Sheinbaum Announces Support Measures for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises

ByAlonso Urrutia and Emir Olivares

This article by Alonso Urrutia and Emir Olivares originally appeared in the September 11, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left-wing daily newspaper.

The federal government will implement administrative measures to support micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, among them the streamlining and consolidation of procedures, as well as tax incentives, announced President Claudia Sheinbaum.

One of these provisions consists of offering an option for the payment of the value-added tax (VAT), which involves paying a rate of only 7 percent with no right to a refund, or keeping the 15 percent rate with the possibility of having a portion refunded.

“The small businesses told us that it takes them a long time to do the accounting to recover the VAT. The Tax Administration Service (SAT) proposes to them that, if they want to continue with that regime, that’s fine; if not, there is an option: pay 7 percent VAT and that’s it. How did that 7 percent come about? It is the average of what MSMEs normally cover between what they pay and what they recover.”

For his part, the head of the SAT, Antonio Martínez Dagnino, stated that there are currently 4,178,276 taxpayers, both individuals and micro-businesses, considered as such because they have annual income of up to 3.5 million pesos (the limit will rise to 5 million). In the primary sector, he detailed, the income exempt from income tax will be increased, which is currently 900,000 pesos and will go up to one million pesos.

The IMSS Will Simplify and Advise on Procedures

The general director of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), Zoé Robledo, explained that there are 665,000 employer registrations with fewer than 10 workers. These businesses are offered an administrative simplification consisting of the digitalization of procedures and permanent support to facilitate their relationship with the agency.

Robledo also highlighted that in the forms for new micro-enterprises, the required response fields will be reduced from 80 to 14, since much of the information is already held by the SAT and an interconnection is being created so that the IMSS only requires basic additional information.