REPSE in Mexico: what your company needs to know
REPSE is Mexico's public register of providers of specialized services or specialized works. Providers and their clients have different obligations. This guide explains what the registration shows, what a client needs to check, and which supporting records still need to be collected beyond the registration itself.
Check a provider now: the verification tool queries the STPS registry live and shows whether a registration is current, until when, and for which activities.
What it is
REPSE is the Registro de Prestadoras de Servicios Especializados u Obras Especializadas, the public register kept by Mexico's Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, STPS). It was created by the April 2021 subcontracting reform of the Federal Labor Law (Ley Federal del Trabajo, LFT, official text, in Spanish), which reads in four articles:
- Article 12: prohibits personnel subcontracting, that is, an individual or company providing or placing its own workers at the disposal of another for that other's benefit.
- Article 13: permits the subcontracting of specialized services or specialized works that are not part of the recipient's corporate purpose or predominant economic activity, provided the contractor is registered in the register.
- Article 14: requires the subcontract to be a written contract stating the services or works and the approximate number of workers who will take part, and makes the company that contracts jointly liable (responsable solidaria) if the contractor fails its obligations to those workers.
- Article 15: creates the registration. The STPS grants it to whoever shows it is current with its tax and social-security obligations, and it is renewed every three years.
The register can be searched free of charge at repse.stps.gob.mx (in Spanish), with no account and no e.firma (Mexico's advanced electronic signature). You search by REPSE number (folio), RFC (the Mexican tax ID) or registered legal name, and the record shows the folio, the state, the registration notice, the expiry date and the registered activities.
Who must register
The individual or company that, to provide a specialized service or carry out a specialized work, provides or places its own workers at the disposal of another for that other's benefit, where the service is not part of the recipient's corporate purpose or predominant economic activity (LFT arts. 13 and 15; REPSE Agreement, article one). Complementary or shared services or works between companies of the same business group are covered too, on the same condition (LFT art. 13, second paragraph).
These are conditions, not a list of industries. The name of a sector (cleaning, security, maintenance, IT) does not by itself decide whether a contract needs REPSE: what decides it is whether the provider's own staff are placed at the client's disposal and whether the service falls outside the recipient's corporate purpose and predominant activity. A specific case should be reviewed with a professional.
Two parties, two lists of obligations
| The provider of the service | The client receiving it |
|---|---|
| Obtain the registration and renew it every three years, in the three calendar months before the month in which it expires (LFT art. 15; REPSE Agreement, article sixteen). | Verify, each time it pays, that the contractor holds the registration (Income Tax Law, Ley del Impuesto sobre la Renta, LISR art. 27, section V; VAT Law, Ley del Impuesto al Valor Agregado, LIVA art. 5, section II). |
| File the ICSOE with the IMSS (Mexican Social Security Institute) and the SISUB with Infonavit (the workers' housing fund) every four months (Social Security Law, Ley del Seguro Social, LSS art. 15 A; Infonavit Law art. 29 Bis). | Obtain from the contractor copies of the electronic payroll receipts (CFDI de nómina) of the workers who performed the service, of the bank receipt for the payment of their income-tax withholdings, and of the payments to the IMSS and Infonavit (LISR art. 27, section V). |
| Deliver those receipts to the client, and the VAT return and its payment acknowledgement no later than the last day of the month after the payment (LISR art. 27, section V; LIVA art. 5, section II). | To take the Mexican VAT credit, obtain the contractor's VAT return and the acknowledgement of its payment for the period in which the client paid (LIVA art. 5, section II). |
| Put each service in a written contract stating its purpose and the approximate number of workers (LFT art. 14), and cite its registration number in it (REPSE Agreement, article eighteen). | Be jointly and severally liable for the workers used if the contractor fails its labor or social-security obligations (LFT art. 14; LSS art. 15 A; Infonavit Law art. 29 Bis). |
What happens if something fails
- For the tax deduction: article 15-D of the Federal Tax Code (Código Fiscal de la Federación, CFF, official text, in Spanish) denies the deduction and the VAT credit on subcontracting payments that do not meet the requirements. The invoice can be genuine and the service can have been rendered, and the expense is still not deductible.
- Fines: operating without registration, or benefiting from subcontracting contrary to the law, is sanctioned with 2,000 to 50,000 UMA, Mexico's reference unit (LFT art. 1004-C). With the 2026 UMA of MXN 117.31 that is MXN 234,620 to MXN 5,865,500. The penalties guide separates each conduct and who is liable.
- Cancellation: the STPS can deny or cancel a registration at any time, for example for final (firme) debts with the SAT (the tax authority), the IMSS or Infonavit (LFT art. 15; REPSE Agreement, article fifteen). So a registration that is current today may not be next month.
Dates and figures to keep at hand
| Topic | What the rules say |
|---|---|
| Validity of the registration | Three years (LFT art. 15; REPSE Agreement, article thirteen). |
| Renewal | Filed in the three calendar months before the month of expiry. The 2024 amendment to the Agreement assigns a calendar by month of registration and switches the renewal module off when the window ends; letting it pass cancels the registration. Details in the renewal guide. |
| Reports filed every four months | ICSOE and SISUB, no later than January 17, May 17 and September 17 for the preceding four months; if the 17th is a non-working day, the IMSS extends the ICSOE deadline to the next working day; for the SISUB there is no written rule. Details in the ICSOE and SISUB calendar. |
| 2026 changes | The simplification agreement (published in the DOF, Mexico's official gazette, on June 9, 2026) merged registration, renewal and cancellation into one procedure, reduced the documents for providers with up to ten workers and shortened the STPS's response time to 5 or 15 working days depending on size. It did not change the validity period or the renewal window. |
| Inspections | The STPS subcontracting inspection protocol (September 2025) uses IMSS, SAT and Infonavit information to schedule visits, which can reach both the provider and the company that hires it. Details in the inspection guide. |
Common mistakes on the client side
- Checking once, at signature. The register shows today's position. The law requires the check at payment, every time.
- An invoice from a different legal entity. The entity that invoices must be the one that is registered. A sister company's registration does not cover the entity issuing the invoice.
- A service that is not on the list. A registration lists its activities. A registration for cleaning does not cover security services.
- Treating expiry as the provider's problem. An expired registration is the same as none, and the tax consequences fall on the client.
Seen from UK law
Secondary context for readers who know the UK rules; it is not part of the Mexican analysis above. Under the off-payroll working rules (Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, Part 2, Chapter 10), a medium or large client decides a contractor's employment status for tax and can carry the liability. REPSE also puts weight on the client, but through a public register checked at each payment and a fixed set of documents, and its first consequence is fiscal: the payment stops being deductible.
Where to start
Check each provider of specialized services with the verification tool and keep the dated result. The verification guide explains how to read each result, and the evidence guide details the documents that support the deduction payment by payment.