Veracruz
Veracruz is Mexico's sixth-largest economy.
Capital: Xalapa · Area: 71,824 km² · Checked 3 Nov 2026
Veracruz 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 Veracruz
Veracruz has been Mexico's door to the Atlantic since Cortés founded Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz in 1519, the first Spanish town in what is now Mexico. In 1609 Gaspar Yanga, a fugitive slave, led an uprising that later won Africans the right to their own community, today's municipality of Yanga. Oil came next: the Golden Lane structure was found in 1908 by Weetman Pearson's Mexican Eagle company, and the Poza Rica field in 1932. The state is Mexico's leading sugarcane producer and also grows coffee, and vanilla is native to the Totonacapan around Papantla. Laguna Verde is the country's only nuclear power plant. Huastecs, Totonacs, Nahuas and Popolucas are among its Indigenous peoples, and the Universidad Veracruzana was formally established on 11 September 1944. 18
Who it suits
Chapter 18 finds Veracruz right for water-hungry food and beverage plants, Pemex suppliers and importers through its port, and wrong for just-in-time automotive suppliers. 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 Veracruz for a plant, a warehouse or an office? Work with us.
Industry and plants
Real output grew 3.1% in 2024, and the state held 4.3% of the national economy (INEGI). Pemex plans about 93,000 million pesos for petrochemicals and fertilizers in 2026 to 2030, most of it in the corridor. 5
Veracruz had 1.9% unemployment in the second quarter of 2026 (INEGI), versus 2.7% nationally, while informality reached 69.1%, against 55.1% nationally. Lokus Data’s IMSS processing counted 771,810 formal private jobs in July 2026, up 1.3%. 5
Output by sector, 2024
Share of the state’s output, current prices 16
- 60.3%Services +2.0% real, 2024
- 27.7%Industry: manufacturing, construction, energy, mining +5.9% real, 2024
- 6.6%Agriculture, livestock, fishing +3.1% real, 2024
- 5.4%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; Veracruz 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
Veracruz against Mexico
Coloured: the state. Grey: the whole country.
Safety, taxes and incentives
The May 29, 2026, USA advisory rates Veracruz Level 2. INEGI counted 1,939 businesses victimized per 10,000 in 2023, against 2,722, though ANTAC ranked the state fifth for highway cargo theft in December 2025. 5
Payroll tax is 3.0% plus a 15% surcharge, about 3.45%, for 2026 (BHR). IMCO ranks it 25th in 2026. 5
Cities, ports, airports, crossings, power and water
Xalapa
The capital: 443,063 people (2020) 17
Veracruz
City: 537,963 people (2020) 17
Coatzacoalcos
City: 212,540 people (2020) 17
General Heriberto Jara International Airport (Veracruz)
International airport (VER) · 1,884,796 passengers in 2025 17
Minatitlán International Airport
International airport (MTT) · 159,315 passengers in 2025 17
Port of Veracruz
Commercial seaport 17
Port of Coatzacoalcos
Commercial seaport 17
Port of Tuxpan
Commercial seaport 17
Interoceanic Corridor (Isthmus of Tehuantepec)
Rail line serving the state 17
CPKC (Kansas City Southern de México), 5,335 km
Rail line serving the state 17
Power and water
The Southeast Gateway has brought gas to the southeast since it was completed in the second quarter of 2025. The state bore 17.1% of the nation’s disaster damage in 2022 (CENAPRED). 5
Logistics and crossings
The port of Veracruz moved 1,299,337 TEU in 2025, down 0.2%, and Coatzacoalcos runs Mexico’s only rail ferries, to Mobile. 5
Development pole
Tuxpan was declared in the Diario Oficial on August 26, 2025, with about 235.1 hectares, beside 4 Isthmus poles. 5
The recent arrivals
- Jul 2026Constellation BrandsAfter the federal government stopped its Mexicali brewery in March 2020, the case Chapter 7 tells, the company moved the capacity to Veracruz, Expansión reported. By July 2026, its Veracruz brewery was still under construction, with no start-up date announced and about 600 staff in training, La Razón reported. 8
- Jun 2026PemexThe company set out on June 5, 2026, at an event in Coatzacoalcos led by the President, a plan to reactivate petrochemical and fertilizer production with about 93,000 million pesos of public and mixed investment between 2026 and 2030, aiming at 849,000 metric tons a year of petrochemicals and more than 4 million metric tons a year of fertilizers, as Imagen del Golfo and Noticias El Debate reported. 8
- Jan 2026Pilgrim’s MexicoIts chief executive, José de Jesús Muñoz Velasco, said in January 2026 that of $1,300 million to be invested over 5 years, about $950 million would go to the south, mainly Veracruz, first to double feed-plant and hatchery capacity, then for a new processing plant, and later for a production center in the Isthmus, whose climate he said suits poultry at high productivity. 8
The average registered daily wage was 648.26 pesos in July 2026 (Lokus Data), 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 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: Veracruz (English Wikipedia) (en); Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (Wikipedia en español) (es); Veracruz, ciudad (Wikipedia en español) (es); Universidad Veracruzana (English Wikipedia) (en), 3 Nov 2026 · link
Pictures
- Teatro Francisco Javier Clavijero: Alejandro borbolla, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Xalapa montage: El Sombrerero, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons