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The most expensive belief in Mexican foreign trade fits in one sentence: if nobody has found it, leaving it alone is cheaper. It gets said about a line item the Anexo 24 still shows as a temporary import three fiscal years after its return period expired, about a machine that came with an acquired plant and has no pedimento anyone can find, about a lot of temporary inputs whose period lapsed in a year-end close nobody remembers. The logic runs that the cost appears when the authority does.
The belief fails on one point worth measuring. The cost has been running since the month the goods entered the country, and what the authority decides is how much gets added to it. Regularization of goods (regularización de mercancías) is the route the law provides for closing that meter by the operator's own decision. This piece explains what it covers, which situations it reaches, what it costs under the exact mechanics, what cannot be regularized, and why doing it voluntarily costs less than waiting, stated with the article that supports each claim.
What regularization is, and which situations it reaches
Article 101 of the Ley Aduanera says it in one paragraph. Whoever holds, under any title, foreign goods that were brought into the country without going through customs clearance formalities, or goods imported temporarily whose return period has expired, may regularize them by importing them permanently, upon payment of the applicable contributions and countervailing duties and upon compliance with the non-tariff regulations and restrictions.
Three phrases in that paragraph set the scope. "Under any title" means the option does not depend on having been the original importer: it reaches the buyer of a plant, the lessee of a piece of equipment and the company that absorbed another. "Customs clearance formalities" covers goods that never had a pedimento and goods whose pedimento does not cover them. "Return period" opens the second door, the one for expired temporary imports, which has mechanics of its own.
The Reglas Generales de Comercio Exterior for 2026 develop those two doors in two rules. Rule 2.5.1 governs goods with no documentation to prove their lawful import, presence or possession. Rule 2.5.2 governs goods that entered under temporary import and exceeded their period. Both end in the same document: a permanent import pedimento filed under the keys that correspond in Apéndices 2 and 8 of Anexo 22, which is where key A3 lives. If you have read our piece on how to read a clave de pedimento, you know that key is a declaration in itself: it states that the goods were already inside.
Two neighboring figures sit close to regularization and cover different ground. A rectification under Article 89 corrects data on a pedimento that exists. A change of regime applies while the temporary period is still running; that scenario, with its four exits, is in our piece on the temporary import that stayed. Regularization begins exactly where those two end: when there is no pedimento left to correct and no period left to use.
How it shows up in practice
Across our more than 190,000 customs operations a year at 39 ports, regularization almost never arrives as a planned decision. It arrives as a finding, and the finding comes through four doors that repeat.
The first is inventory reconciliation. An Anexo 24 audited properly shows balances of temporary inputs that were never discharged against any return, any transfer or any change of regime. The system keeps showing them as temporary imports. The law stopped treating them that way the day the period expired.
The second is an acquisition. The buyer inherits the seller's fixed assets, inventory and customs file, and during due diligence somebody asks for the pedimento covering the main production line. What turns up is a twelve-year-old entry covering a different machine, or nothing at all. Article 101 was written for that buyer: the goods are in its possession under a purchase title, and the option to regularize belongs to it.
The third is a change of customs broker. The new broker asks the question the previous one stopped asking: which pedimento covers these goods if anyone requests it. Article 146 of the Ley Aduanera requires possession of foreign goods to be documented at all times. Three minutes of silence in reply already counts as a finding.
The fourth is cancellation of the IMMEX Program. When the Program ends, whatever was inside under its cover loses the regime that justified it; we cover that scenario in our piece on the machinery that is still inside when the IMMEX is cancelled.
On paper, nothing happens on the day a temporary import's period expires. No notice arrives, no system flags the balance, no truck stops. In practice, that is the day the updating and surcharge meter starts, and it runs whether or not anyone is watching. The gap between paper and practice is exactly what this piece asks you to measure.
What it costs: the mechanics of rule 2.5.1
Rule 2.5.1 fixes the procedure and, with it, the price. A permanent import pedimento is filed under the Anexo 22 keys and submitted to the automated selection mechanism at the customs office of the filer's choice, without presenting the goods physically. If the mechanism orders a customs examination, it is performed on documents. Where applicable, the document proving compliance with the non-tariff regulations and restrictions in force on the payment date is attached, and the general import duty, VAT, the other contributions and any countervailing duties are determined and paid.
The calculation takes one of two paths, and one question decides which: can the date the goods entered the country be proven.
If it can, contributions are determined as of that date, at the rates, tax bases and exchange rate in force at the time, under Article 56 of the Ley Aduanera. To that result, the updating of Article 17-A of the Código Fiscal de la Federación and the surcharges of Article 21 of the same code are added, from the month the goods entered through the month of payment.
If it cannot, contributions are determined as of the payment date, at that day's rates and exchange rate. That looks like relief, because there are no surcharges. It rarely is: the entry-year base is lost, the current exchange rate applies, and the authority can dispute the claim that the date cannot be proven when the file shows otherwise.
The figure a CFO needs in front of them is the surcharge rate. The Ley de Ingresos de la Federación for 2026, published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on November 7, 2025, set the extension rate at 1.38% per month. Article 21 of the Código raises it by 50% for late payment, which gives 2.07% per month through 2026, against 1.47% in 2025. Every month of silence adds 2.07% of the tax already updated. Twelve months add 24.84%. That is the cost of waiting, and the calendar sets it.
The rule also says what is lost. Under rule 2.5.1, the preferential tariff treatment of free trade agreements does not apply, and neither does the PROSEC rate, the border strip and border region decree rates, or the permanent vehicle import decree rates, and payment cannot be made through customs accounts. Goods that would have entered at zero duty under USMCA pay the general rate when regularized. That difference is often larger than the surcharges, and it is the number that surprises people at the table.
Two facilities offset part of it. Registration in the Importer Registry or the Sector-Specific Importer Registry is not required to exercise the option, which matters in acquisitions where the buyer has no registry standing of its own yet. And only goods under chapter 87 of the tariff have to be presented at customs, with headings 87.08 and 87.14, trailers and semi-trailers, excepted; everything else is regularized without moving the cargo.
Expired temporary imports: rule 2.5.2 and the difference that changes the price
For goods that entered as temporary imports and exceeded their period, rule 2.5.2 keeps the structure and changes three things.
The first is the file. The permanent import pedimento is accompanied by the pedimento or customs document, the consolidated notice and the rest of the documentation that covered the temporary import. If the goods are machinery or equipment imported under Article 108, fracción III, proof that the acquisition took place while the IMMEX Program authorization existed is attached as well. The original pedimento functions as a working part of the filing.
The second is the base. The customs value declared on the temporary import pedimento is used, and the updating and surcharges of the Código run from the month the goods were imported temporarily, with the period's expiry date playing no role in that count. An input that entered in January 2023 with an eighteen-month period accumulates surcharges from January 2023. That is the part most projections get wrong.
The third is the one that moves the price in the taxpayer's favor. Under rule 2.5.2, the preferential tariff treatment of trade agreements does apply, provided the goods qualify as originating and a valid, current proof of origin, certification or certificate is on hand, and the PROSEC rate applies as well. An expired temporary import with its origin certification in order pays zero duty plus updating and surcharges. The same input, without certification, pays the general rate. And the same input regularized under rule 2.5.1, because it could not be documented as a temporary import, has access to neither rate. The row in the archive where the proof of origin sits is frequently worth more than the entire updating.
Question from practice. A client finds thirty-two line items of temporary inputs during reconciliation, expired for more than two years, and asks whether to regularize everything on one pedimento or in batches.
Daniel Sánchez, Customs General Manager, Joffroy. In batches, grouped by two criteria: the original temporary import pedimento and the availability of proof of origin. Line items with valid certification go under rule 2.5.2 at the preferential rate; the ones without it deserve a review first, because the certification sometimes exists in the supplier's file and recovering it costs less than the duty. The discharge in the Anexo 24 is made line by line against the permanent import pedimento, and a single pedimento with thirty-two poorly linked discharges is a new problem on top of the old one.
If you have just inherited inventory or an asset with no pedimento anyone can find, talk to a Joffroy expert before someone else asks the question.
What cannot be regularized, and what remains
Article 101 and rule 2.5.1 close the door in three cases.
The first is goods that have already passed into the property of the federal treasury. Once a proceeding ends with that resolution, no pedimento recovers them. That is why the windows described below matter so much: regularization is a right that expires with the proceeding.
The second is goods that did go through clearance and whose irregularity was detected during a customs examination or a verification of goods in transport carried out by ANAM. In that case rule 2.5.1, fracción IV, refers to the applicable provisions, which are those of the proceeding the authority opened. Regularization covers what entered unseen; goods seen entering irregularly follow the proceeding.
The third is goods that cannot meet the non-tariff regulations and restrictions in force on the payment date, because Article 101 conditions regularization on meeting them. Goods under an import prohibition cannot meet them by definition, and goods subject to a prior permit are regularized only once the permit is obtained.
When the door is closed, what remains is a different proceeding altogether: the defense inside the PAMA (the Administrative Customs Proceeding) or the proceeding for omitted contributions, return abroad where it still applies, or destruction with prior notice for whatever qualifies as scrap. Each has its cost and its clock, and none of them is chosen well with the authority already at the door.
Why voluntary costs less: the exact mechanism
The claim that it pays to regularize before the authority finds the goods usually gets presented as common sense. It has a mechanism, and it runs in three layers.
The first layer stays the same: contributions, updating and surcharges are identical whether the operator regularizes voluntarily or after audit powers have been exercised. Article 21 of the Código makes no distinction based on who discovered the omission. The saving lives elsewhere.
The second layer is the penalty, and this is where the difference sits. Under Article 183 of the Ley Aduanera, when the infraction consisted of exceeding the return period and the return happens spontaneously, the penalty is a fixed amount for each fifteen-day period or fraction from the date the period expired, and it cannot exceed the value of the goods. When the omission in the return is discovered by the authority, fracción III refers to the penalties of Article 178, whose fracción I runs from 130% to 150% of the foreign trade taxes omitted. The first penalty has a ceiling. The second has a floor.
The third layer is the rule's own clock. Under the RGCE in force, rules 2.5.1 and 2.5.2 allow regularization even after the authorities have begun exercising audit powers, on two conditions: notifying the authority conducting the PAMA or the audit, by free-form letter, of the intent to import permanently, with self-assessment of the penalties or a request that they be assessed, and paying them. Once the letter is filed, twenty days run to process the pedimento. The letter itself has a deadline: in a PAMA, before the resolution under Articles 153 and 155; in an on-site audit, before the final report; in a desk audit, before the notice of observations. Past that moment, the goods follow the course of the proceeding, and Article 101 already warned where that road ends: regularization is unavailable once the goods have passed into the property of the federal treasury.
Seen together, the three layers explain the price. Silence removes none of them. It adds surcharges to the first every month, replaces a capped penalty with an uncapped one in the second, and moves the calendar toward the point where the third closes. What is already inside gets more expensive with every month it stays unfiled.
What to do with this before quarter close
Reconcile the Anexo 24 against periods, with the balances as the second read. An open balance with a live period is a temporary import; the same balance with an expired period is a pending regularization, and the difference is a date the system does not highlight on its own.
Build the list of assets and inventory with no pedimento covering them, and document the entry date line by line with whatever exists: temporary import pedimento, invoice, purchase agreement, receiving log. That date decides the calculation path and how much has accumulated.
Sort every line item into one of two routes. Whatever can be documented as an expired temporary import goes under rule 2.5.2, where proof of origin is worth its weight in duty; everything else goes under rule 2.5.1. Before accepting the second route, exhaust the search for origin certification in your own archive and in the supplier's.
And do it before a visit order or a request for information arrives. The option survives that moment; the penalty changes nature at that moment, and the rule's clock starts running against you.
Article 101 exists so that the operator can close, by its own decision, what a proceeding would close by resolution. It is the one exit in Mexican foreign trade whose price rises with the passage of time alone and falls by the act of taking it.
Talk to a Joffroy expert about a regularization review of your inventory and fixed assets before the 2026 close.
TRADE. UNDER CONTROL.
