State of Mexico
State of Mexico is Mexico's second-largest economy, its tenth-largest exporter and third for foreign investment.
Capital: Toluca · Area: 22,352 km² · Checked 3 Nov 2026
State of Mexico at a glance
INEGI publishes IMMEX export-plant counts by state only in its database, not in the monthly bulletin we could read, so no count is shown here rather than an estimate; where Book 6 gives a share, it is in the text below.
This is State of Mexico
The State of Mexico was the most populous state in 2020, with 16,992,418 people, and in 2005, 39% of its residents had been born elsewhere in Mexico. Its industrial history took off in 1940, when the Naucalpan industrial zone began the spread of the Mexico City metropolitan area into the state. Villa Guerrero grows a large share of Mexico's flowers, Toluca is known for its chorizo, and Metepec potters make the large sculptures called Trees of Life. Five peoples are native: the Mazahua, Otomi, Nahua, Matlatzinca and Tlahuica. The Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México traces its origin to the state's first Instituto Literario, founded in 1828 in what is now Tlalpan, and Chapingo began in 1854 as the National School of Agriculture. 17
Who it suits
The Estado de México suits a plant serving the capital’s market from the Toluca corridor, and suits less well a heavy water user or a road shipper to Texas. 5
The Center suits a company whose customers are in Mexico: distribution, food, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, and suppliers to the Puebla auto plants. It suits a company that wants its managers, engineers, and buyers where the talent and offices are, in Mexico City, with a plant nearby in Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, or the Toluca corridor, where average formal wages run about 24% to 30% lower, and the labor pool is largely informal. It suits less well a plant that needs a large volume of water, in the corridor Chapter 7 finds tightest, with tanker supply regulated away, or a company shipping high-value goods by road to Texas, whose trucks start in the two states at the top of every cargo-theft count. It suits poorly a manufacturer hoping to hire inside the metro area against the logistics operators building fastest there.
What to check first
- Check the route before the site: the highway from the candidate park to the customer or the border, its record of cargo theft, and the security the carriers will price.
- Confirm the water source in writing, including its title and volume, and don’t rely on tanker supply.
- Check which side of the Mexico City line the building sits, because the payroll tax changes with it.
- Check the submarket’s vacancy and construction, because averages hide the boom north of the city.
- At the poles, check what has been placed against what was announced, and who will govern the state when the next phase is due.
- And check who else is hiring within a bus ride of the site, because in the Center the competitor for workers is as likely to be a warehouse as a plant.
Weighing State of Mexico for a plant, a warehouse or an office? Work with us.
Industry and plants
The state carries the Center’s industry, with 578,026 IMSS-registered manufacturing jobs in January 2026; Toluca holds Bosch’s first Mexican plant. 5
It was the most populous state in 2025, with 17.5 million people (INEGI). It had about 2,043,000 IMSS-registered formal jobs in July 2026, up 3.8%, per Lokus Data. 5
Output by sector
INEGI’s state release with this state’s own sector shares could not be found for 2024; the chart is left out rather than estimated.
Among the 32, measure by measure
Each bar is one state, largest on the left, in the colour of its corridor; State of Mexico is the bright one with the white edge. 1 2 3 7 6
Beside its neighbours in the Center
Share of Mexico’s output, 2024
Exports, 2025
Formal private jobs, July 2026
Informal work, Q2 2026
State of Mexico against Mexico
Coloured: the state. Grey: the whole country.
Safety, taxes and incentives
INEGI counted 34,851 adult victims per 100,000 in 2024, the highest (24,135 nationally), and 3,005 victimized businesses per 10,000 in 2023, against 2,722 nationally. Overhaul put 18% of cargo-theft incidents here in the second quarter of 2026. The USA advisory of May 29, 2026, sets Level 2. 5
Payroll tax is 3.0% in 2026 (BHR); the World Bank ranked the state sixth for construction permits in 2016. 5
Cities, ports, airports, crossings, power and water
Toluca
The capital: 223,876 people (2020) 16
Ecatepec
City: 1,643,623 people (2020) 16
Nezahualcóyotl
City: 1,072,676 people (2020) 16
Licenciado Adolfo López Mateos International Airport (Toluca)
International airport (TLC) · 1,927,498 passengers in 2025 16
Felipe Ángeles International Airport (Zumpango)
International airport (NLU) · 7,079,040 passengers in 2025 16
Power and water
CFE’s base-hour industrial charge in its Valle de México Norte division, which serves the northern metropolitan area, was 0.9125 pesos per kilowatt-hour in March 2026; a different CFE division serves the Toluca corridor, so ask for that division’s tariff. Toluca’s aquifer is closed to growth, and tanker supply is being regulated. 5
Logistics and crossings
Of the 719,000 square meters delivered around the capital in 2025, 64% went to Cuautitlán (CBRE). DHL is building a hub of more than 200,000 square meters at the Felipe Ángeles airport. 5
Development pole
Nezahualcóyotl was declared in the Diario Oficial on August 7, 2025. 5
The recent arrivals
- May 2026BoschBosch’s first Mexican plant is in Toluca, where most of its North American purchasing team works, the company said in May 2026, and an industrial real estate executive described Toluca in August 2026 as pharmaceutical and serving the Mexico City market. 8
The average daily contribution wage was 608.67 pesos in July 2026, compared with the national average of 673.9 pesos for all IMSS-insured workers. 5
Book 6’s cost model prices only Monterrey, Querétaro and Mérida in full.
Rent per square metre, freight to your customers and the fully loaded cost of your own workforce are figures we prepare for each client, not numbers to publish: work with us.
Sources, each with its date
- INEGI, Encuesta Intercensal 2025 (people in private dwellings; median age from the tabulates), 22 Sep 2026 · link
- INEGI, PIB por Entidad Federativa 2024, current prices; share our arithmetic over the national 33,506,847 million pesos, 5 Dec 2025 · link
- INEGI, Exportaciones Trimestrales por Entidad Federativa, the four quarters of 2025 summed (our arithmetic), preliminary, 31 Mar 2026 · link
- Wikipedia, List of states of Mexico, citing INEGI (continental area, 2016), 22 Oct 2026 · link
- Book 6, Where to Go in Mexico, Part V, with the sources listed there, Nov 2026 · link
- INEGI, ENOE second quarter 2026, bulletin 503/26, as compiled in Book 6, Part V, 25 Aug 2026 · link
- IMSS open data as processed by Lokus Data (private formal jobs and average daily contribution wage; the national wage of 673.9 pesos covers all IMSS-insured workers), as compiled in Book 6, Jul 2026 · link
- Book 6, Where to Go in Mexico, chapter 16, The Center, with the sources listed there, Nov 2026 · link
- INEGI, quarterly state exports, bulletin 609/26, as compiled in Book 6, 30 Sep 2026 · link
- Secretaría de Economía, foreign direct investment by state of destination, as reproduced by the Chamber of Deputies, Gaceta Parlamentaria, 14 Apr 2026 · link
- IMCO, Índice de Competitividad Estatal 2026, 21 Sep 2026 · link
- BHR, bulletin on state payroll-tax rates for 2026, as compiled in Book 6, Jan 2026 · link
- Institute for Economics and Peace, Mexico Peace Index 2026; USA Department of State travel advisory of 29 May 2026, 29 May 2026 · link
- INEGI, ENVE 2024 (businesses victimized in 2023, per 10,000), 10 Dec 2024 · link
- INEGI, ITAEE first quarter 2026 (change on a year), from Book 6, Figure VII.18, Nov 2026 · link
- Wikipedia, the city, airport, port and crossing pages (EN and ES), read 3 November 2026, 3 Nov 2026 · link
- Wikipedia and the pages listed: State of Mexico (en); Estado de México (es), 3 Nov 2026 · link
Pictures
- Toluca a los pies del nevado: HernanLuna, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
- ZA77 Teotihuacán edo de mex Herberto de la rosa: Hdlrosa, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons