Mexico's 40-hour workweek (2026–2030): the schedule, overtime and what employers must do

Gradually, from 2027 to 2030. A constitutional amendment published on March 3, 2026 set the workweek at 40 hours,[2] and the Federal Labor Law reform published on May 1, 2026 wrote it into article 59 and set the transition: the maximum ordinary week drops by two hours on January 1 of each year until it reaches 40 hours in 2030.[1] May 1 to December 31, 2026 is an adjustment period for employers and workers.[1]

The first two columns come from the reform’s transitory articles;[1] the last is their sum, before the limited extra overtime described below.

No. The constitutional amendment forbids reducing wages or benefits because of the shorter workweek,[2] and the Federal Labor Law reform repeats it in its own transitory articles.[1] For an employee on a monthly salary, the same pay now buys fewer ordinary hours each year, which is the real cost of the reform: from 48 to 40 hours is a 16.7% cut in ordinary hours at the same salary.

It becomes larger, more structured and still paid at double the hourly rate. Before the reform, overtime could never exceed three hours a day or three times a week.[4] After it, overtime may reach 12 hours a week once the transition ends, spread over at most four hours a day on at most four days,[1] with the weekly cap phased in from 9 hours in 2026 and 2027 to 10, 11 and 12 hours.[1]

Daily limits and rest days. A day shift is still at most 8 hours, a night shift 7 and a mixed shift 7.5,[1] and the law now says the week may be distributed by agreement between employer and worker.[1] Workers still get at least one paid rest day for every six worked, with a premium of at least 25% for Sunday work;[1] work on a rest day is paid at double salary on top of the day’s pay, and a continuous workday includes a break of at least 30 minutes.[4]

From January 1, 2027, every employer must record each worker’s working hours electronically, including start and end times, under general rules the Labor Ministry will issue for that date.[1] Failing to do so is fined 250 to 5,000 UMA,[1] or about MXN 29,328 to MXN 586,550 at the 2026 value of the UMA, MXN 117.31 a day.[5]

For a remote team that already tracks time in a work tool, the practical question is whether that record will meet the Labor Ministry’s rules once they are published; until then, keep a log of start and end times for each employee in Mexico.

Yes, if the person is an employee in Mexico: the weekly limit, the overtime rules and, from 2027, the time records are part of the Federal Labor Law that governs their employment. US wage-and-hour rules do not fill the gap: the minimum wage and overtime sections of the Fair Labor Standards Act do not apply to an employee whose services during the workweek are performed in a workplace in a foreign country.[6]

In practice, a full-time role on a US schedule fits the cap: five 8-hour days is 40 hours, within the 46-hour limit of 2027 and equal to the 2030 limit. The risk is in roles with regular evening work or long weeks, which will hit the overtime cap sooner each year.

Mexicans work some of the longest hours in the OECD. Average annual hours actually worked per person in employment were 2,205 in Mexico in 2025, against 1,800 in the United States and 1,736 on average across the OECD; counting employees only, the figures were 2,299 in Mexico and 1,814 in the US.[3] Mexico’s 60.0 million employed people, 41.0 million of them salaried, are the workforce the reform reaches.[7]