Tabasco
Tabasco's economy ran on cacao long before oil.
Capital: Villahermosa · Area: 24,731 km² · Checked 3 Nov 2026
Tabasco 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 Tabasco
Tabasco's economy ran on cacao long before oil. The area around Comalcalco and Villahermosa was one of the major cacao-producing regions of late Postclassic Mesoamerica, and the Olmec site of La Venta dates to about 1000 BC. Significant agriculture came only in the 18th century, mainly cacao and cattle, and chocolate is still drunk cold as pozol. Oil changed the state in the 1970s, when PEMEX announced super-giant fields in seven municipalities, and the port of Dos Bocas began operating in 1982. Cacao, coconut, oranges, bananas and sugar cane remain commercially important, and Zebu cattle are raised mostly for meat. Most of the state's Indigenous-language speakers speak Chontal Maya. The Instituto Juárez, inaugurated in 1879, became the Universidad Juárez Autónoma de Tabasco in 1959. 18
Who it suits
Chapter 18 sees Tabasco suiting a light, labor-intensive assembler willing to be early, as Sumitomo was, and a water-hungry plant that can live with floods. 5
It suits a company that needs a lot of water and can live with floods, in beverages, food and agribusiness, as the brewery and the poultry plans show; suppliers to Pemex’s complexes around Coatzacoalcos and Poza Rica, if they price the risk of one public customer; a plant serving the southeast from close by, as Holcim’s does; and a light, labor-intensive assembler willing to be early in Tabasco, as Sumitomo was. It suits a company that imports through Veracruz or ships to the American Gulf Coast. For a patient company, the Isthmus offers land on concession terms, a local-hire floor it can meet and a rail bridge to the Pacific that already carries grain. It doesn’t yet suit a just-in-time supplier to the automotive plants of the north and the Bajío, which needs a dense supplier base, short and secure roads to Texas, and reliable power; industry voices in 2023 and 2024 said the Isthmus didn’t offer those and would take decades. And it doesn’t suit anyone who can’t afford a flood or a hurricane season on the wrong site.
What to check first
- Start with the flood map and the hurricane record for the exact parcel, from CENAPRED and the state civil protection office.
- Then ask CFE for the connection date, and on the Isthmus ask who will supply the gas and when.
- In a pole, read its decree and the concession contract, and ask who holds title to the land and how the 20% local-labor rule is measured.
- If the plan depends on the CIIT, get a quoted rate and transit time from the railway for your container, and a second quote for the usual route.
- If it depends on Pemex as a customer, ask how promptly Pemex has paid its suppliers in the last 2 years.
- In Tabasco, find out which employers are hiring and which are shrinking now that the refinery is built.
Weighing Tabasco for a plant, a warehouse or an office? Work with us.
Industry and plants
Oil carries the state, whose real output fell 6.5% in 2024 (INEGI) once the Dos Bocas refinery was built. Sumitomo announced the state’s first first-tier automotive plant, at Cunduacán, in August 2023. 5
Unemployment was 4.0% in the second quarter of 2026 (INEGI), the second-highest in Mexico, compared with 2.7% nationally, and informality was 66.2%. Lokus Data’s IMSS processing counted 205,092 formal private jobs in July 2026, up 3.5%. 5
Output by sector, 2024
Share of the state’s output, current prices 16
- 39.9%Services +3.3% real, 2024
- 54.3%Industry: manufacturing, construction, energy, mining −12.2% real, 2024
- 2.1%Agriculture, livestock, fishing +5.3% real, 2024
- 3.7%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; Tabasco is the bright one with the white edge. 1 2 3 7 6
Beside its neighbours in the Gulf and the Isthmus
Share of Mexico’s output, 2024
Exports, 2025
Formal private jobs, July 2026
Informal work, Q2 2026
Tabasco against Mexico
Coloured: the state. Grey: the whole country.
Safety, taxes and incentives
The USA advisory of May 29, 2026, sets Tabasco at Level 2. INEGI counted 2,990 businesses victimized per 10,000 in 2023, above the national 2,722, and 87.6% of adults felt unsafe in early 2026, the third-highest. 5
Payroll tax is 3.0% or 3.5% for 2026 (BHR), and IMCO’s 2026 index ranks the state 24th. 5
Cities, ports, airports, crossings, power and water
Villahermosa
The capital: 340,060 people (2020) 17
Cárdenas
City: 79,875 people (2005) 17
Comalcalco
City: 43,035 people (2020) 17
Carlos Rovirosa Pérez International Airport
International airport (VSA) · 1,453,605 passengers in 2025 17
Dos Bocas
Commercial seaport 17
Tren Maya
Rail line serving the state 17
Interoceanic Corridor (Isthmus of Tehuantepec)
Rail line serving the state 17
Power and water
Tabasco has alternative supply lines, and it produced the second-most natural gas of any state in 2022. Floods are the usual water problem, yet 13 municipalities were in drought on January 15, 2026. 5
Logistics and crossings
Dos Bocas, at about 8 to 9 meters deep, takes ships of 3,000 to 3,500 TEU, by the corridor’s account. 5
Development pole
No development pole had been named in Tabasco as of October 2026. 5
The recent arrivals
- Feb 2024Holcim MéxicoHolcim México announced in February 2024 a $55 million cement grinding unit in Macuspana, Tabasco, with 1.5 million metric tons a year, to supply Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo, Factor Energético reported. 8
- Aug 2023Sumitomo Electric Wiring SystemsIn August 2023, Sumitomo Electric Wiring Systems announced what Cluster Industrial reported as Tabasco’s first plant by a first-tier automotive supplier, in Cunduacán, with an investment of about $10 million and about 700 jobs; the company cited the Reforma to Dos Bocas highway and the Isthmus corridor. 8
Tabasco’s registered workers earned an average of 595.33 pesos per day in July 2026 (Lokus Data), compared with a national average of 673.9 pesos that covers 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 18, The Gulf and the Isthmus, 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: Tabasco (English Wikipedia) (en); Tabasco (Wikipedia en español) (es), 3 Nov 2026 · link
Pictures
- Comalcalco.Iglesia y Palacio: Alfonsobouchot, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Villahermosa collage: AdriLov, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons