Mexico’s Tax Authority (SAT) Boosts Fine Collections in 2025: More Digital Enforcement and Greater Pressure to Comply
Revenue from tax fines regained importance in public finances: by the end of 2025, Mexico’s Tax Administration Service (SAT) reported 30,368 million pesos in income from this source, according to figures from the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP). That represents growth of more than three times compared with 2019, when 9,056 million pesos were recorded—during a six-year period marked by a control-and-oversight strategy increasingly backed by digital tools and data cross-checking.
The increase is not happening in a vacuum. In recent years, the tax authority has strengthened its review of invoices and returns based on the volume of data generated by electronic invoicing and electronic accounting, as well as analytical models that can identify risk patterns more quickly. In practical terms, this shrinks the margin for error and raises the likelihood of spotting inconsistencies—especially among taxpayers with recurring transactions, abrupt changes in income or deductions, or mismatches between issued/received CFDIs and what was reported.
Finance officials note that most fine revenue is concentrated in the “tax correction” category, which rose from 7,316 million pesos in 2019 to 26,769 million in 2025. Beyond tripling in value, this category increased its share of the total from 80% to 88%. Operationally, it is usually tied to regularizations stemming from audits and information requests, where the most common errors include unreported income, miscalculations in provisional payments, and failure to report income from interest, dividends, or capital gains—issues that can show up for both individuals and businesses.
The surge in penalty revenue comes as the federal government has argued it can strengthen collections without raising tax rates, prioritizing administrative efficiency and cracking down on evasion. For compliant taxpayers, the macro impact may be neutral; for those carrying inconsistencies, the reality is a higher probability of being flagged. In the aggregate, the rise in fine collections also reflects tighter tax administration during a period in which public spending faces pressure from social programs, infrastructure projects, and greater financing needs—along with financial costs that are sensitive to interest rates.
Second are fines tied to foreign trade: they climbed from 860 million pesos in 2019 to 2,584 million in 2025, although their share of the total slipped slightly from 9.4% to 8.5%. The figure aligns with the government’s increased focus on closing loopholes for practices such as smuggling, undervaluation, and improper use of tariff classifications. Given North America’s production integration and the weight of the export sector, customs compliance becomes key not only for revenue, but also to maintain operational certainty in supply chains that depend on clear rules and reliable timelines.
For 2026, the challenge will be balancing more effective enforcement with certainty and simplification for taxpayers. A system that flags issues faster can also increase disputes if it is not paired with consistent criteria, reasonable response times, and streamlined mechanisms for clarification. At the same time, the economic backdrop—moderate growth, domestic consumption sensitive to employment, and investment that depends on regulatory confidence—makes it important that the revenue-collection approach does not translate into excessive friction for formal economic activity, especially for small and mid-sized businesses.
In sum, the jump in fine collections in 2025 confirms a tax authority increasingly driven by data and precise reviews, with “tax correction” as the main engine and foreign trade as the second front. The trend suggests that going forward, the best defense will be prevention: orderly bookkeeping, reconciliation of CFDIs with tax returns, and early attention to information requests, in a scenario where digital enforcement will continue to expand.
