Shelter Services in Hermosillo: What They Cover
11 min Read
- Manufacturing in Mexico
Key Takeaways
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Under shelter services in Hermosillo, you run manufacturing. The shelter carries the Mexican employment, trade and compliance infrastructure around it, every month you operate, on the Río Sonora Campus.
On the Campus, that comes down to three things working together.
The building
Standing Class A space with established utility infrastructure, gated, controlled access, CCTV, and one operator responsible for the grounds.
The people and the registrations
Tetakawi employs the workforce, holds the import and export registrations in Mexico, and carries the regulatory weight of operating here.
Room to grow
A 210-acre master-planned Campus, so the next line, shift or building can go on the same site.
What a shelter service is
A shelter is a legal structure with people behind it. It is not a building, and nobody at the shelter company builds your product.
Under a shelter arrangement, a Mexican company that already holds an IMMEX program extends that framework to you. IMMEX is the federal authorization to bring materials and equipment into Mexico temporarily, for export manufacturing and qualifying export services.
That company is the legal employer of the people who work in your plant, files the payroll, holds the trade registrations, and carries the day-to-day dealings with the Mexican authorities, of which there are several. The program sits with Mexico’s Secretaría de Economía. The tax filings sit with the Servicio de Administración Tributaria, Mexico’s tax authority. Employment sits with the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Mexico’s social security institute, and with the Ministry of Labor.
None of those relationships ends at startup. Somebody answers to each of them every month you operate. The manufacturing itself stays yours: your equipment, your processes, your intellectual property and your customer relationships.
Shelter
You are the manufacturer. Someone else is the employer of record, the importer of record, and holds the trade registrations.
Standalone
You are the manufacturer, the employer, the importer of record and the compliance department.
Contract manufacturing
You are a customer. Somebody else builds your product to your drawing.
What the shelter carries
Six functions, and not one of them is a filing you make once.
- Recruiting, employment and the union
- Sourcing, screening, onboarding, payroll, and the filings that go with employing people in Mexico. You define the roles and the skills your operation needs. Tetakawi recruits against that definition, hires, and is the employer of record, and the people it employs are assigned to your operation. Where the plant operates under a collective bargaining agreement, Tetakawi’s Mexican entity is the employer party to it, and its Sonora labor team carries the employer side of that relationship.
- Trade compliance
- The IMMEX program and the registrations that have to cover your address and the goods you import. The annual report to the Secretaría de Economía. The inventory control system that reconciles what came in against what went out. On the Mexican side Tetakawi is the importer and exporter of record, so shipments are declared under its own legal entity and trade registrations and it is the responsible party named on the pedimento. A licensed Mexican customs broker prepares and files those entries, and clearance ultimately remains subject to customs authorities. On the United States side, the client generally retains its US import and export responsibilities and works through its own US customs broker. Tetakawi supplies the transaction information from its Mexican records to you and your brokers. Tetakawi is not a customs broker in either country and does not act as one.
- Accounting and fiscal compliance
- The Mexican entity’s books, the electronic invoices, and the filings to the tax authority, the social security institute and the national housing fund. Your own corporate accounting stays yours.
- Environment, health and safety
- The permits, licenses and registrations that municipal, state and federal authorities require, and the renewals that keep them current. The NOM standards that apply to your process, the safety committees, and the specialists who meet the inspections.
- Facilities and site services
- The building, its maintenance, controlled entry and the utilities feeding it. Tetakawi operates the site, so the roof, the roads and the Campus infrastructure are its responsibility, not yours.
- Purchasing support
- Indirect materials and services. You direct the spend and we procure it, against buying relationships that already exist in the state. Suppliers are screened against the tax authority’s published lists of non-located companies and shell invoicers, and checked for current social security registration, before they go on the approved list.
Those six are the standard list. What differs is who does the work and how long they have been doing it in this state. Tetakawi’s Sonora teams have been running these functions since 1986.
What that work looks like in a normal year
Mexico has an established regulatory operating framework, and it runs on a calendar. Tetakawi already has the people and the routines to carry it.
Here is what a manufacturer operating in Sonora meets in a year when nothing unusual happens, and what Tetakawi runs alongside it.
Every month
Filings to the tax authority and the social security institute, with the housing fund on its own cycle. The electronic invoices Mexico requires on every transaction. A reconciliation of what is on your floor against what customs has on record, reviewed with your people. A check of your supplier base against the tax authority’s published lists.
Every year
The IMMEX annual report to the Secretaría de Economía, due the last business day of May. Where the operation falls under federal environmental jurisdiction, the Cédula de Operación Anual, Mexico’s annual environmental operating report. Plants under state jurisdiction file the state equivalent. The renewal of the operating licenses and environmental registrations that carry an expiry date. An internal compliance audit of your operation, run before an authority asks for one.
On the union’s schedule
Where the plant operates under a collective bargaining agreement, Tetakawi’s Mexican entity is the employer party to it and carries the employer side of the relationship, including the annual wage review and the periodic contract revision.
On nobody’s schedule
Labor, environmental, social security and customs authorities each inspect on their own terms, some scheduled and some not. Tetakawi’s compliance teams meet them and work the file through from the first visit.
Three things about this work surprise manufacturers coming from the United States, Canada or Europe.
- Inspections are routine, not triggered by accidents
- Inspections are a normal part of operating, scheduled and unscheduled, and the file has to exist before the visit.
- Mexican NOM standards create their own compliance requirements
- The NOMs are mandatory, and the ones covering workplace safety, psychosocial risk and ergonomics set their own requirements rather than mirroring OSHA or ISO.
- A translated corporate handbook is not a Mexican policy
- Mexican labor law and union practice do not accommodate a translated handbook; the policy has to be rebuilt in Mexican terms and kept current as the law changes.
Under a shelter
The registrations are held by a company that already answers to these authorities across five Manufacturing Campuses, with compliance teams staffed for the month an audit lands.
Standalone
You establish and maintain each of these functions under your own Mexican operation, through the quiet months as well as the loud ones.
Either way
The taxes attributable to your operation and the severance for your workforce are your costs. A shelter administers the filings and the payments, and on severance it can present options that affect what they cost. It does not absorb either, and it does not replace your own tax advisors.
Ask this in the first meeting
Ask any provider what happened the last time an authority arrived unannounced at one of its buildings. Ask who walked out to meet them, what that person’s title is, and which city they work in.
What sets your start date
Three things set it, and only one of them is on our side of the table.
The first two are whether a building exists and whether the utilities you need are already fed to it. At Río Sonora, standing Class A space and established utility infrastructure remove both of those startup dependencies; what is available and to what specification is in industrial space for lease in Hermosillo.
The third is your equipment, and that one is yours. In an existing building, a client operation can be set up in as little as 30 days, the fastest it has been done, and a typical launch runs about three to six months from signing. Producing finished product is a separate date set by your equipment installation, validation and customer approvals.
Which import registrations you need depends on what you are bringing in and what you are making; bring your parts list to the first meeting and we will walk it with you.
Bring the real constraints
Put your dates against the actual buildings
Bring your headcount plan, your equipment list and your customer’s required date. We will walk the standing buildings with you, tell you what the utilities clear, and show you what the entry looks like under the shelter, step by step.
What shelter services do not cover
It is not contract manufacturing
Nobody builds your product. Your product is built to your process and your standards, and nobody else decides how.
It is not customs brokerage
A licensed Mexican customs broker files your entries. Tetakawi manages the trade compliance around them and does not hold that license. How the rest of the cross-border movement is coordinated is a separate question from the shelter itself.
It is not tax advice
Your own counsel and your own tax advisors decide how your Mexican operation is structured. What a shelter provides is the statutory framework it operates inside.
It does not remove your obligations as a manufacturer
Your quality system, your customer audits, your certifications and your process are yours.
Five questions to ask any shelter provider here
Put these to every provider you talk to, including us, and lay the answers side by side.
Is there a building standing today that fits me, and what is fed to it?
Ask what is contracted and installed for power and gas at that specific building, not the site total. A building that exists with utilities already in is the part of a schedule nobody can accelerate later.
Who is the legal employer, and how does my agreement divide manufacturing control from employer authority?
You want the answer in the contract, not in the pitch. Ask every provider to show you the clauses that draw that line.
Where does the next line, shift or building go?
Ask where growth happens on the Campus before you need it, and whether it means a new building or room inside the one you have.
Who handles recruiting, trade compliance and safety, and where do they sit?
These are local jobs. Ask whether the people doing them are in Sonora or on another time zone, and ask who answers on a Friday afternoon.
When an audit arrives, who takes it?
Managing an audit and forwarding you the notice are different services. Ask who meets the auditor and who writes the response.
Common questions about shelter services in Hermosillo
What are shelter services?
Shelter services let a foreign manufacturer build in Mexico without setting up a Mexican company first. A Mexican firm that already holds an IMMEX program employs the workers, holds the trade registrations, and is the party the Mexican authorities deal with for both. It carries that role for as long as you use it, not only at startup. You run the plant. You keep your machines, your processes and your intellectual property.
Who employs the workers under a shelter agreement?
The shelter company recruits and is the employer of record. It hires, pays and files for the workforce, carries the employer obligations under Mexican labor law, and assigns those employees to the manufacturer’s operation. The manufacturer runs the operation: the production plan, the process, the quality standards and the equipment are its own.
Who is the importer of record under a shelter, my company or the shelter?
It depends which side of the border you are asking about, and the distinction matters. In Mexico the shelter company is the importer and exporter of record: the shipment is declared under its legal entity and trade registrations, and it is named as the responsible party on the pedimento. Entering the United States, your own company remains the importer of record, working with your own US customs broker. A shelter does not take on your US import obligations, and you should not expect it to.
Does a shelter cover customs brokerage?
No. Customs entries in Mexico are filed through a licensed customs broker. A shelter provider manages the trade compliance around those entries: the IMMEX program, the annual report to the Secretaría de Economía, the inventory control system, and getting the broker complete and correct information on every shipment. Tetakawi does not hold a customs broker license and does not act as one.
How long does it take to start producing under a shelter in Hermosillo?
It depends mostly on your equipment. In an existing building, setup can take as little as 30 days, the fastest it has been done, and a typical launch runs about three to six months from signing. Producing finished product is a separate milestone set by your equipment installation, validation and customer approvals.
Where to start if Hermosillo is on your list
Bring three things to the first conversation: your dates, your headcount plan and your equipment list.
Those three decide which of the standing buildings fits and what your start date depends on.
Tetakawi has run Manufacturing Campuses in Sonora since 1986, and Río Sonora is its Hermosillo Campus. The case for the city is in the advantages of manufacturing in Hermosillo; what is available on the Campus and how it compares with the market is in industrial space for lease in Hermosillo.
Your dates
Send us your dates and your headcount plan
Bring your equipment list as well, and we will put a start date against the building that fits.
