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Mexico Overtime Rules: Double Time, Triple Time, and the Road to a 40-Hour Week (2026)

8 min read

Mexico Overtime Rules: Double Time, Triple Time, and the Road to a 40-Hour Week (2026)

The short answer: In Mexico, overtime is paid at double the ordinary rate up to a weekly cap, and at triple past it. The legal week is 48 hours in 2026. On 1 January 2027 it drops to 46, and it keeps falling two hours a year until it reaches 40 in 2030. From the same date, every employer must keep an electronic record of when each person starts and finishes work. Punch is that record, kept from the moment someone punches in.

Owners who know the US 40-hour rule or Canada's provincial thresholds will find Mexico stricter on price and, from 2027, stricter on proof. Here is how it works for a small crew.

The Ordinary Week Depends on the Shift

The Ley Federal del Trabajo (LFT) sets ordinary hours by the type of shift. A day shift runs up to 8 hours. A night shift runs up to 7. A mixed shift, which crosses from day into night, runs up to 7.5. Across the week, the ceiling in 2026 is 48 hours.

That ceiling is about to move. Mexico amended Article 123 of its Constitution on 3 March 2026 to set a 40-hour week, and the LFT reform that carries it out was published in the Diario Oficial on 1 May 2026. The phase-in:

  • 2026: 48 hours
  • 2027: 46 hours
  • 2028: 44 hours
  • 2029: 42 hours
  • 2030: 40 hours

The reduction cannot come out of pay. A worker who earns a weekly wage for 48 hours today earns the same wage for 46 hours in 2027. For an hourly view of your payroll, that means the effective hourly rate rises every January, and every hour past the new line becomes overtime.

Double Time First, Then Triple Time

Mexico does not use time and a half. Overtime starts at double.

Double time (Article 66). Hours worked past the ordinary week are paid at 100% more than the ordinary rate, up to a weekly cap. Under the reform, that cap is 9 hours a week in 2026 and 2027, 10 in 2028, 11 in 2029, and 12 in 2030. Once fully phased in, those 12 hours can be spread across up to 4 hours a day on no more than 4 days.

Triple time (Article 68). Hours past the Article 66 cap are paid at 200% more than the ordinary rate, which is three times the hourly wage. The reform limits this band to 4 hours a week. Ordinary and extra hours together can never exceed 12 hours in a single day.

The cost of getting this wrong adds up fast. Take a worker on the 2026 general minimum wage of 315.04 pesos a day, which is 39.38 pesos an hour on an 8-hour day shift. In a week with 12 hours of overtime:

  • 9 hours at double: 9 x 78.76 = 708.84 pesos
  • 3 hours at triple: 3 x 118.14 = 354.42 pesos
  • Overtime owed: 1,063.26 pesos

Paid at the flat rate, those 12 hours come to 472.56 pesos. That is 590.70 pesos short for one person in one week. In the Northern Border Free Zone, where the 2026 minimum is 440.87 pesos a day, the gap is wider still.

Two more rules sit on top. Workers under 18 cannot work overtime at all. And Sunday work earns a premium of at least 25% of the ordinary daily wage, while work on a weekly rest day is paid at double on top of the regular wage.

From 2027, the Record Must Be Electronic

The reform added a new duty to Article 132 of the LFT: employers must record each worker's hours electronically, including start and end times, and hand that record to labor authorities on request. The rest of 2026 is an adjustment period. Full enforcement, including the Ministry of Labor's technical rules and the sanctions, starts on 1 January 2027.

The fine for not keeping the record runs from 250 to 5,000 UMA, the unit Mexico uses to index penalties. A paper sign-in sheet, a spreadsheet filled in on Friday, or a group chat of "I'm here" messages does not meet an electronic start-and-end standard.

The record matters for a second reason. Every January from 2027 to 2030, the overtime line moves. An employer has to show, week by week, which hours fell inside the ordinary week, which fell inside the double-time band, and which fell into triple time. Only exact punches can answer that.

What a Small Employer Should Do Before January

  1. Move to an electronic record now. The adjustment period is the time to find gaps, not 2 January.
  2. Recalculate hourly rates for 2027. If you pay a weekly wage, divide it by 46 hours, not 48, to find the rate overtime builds on.
  3. Plan schedules around 46 hours. A crew scheduled for six 8-hour days will carry 2 hours of overtime every week from January.
  4. Track the weekly total, not just the day. Both the double-time cap and the triple-time band are counted by the week.
  5. Keep approvals before payday. A manager signing off on hours each pay period is the simplest proof that the record was checked.

How Punch Handles Mexican Hours

Punch is built for the record each of these rules depends on.

A Mexico Federal overtime preset. Choose Mexico at signup and Punch applies the Mexico Federal preset with pesos throughout. It counts the 48-hour week, pays the first 9 overtime hours at double, and moves every hour past that cap to triple, with daily lines at 8 and 11 hours. When the week drops to 46 in January, the overtime lines can be adjusted with the Custom option in Org Settings.

Electronic start and finish times. Your team punches in and out, and punches lunch, from their phone. Every punch is stamped to the minute and stored with the shift. Split shifts are tracked as separate punches in one day.

A job-site geofence, not a camera. In the iPhone app, punch-in can be limited to a geofence around the job site, so a punch from across town does not count. There is no photo at punch and no facial recognition. Your crew's privacy stays intact.

Weekly totals per person. Weekly and bi-weekly pay periods roll up for each worker, so the double-time and triple-time bands are visible before payroll runs.

Approvals and exports. Managers approve hours one by one or bulk approve a whole pay period. Owner and manager Reports export the totals, and approved hours export to QuickBooks Online or to a QuickBooks or Excel CSV for your payroll provider.

Built for crews in Spanish. Punch runs in Spanish, so every worker reads the same record in their own language. More on that in our guide to bilingual time tracking for Spanish-speaking crews.

No signal, no gap. Punches made offline on a rural site sync when the phone reconnects. A shared iPad in kiosk mode, with a PIN for each worker, covers a workshop, warehouse, or yard.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is overtime paid in Mexico?

At double the ordinary hourly rate up to the weekly cap set by Article 66 of the LFT (9 hours in 2026 and 2027), and at triple for hours past that cap, which the reform limits to 4 a week.

When does Mexico's 40-hour week start?

The reduction is gradual. The legal week is 48 hours in 2026, 46 in 2027, 44 in 2028, 42 in 2029, and 40 in 2030. Wages cannot be cut as the hours fall.

Do Mexican employers have to keep an electronic time record?

Yes. The 2026 reform requires an electronic record of each worker's start and end times, available to authorities on request. Full enforcement and fines start on 1 January 2027.

What is the minimum wage in Mexico in 2026?

315.04 pesos a day in most of the country, and 440.87 pesos a day in the Northern Border Free Zone, effective 1 January 2026.

Keep a Mexican Record That Holds Up

Mexican overtime is a stack: a legal week that shrinks every January until 2030, a double-time band, a triple-time band, and from 2027 an electronic record that has to prove all of it. Each layer is checked against the same punches.

Punch records every punch in and punch out, applies the Mexico Federal overtime lines, rolls up weekly totals, and exports approved hours straight to payroll. The price is flat per workspace, with no per-user line item, and every plan includes every feature. The 14-day free trial starts on signup, no credit card required.

Start tracking Mexican hours correctly with Punch →

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