Yucatán
Mexico's most peaceful state, the Peninsula's main cargo port facing Houston and Florida, and light manufacturing gathering around Mérida, though export plants shrank in the past year.
Capital: Mérida · Area: 39,524 km² · Checked 3 Nov 2026
Yucatán at a glance
This is Yucatán
Yucatán's wealth was spun from henequén, the agave fibre called “oro verde” and sold abroad as sisal. For nearly 150 years it was the axis of the regional economy: hundreds of haciendas grew it, and hacendados, industrialists and merchants backed Mérida's Paseo de Montejo, begun in 1888. Synthetic products ended the boom after World War II. In 2015, Yucatec Maya had 859,607 speakers, the country's second most spoken Indigenous language after Nahuatl. Yucatán leads Mexico in honey production and exports, and Kekén has exported pork to Japan since 1997 and also sells to South Korea. UADY dates from 1922, the Universidad Politécnica de Yucatán specialises in information technology, and tourism, from Chichén Itzá to the cenotes, became a major industry after airports were built on the peninsula in the 1980s. 18
Who it suits
Yucatán fits a light, labor-intensive manufacturer that wants a safe, stable workforce and a sea route to the USA, not a heavy power user. 5
The Peninsula suits a light, labor-intensive manufacturer, in apparel, wiring, electronics, food, beverages, or medical devices, that values a stable and willing workforce, a safe place for its managers to live, and a sea route to the Gulf and east coasts of the United States, and that can protect itself against short power cuts. It suits a company selling to southeast Mexico from nearby, and one that can use Progreso and, from 2027, the Tren Maya freight line. In Yucatán, such a company can choose between Mérida, where land is scarce and the labor pool is deeper, and the state’s larger towns, where it may be one of the largest employers and should first understand which local authorities and leaders you will deal with, as Chapter 20 explains. It doesn’t suit a heavy power user until the new plants and the gas are in place, a just-in-time supplier to the automotive plants of the north and the Bajío, or a company that needs a deep local base of engineers and tool makers.
What to check first
- Ask CFE for a connection date and capacity, and ask which plant and which pipeline the nearest substation depends on.
- Price backup generation into the plan from the start.
- Get a water feasibility letter and an environmental review of the parcel that accounts for the limestone.
- Price freight to your customers by sea through Progreso and by road, and ask when the Tren Maya’s freight terminals will serve your site.
- In a town, find out who the existing employers are, what they pay, and which local authorities and leaders you will deal with before you buy land.
Weighing Yucatán for a plant, a warehouse or an office? Work with us.
Industry and plants
Leoni announced 3,500 more harness jobs in January 2026, and Heineken announced a Kanasín brewery of 8,700 million pesos (about US$500 million at the time) in September 2023. 5
Unemployment was 1.7% in the second quarter of 2026 (INEGI), versus 2.7% nationally; informality was higher, at 59.1% versus 55.1%. Lokus Data’s IMSS processing counted 429,157 formal private jobs in July 2026, down 0.5%. 5
Output by sector, 2024
Share of the state’s output, current prices 16
- 66.5%Services +4.1% real, 2024
- 23.9%Industry: manufacturing, construction, energy, mining +1.8% real, 2024
- 3.7%Agriculture, livestock, fishing +14.4% real, 2024
- 5.9%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; Yucatán is the bright one with the white edge. 1 2 3 7 6
Beside its neighbours in the Peninsula
Share of Mexico’s output, 2024
Exports, 2025
Formal private jobs, July 2026
Informal work, Q2 2026
Yucatán against Mexico
Coloured: the state. Grey: the whole country.
Safety, taxes and incentives
The May 29, 2026, USA advisory sets Yucatán at Level 1. The Mexico Peace Index 2026 ranks it the most peaceful; INEGI counted 1,889 businesses victimized per 10,000 in 2023, compared with 2,722. 5
Payroll tax rose from 3% to 3.75% for 2026 (state government); IMCO ranks Yucatán seventh in 2026, up 3. 5
Cities, ports, airports, crossings, power and water
Mérida
The capital: 921,771 people (2020) 17
Kanasín
City: 139,753 people (2020) 17
Progreso
City: 37,369 people (2010) 17
Manuel Crescencio Rejón International Airport (Mérida)
International airport (MID) · 3,951,827 passengers in 2025 17
Port of Progreso
Commercial seaport 17
Tren Maya
Rail line serving the state 17
Power and water
CFE’s Mérida IV, about 500 megawatts, entered operation in 2026; 2 transmission lines carry most imported power. Aquifer availability fell about 70% over 25 years (UNAM, citing CONAGUA’s 2023 figures). 5
Logistics and crossings
Progreso’s channel reached 13.3 meters in July 2026, with links to Houston and Florida; its Tren Maya terminal is due at the end of 2026. 5
Development pole
None came under the 2025 program; an incentive decree for Progreso I and Mérida I appeared in the Diario Oficial on June 28, 2024. 5
The recent arrivals
- Sep 2026Bepensa, Pilgrim’sPilgrim’s plans to invest about 700 million pesos in 2026 to double its poultry capacity in the state, and Bepensa, the regional bottler, opened a 1,200 million peso plant in eastern Yucatán in September 2026. 8
- Mar 2026USATIn March 2026, a company with Canadian and Mexican capital, USAT, announced a plant in Kanasín to make solar cells, with 2,430 million pesos in its first phase and about 1,000 jobs. 8
- Jan 2026LeoniIn January 2026, Leoni announced it would add 3,500 jobs to its 2 wiring-harness plants, 1,500 in 2026 and 2,000 in 2027, on top of the more than 2,600 already there. 8
- Sep 2023HeinekenA brewery in Kanasín, 8,700 million pesos (about US$500 million at the time); building under way. 22
The average registered daily wage was 561.80 pesos in July 2026 (Lokus Data), compared with a national average of 673.9 that covers all IMSS-insured workers. 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 19, The Peninsula, 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 (5 December 2025), as reported by Por Esto; taxes on products are 100 less the three activities, our arithmetic, 6 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: Yucatán (English Wikipedia) (en); Yucatán (Wikipedia en español) (es); Mérida, Yucatán (English Wikipedia) (en); Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (English Wikipedia) (en); Idioma maya yucateco (Wikipedia en español) (es); El cultivo del henequén, el oro verde de Yucatán (Por Esto!, 21 Jan 2021) (www), 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
- INEGI, Exportaciones por Entidad Federativa, 2025 annual (record, +21.1%), as reported by Posta, 3 April 2026, 3 Apr 2026 · link
- INEGI, IMMEX statistics for April 2026 against April 2025, as reported by Por Esto, 23 Jun 2026 · link
- Expansión, Heineken to invest 8,700 million pesos in a Yucatán plant, 14 Sep 2023 · link
INEGI's full-year 2025 figure, a record, up 21.1% on 2024 (Posta, 3 April 2026). The four quarterly releases as first published sum to US$2,557.7 million, the figure the 32-state ranking uses.
Pictures
- El Castillo Stitch 2008 Edit 1: Fcb981, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Puerto de Altura de Progreso Yucatán Mayo de 2017: Presidencia de la República Mexicana, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Collage Merida Yucatan: the above mentioned, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons