked in the year, and the other half in proportion to their salary (without overtime, bonuses or aguinaldo).
- Cap per employee: 3 months of their salary or their average PTU over the last 3 years, whichever is better for them (2021 reform).
- When it's paid: by May 30 if the company is a legal entity (persona moral), or June 29 if the employer is an individual (persona física). It covers the previous year's profit.
- Exempt companies: new companies during their first year of operation, companies launching a new product during its first 2 years, and a few other cases (private charities, among others).
- Who doesn't take part: directors, administrators and general managers; temporary workers with fewer than 60 days worked in the year; and domestic workers. Trusted employees (empleados de confianza) do take part, but their salary is capped at 20% above the best-paid unionized or permanent worker.
- Taxes: for the employee, 15 daily UMA are tax-exempt; the rest pays ISR. It doesn't count toward the IMSS contribution base salary.
This is an estimate, not tax advice. Weekly, biweekly and daily ISR are calculated by scaling the monthly figure; payroll software uses per-period tables and may differ by a few pesos. Daily salary = monthly ÷ 30; IMSS uses 30.4 days per month. ISR on aguinaldo, vacation premium and PTU is estimated by adding the taxable part to one month's salary. Grocery vouchers and the savings fund are assumed to meet the requirements to stay out of the SBC (vouchers only up to 40% of the daily UMA) and to be ISR-exempt for the employee. Medical insurance isn't included in the SBC. The PTU estimate assumes every employee worked the full year. State payroll tax is calculated on salary, aguinaldo and vacation premium.