Nuevo León
Nuevo León is Mexico's third-largest economy, its third-largest exporter and second for foreign investment.
Capital: Monterrey · Area: 64,156 km² · Checked 3 Nov 2026
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Nuevo León 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 Nuevo León
Nuevo León industrialised early, around Monterrey. The Cuauhtémoc brewery was founded in 1890, the Monterrey Foundry in 1900, Cementos Hidalgo, the predecessor of Cemex, in 1906, and Vidrios y Cristales de Monterrey, later Vitro, in 1909. Monterrey is also home to Cemex, FEMSA, Banorte and Alfa. The Tec de Monterrey was founded in 1943 by a group of local businessmen led by Eugenio Garza Sada, and UANL is the third-largest public university in Mexico. Migration feeds the workforce: 277,369 people moved in from other states between 2015 and 2020, and the 2020 census counted 77,945 speakers of Indigenous languages, mostly Nahuatl and Tének. Nahuatl first came with Tlaxcalan settlers, who founded San Miguel de Aguayo, in today's Bustamante, in 1688, and Nueva Tlaxcala, in today's Guadalupe, in 1756. 18
Who it suits
Monterrey suits a company that needs engineers, flights, and a deep building stock, not a large water user or a big load that can’t wait for a substation. 5
The Texas-facing North suits a manufacturer that ships heavy or time-sensitive goods to the United States, needs a deep supplier base in automotive, appliances, or electronics, and can pay the region’s wages for experienced people. It suits a supplier following a customer already there. Monterrey suits a company that needs engineers, flights, and a large stock of industrial buildings; Saltillo, an automotive supplier willing to compete for scarce Class A space; Juárez, an electronics or medical-device maker that wants the experienced workforce released by the 2023 to 2025 contraction. It suits less well a company that needs much water, since the main aquifers have none to grant; a large new electrical load that can’t wait 1 to 2 years for a substation; a labor-intensive plant whose margin depends on low wages; and a product sold mainly in central or southern Mexico, which gains nothing from Laredo. Chapter 21 weighs this corridor against the Bajío and the south.
What to check first
- Get the substation answer in writing, from CFE and from the park, with a date.
- Get the water answer next: whether the site’s water comes from a title, the park, or treated supply, and what happened to the site in 2022.
- Ask the park and 2 neighboring plants for their monthly turnover and starting wage, and price housing and commuting for the people you’ll hire.
- Get crossing times by hour from your carrier and customs broker for the bridge you’ll use.
- And read every state figure for investment and jobs against the official table and the 5-year window in which announced jobs arrive.
Weighing Nuevo León for a plant, a warehouse or an office? Work with us.
Industry and plants
INEGI reported that the state accounted for 13.7% of export-plant employment in July 2026, the largest share. The Secretaría de Economía recorded $3,627.6 million of foreign investment in 2025, second to Mexico City. 5
INEGI counted 5,784,442 people in 2020 and put unemployment at 2.5% in the second quarter of 2026, against 2.7 nationally; informality, 34.8% against 55.1, was Mexico’s lowest. Lokus Data’s IMSS count showed 1,975,292 formal jobs in July 2026, up 1.5% year over year. 5
Output by sector, 2024
Share of the state’s output, current prices 16
- 52.0%Services +3.6% real, 2024
- 40.2%Industry: manufacturing, construction, energy, mining +3.3% real, 2024
- 0.5%Agriculture, livestock, fishing +2.2% real, 2024
- 7.3%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; Nuevo León is the bright one with the white edge. 1 2 3 7 6
Beside its neighbours in the Texas-Facing North
Share of Mexico’s output, 2024
Exports, 2025
Formal private jobs, July 2026
Informal work, Q2 2026
Nuevo León against Mexico
Coloured: the state. Grey: the whole country.
