Hidalgo
Silver made Hidalgo: since the 16th century the Pachuca and Real del Monte district has yielded silver and gold on a vast scale.
Capital: Pachuca · Area: 20,821 km² · Checked 3 Nov 2026
Hidalgo 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 Hidalgo
Silver made Hidalgo: since the 16th century the Pachuca and Real del Monte district has yielded silver and gold on a vast scale. In 1824 British companies were brought in to revive the mines, and the Cornish miners who came with them left the paste, now one of the state's signature dishes. Pulque haciendas that mainly supplied Mexico City prospered in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and barbacoa is considered the state dish. Ciudad Sahagún centres automotive and train production, while Tula refines petroleum and Tula de Allende makes cement. The Otomi are the largest Indigenous group, alongside Nahuas and Tepehuas. The 2020 census counted 3,082,841 residents. The Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo grew from the Instituto Literario y Escuela de Artes y Oficios, founded in 1869. 18
Who it suits
Hidalgo suits a company with managers in Mexico City and a plant nearby at lower wages, drawing on a largely informal pool. 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 Hidalgo for a plant, a warehouse or an office? Work with us.
Industry and plants
Real activity grew 8.2% in the first quarter of 2026, the fastest in Mexico (INEGI). Apotex’s $2,000 million pharmaceutical plant was secured in May 2026, per the Secretaría de Economía. 5
Hidalgo had about 297,000 IMSS-registered formal jobs in July 2026, up 3.5%, per Lokus Data. Informality was 72.0% in the second quarter of 2026, tied for fourth-highest of the 32, against 55.1 nationally (INEGI). 5
Output by sector, 2024
Share of the state’s output, current prices 16
- 53.9%Services +1.9% real, 2024
- 36.7%Industry: manufacturing, construction, energy, mining +4.1% real, 2024
- 3.2%Agriculture, livestock, fishing +5.9% real, 2024
- 6.2%Taxes on products, net
Among the 32, measure by measure
Each bar is one state, largest on the left, in the colour of its corridor; Hidalgo 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
Hidalgo against Mexico
Coloured: the state. Grey: the whole country.
Safety, taxes and incentives
INEGI counted 2,527 victimized businesses per 10,000 in 2023, below the national average of 2,722, and 3,900 crimes per 10,000, among the lowest. The 2026 Peace Index ranks it ninth most peaceful; the USA advisory of May 29, 2026, sets Level 2. 5
Payroll tax is 3.0% in 2026 (BHR). IMCO’s 2026 index ranks Hidalgo 21st, down 7. 5
Cities, ports, airports, crossings, power and water
Pachuca
The capital: 297,848 people (2020) 17
Tulancingo
City: 151,582 people (2010) 17
Tizayuca
City: 60,265 people (2020) 17
Power and water
Hidalgo shares the Center’s water, the tightest of any corridor in Chapter 7; Chapter 6 compares its power. 5
Logistics and crossings
FINSA called its vocation logistics near Mexico City in 2023. Rents averaged $5 to $6 per square meter per month, compared with more than $10 in the capital, per Accumin Intelligence, December 2025. 5
Development pole
Reserva Zapotlán, about 910 hectares beside the Felipe Ángeles airport, was declared in the Diario Oficial on June 30, 2025; a Tula circular-economy pole, declared by the environment ministry on August 1, 2025, was revoked on July 23, 2026. 5
The recent arrivals
- Aug 2026Dewa Capital (Reserva Zapotlán)The Reserva Zapotlán pole covers about 910 hectares, with more than 16,600 million pesos announced and a first phase of about 5,100 jobs scheduled, in an announcement on August 19, 2026, to start in the second half of September 2026, a start not confirmed in the sources consulted as of October 2026, as Chapter 10 shows; the developer, Dewa Capital, expects at least 35% of hiring to be local. 8
- May 2026ApotexIn May 2026, the Secretaría de Economía said it had secured a first investment of $2,000 million from the Canadian drug maker Apotex for an active pharmaceutical ingredients plant in Hidalgo. 8
The average daily contribution wage was 571.40 pesos in July 2026, versus a national average of 673.9 pesos for all IMSS-insured workers, about 30% below the capital. 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
- INEGI, PIB por Entidad Federativa 2024, the state's press release (shares at current prices, growth at constant prices; taxes on products are 100 less the three activities, our arithmetic), 5 Dec 2025 · 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: Hidalgo (state) (en); Hidalgo (estado) (es), 3 Nov 2026 · link
Pictures
- Mineral del Monte: El Ágora, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Montaje de Pachuca: Microstar, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons