Our Story
Learn our story, leadership, and mission shaping manufacturing in Mexico.
Compliance Infrastructure for Manufacturing Operations in Mexico
Manufacture inside a Mexican entity Tetakawi holds under the IMMEX shelter program, on a Manufacturing Campus where space, workforce, logistics and compliance run as one.
The Problem
Why Compliance Delays Production
In Mexico, knowing the rules is not the hard part. Having an entity that answers for them is, because tax, labor, customs and environmental obligations each report to a different authority, on a different calendar.
Obligation From the First Day
Mexico builds the record as you operate. Invoices and payroll receipts are stamped as issued and the accounting is filed monthly.
Exposure Sits on the Entity
Permits, registrations, trade programs and tax obligations attach to a Mexican legal entity, and that entity answers for them.
Requirements That Compound
Each permit carries its own renewal date and each trade program its own report, and the earlier ones rarely go away.
Our Solution
A Shelter Entity Already in Good Standing
You manufacture inside a Mexican entity Tetakawi holds under the IMMEX shelter program, already registered and filing, with its permits kept current. You control production, process and quality. Tetakawi is the entity the authority comes to.
The Entity Your Plant Runs Inside
Before you sign, the entity your production will run inside is already registered, already filing and already known to SAT, Mexico’s tax authority. Tetakawi holds it as an authorized IMMEX shelter, IMMEX being Mexico’s duty-deferred manufacturing regime, and the trade programs and site permits sit beneath it.
Filings That Already Run
The entity has been filing with SAT for years, so your operation starts inside a routine SAT already knows, rather than as a new company the authority has never seen. Invoices and payroll receipts are stamped as issued and the accounting is filed monthly. When something does not line up, SAT raises it with Tetakawi, not with your plant.
Mexican VAT, Claimed Back Through the Entity
Mexican value-added tax (VAT) paid on your operation’s spend is claimed back by Tetakawi through an entity SAT already knows. Your local vendors for supplies, consumables and services are vetted for SAT standing and paid by Tetakawi on your approval, which supports that claim. Recovery timing and success are subject to SAT.
Authorizations Production Waits On
Your process decides what you need, so Tetakawi reads the process, the materials and the equipment first, then files the environmental and operating authorizations production waits on. These are the ones that physically stop production, and they are filed while the building and the hiring move.
Compliance That Outlasts Any One Manager
The audit program, the regulatory tracking and the EHS specialists are on the Campus before you arrive, working alongside your own EHS lead. When a rule moves, the change is made once and applied across the Campus. Compliance here belongs to the entity and to a team on the Campus, so it does not leave when a manager does.
Benefits
The Standing to Operate, Earned and Kept Current
Standing You Inherit on Day One
Your operation begins inside registrations and authorizations that are already in force.
- No Mexican company to form; the registrations are Tetakawi’s
- Trade certifications already in force when you arrive
- On-site environmental and compliance teams on your Campus
- Permits at municipal, state and federal level filed and renewed for you
The Regulatory Machinery, Run Daily
The filings, the permits and the relationships with the authorities stay current after launch, because they belong to the entity, and to a team on the Campus.
- VAT claimed back for you through the entity, subject to SAT
- The tax, customs and environmental filings made from your Campus
- A rule change applied once, across the Campus
- Testing and waste-disposal contracts negotiated for the whole Campus
Onboarding
From Decision to the First Filing
By the time you sign, the due diligence is done: you have walked the Campus and seen what it will cost to run there. From there it is the same playbook on every Campus: a kickoff, one launch plan and one Tetakawi project lead, with your filings as one part of it.
1.
Sign
One U.S.-based agreement names your project lead and your date. Your plant is placed inside the shelter entity.
2.
Launch
You send the process, the materials and the layout; the start-up authorizations are filed while the building and the hiring move.
3.
Operate
The filings, the permits and the VAT claims run on the calendar, carried by a team on the Campus. You operate to what the permits require.
4.
Grow
A new line, a new material or a new process comes back to the list, and the permit list is reviewed again with your EHS lead.
Testimonials
Compliance in Practice
Manufacturers on the legal, fiscal and trade work that runs underneath their operations in Mexico, and on the part that stays theirs.
“Being part of a shelter like Tetakawi eliminates the need to take care of everything yourself: you just concentrate on the manufacturing. Outside of Tetakawi you have to handle the legal implications, your own staff and all the services by yourself. In three words, Tetakawi is commitment, flexibility and transparency.”
Carlos Rivera, Plant Manager, HUBER+SUHNER
“Tetakawi takes care of a lot of the legal aspects of doing business in Mexico to make sure we are compliant. BAE is a very risk-averse company, and we want to follow all the laws, local and federal, while we’re in Mexico. That is how we make sure BAE Systems has a very good name in the community, in the state of Sonora and in the country.”
Brian Berich, Director of Operations, BAE Systems
“Internally we have our own standards, but we need to comply with local laws. Tetakawi does most of the legal documentation, the permits and any transaction that has to be done officially with the local government, so our compliance is partly their work and partly ours. It is a collaboration between TE and Tetakawi.”
Ricardo Gómez, Director of Operations, TE Connectivity
“Right now the changing IMMEX rules are one of the biggest challenges for every company in Mexico. With the Tetakawi IMMEX team it is very secure and easy to follow: we meet all the Mexican requirements on import and export, and following the rules is what keeps the benefits of the program. It is complicated right now, but we have good support.”
Mauricio García, Plant Manager, Gemini Group
The Campus Model
Predictability Through Integration
On a Tetakawi Campus, compliance runs on the same platform as space, workforce and logistics, carried by on-site teams. You run your own factory, and Tetakawi runs the Campus around it.
How the work runs day to day: Fiscal and Tax Compliance, EH&S Compliance and Indirect Procurement.
Launch Faster
Move into an operating environment that is already running.
Operate Predictably
Keep your team focused on production, with on-site support.
Grow on Your Terms
Scale space, people, and capacity to match demand.
Integrated Services
The Integrated Services Behind Every Campus
Our on-site teams help you launch your operation, keep your building running, employ and pay your workforce, move your materials across the border, buy what your plant consumes, and keep your permits, filings and registrations current.
FAQs
Compliance in Mexico FAQs
The questions we get most often from manufacturers looking at Mexico.
What is already in place when we sign?
The Mexican entity you produce inside, registered and filing.
That is what a shelter is: the legal framework that lets a foreign manufacturer operate in Mexico without forming a Mexican company of its own. The shelter entity is registered, filing, and known to SAT, Mexico’s tax authority, and the IMMEX program and trade registrations sit beneath it.
None of that is on your critical path. What gets filed for you is the layer your own process requires.
How long until we can operate?
Your process decides the list of authorizations, and the list decides the date.
Higher-risk processes need more of them and take longer. You get that list before you choose a Campus, so you can see the timeline before you commit to it.
Most operations go from deciding on Mexico to producing in Mexico in three to six months, and we have helped clients get started in as little as 30 days.
Whose legal entity do we operate inside?
One of Tetakawi’s Mexican shelter entities.
The shelter entity holds the registrations, the trade programs and the site permits, which is why there is no Mexican company for you to form. Your company holds a Mexican tax ID, which Tetakawi obtains and administers for you. Your production, your quality system and your IP stay yours.
Holding the permits is not the same as being compliant. The filings are Tetakawi’s to make, built from what your operation reports; operating to what a permit requires stays with your plant and your own EHS lead.
What do the permits and filings cost us, and what is extra?
Permit fees, environmental studies, laboratory testing and waste disposal are your cost.
Your equipment, your inventory and your business interruption are yours to insure. A shelter is not a tax-free arrangement; how your company is taxed is a question for your own tax advisors.
What it all costs is worked out with you, line by line, before you commit.
How do we start?
Four steps, in order.
1. Get in touch. A conversation about what you are hoping to achieve in Mexico, and why now.
2. Measure ROI. We build the business case with you: the full cost of running your operation on a Campus, the risks and the trade-offs, and which Campus fits.
3. Site visit. Walk the Campus, meet the people who would run your account, talk with manufacturers already operating there, and meet the people who would hold the filings.
4. Launch and grow. When you give the green light, the same team that helped you build the case guides the launch.