Safety, taxes and incentives
INEGI found 2,812 businesses out of every 10,000 victimized in 2023, compared with 2,722 nationally. The Mexico Peace Index 2026 ranks it 21st of 32; the USA State Department’s May 29, 2026 advisory sets it at Level 2. 5
Payroll tax is 3.0% in 2026, according to BHR, and the state offers infrastructure, training, and payroll-tax relief rather than cash. IMCO’s 2026 index ranks it third. 5
Cities, ports, airports, crossings, power and water
Monterrey
The capital: 1,142,952 people (2020) 17
Guadalupe
City: 635,862 people (2020) 17
Ciudad Apodaca
City: 536,436 people (2020) 17
General Mariano Escobedo International Airport
International airport (MTY) · 15,777,052 passengers in 2025 17
Colombia (Nuevo León)-Laredo, Texas (Colombia Solidarity Bridge)
Border crossing: Colombia (Nuevo León), facing Laredo, Texas (Colombia Solidarity Bridge) 17
CPKC (Kansas City Southern de México), 5,335 km
Rail line serving the state 17
Power and water
CFE’s September 2026 peak charge at Apodaca was 1.6634 pesos per kilowatt-hour, but the governor said substation queues delay plants 1 to 2 years. CONAGUA’s 2024 sheet shows Monterrey’s aquifer is short about 12.4 million cubic meters a year. 5
Logistics and crossings
Laredo processed 2,945,388 northbound trucks in 2025, according to USA transportation statistics; the state’s Colombia bridge inspects cargo once. 5
Development pole
No development pole has been declared in Nuevo León. 5
The recent arrivals
- Sep 2026Quanta ComputerIn July 2023, the state said its supplier-relocation program with American buyers began with Tesla and brought many Tesla suppliers to the state; in September 2026, the governor said Quanta, which makes computers for Tesla shipped to Austin, took 6 months from installation to first export. 8
- 2025Whirlpool, LG, Carrier, Hisense, Danfoss, MabeNuevo León’s economy ministry named Whirlpool, LG, Carrier, Hisense, Danfoss and Mabe among its appliance investors in 2025, and a state official listed Navistar, Quanta Computer, John Deere, ZF, Caterpillar and Kia among the brands present or arriving in February 2024. 8
- Mar 2023TeslaTesla’s own annual report states that in March 2023 it announced Monterrey as the location of its next Gigafactory. As Chapter 3 records, the project was paused in July 2024, with Elon Musk citing the threat of United States tariffs on vehicles made in Mexico. 8
Lokus Data’s average daily contribution wage was 739.87 pesos in July 2026, the third-highest; the national average, covering all IMSS-insured workers, was 673.9. 5
Book 6’s cost model (chapter 12):
- The model priced 3 Mexican places in full: Monterrey, Querétaro, and Mérida. 19
- In the model, an operator in an export plant in 2026 costs the employer about $1,398 a month in Monterrey, 1,387 in Querétaro, and 1,069 in Mérida, with every legal charge included: the year-end bonus and vacation premium, social security, the housing fund, the state payroll tax, and profit sharing at its cap. 19
- Per hour worked, the operator costs about $6.72 in Monterrey, 6.67 in Querétaro, and 5.14 in Mérida. 19
- The model uses the July 2026 averages from IMSS open data that Chapter 4 gives: 739.87 pesos for Nuevo León, 733.53 for Querétaro, and 561.80 for Yucatán; each technician is paid the state average, and each operator 70% of it. 19
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 13, The Texas-Facing North, 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: Nuevo León (English Wikipedia) (en); Nuevo León (Wikipedia en español) (es); Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (English Wikipedia) (en); Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewery (English Wikipedia) (en); Cemex (English Wikipedia) (en); Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey (Wikipedia en español) (es), 3 Nov 2026 · link
- Book 6, Where to Go in Mexico, chapter 12, The Landed Cost and Time to Production, State by State, Nov 2026 · link
Pictures
- View of Monterrey (2015): Rick González, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Club Campestre de Monterrey A.C: México en Fotos, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons