Diagnostic

Fines and closures: administrative appeal or court proceeding, and the deadlines to decide

There are two paths to challenge a federal fine. Choosing late is the same as not choosing: the decision becomes final and enforceable.

LEXURE Administrative and Constitutional Litigation Practice Team 7 min read Regulatory status verified in 2026

When a deci­sion impos­ing a fine or a clo­sure arrives, inter­nal dis­cus­sion tends to focus on whether the penalty is fair. Before that, you urgently need to know which defense is avail­able and how many days remain, because a well-founded chal­lenge filed one day late is not exam­ined.

What the law requires

The admin­is­tra­tive appeal. Under Arti­cle 83 of the Fed­eral Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dure Law (Ley Fed­eral de Pro­ced­imiento Admin­is­tra­tivo), against acts and deci­sions of fed­eral admin­is­tra­tive author­i­ties that end a pro­ceed­ing, the affected party may file an appeal for review (recurso de revisión) or, where appli­ca­ble, go directly to court. The dead­line is fif­teen busi­ness days (Arti­cle 28), counted from the day after the notice took effect (Arti­cle 85). The appeal is filed with the author­ity that issued the act and is decided by its hier­ar­chi­cal supe­rior (Arti­cle 86).

In tax mat­ters. Under Arti­cle 121 of the Fed­eral Tax Code (Código Fiscal de la Fed­eración), the motion for revo­ca­tion (recurso de revo­cación) is filed through the tax mail­box (buzón trib­u­tario) within thirty days after the day on which the notice took effect.

The con­tentious admin­is­tra­tive pro­ceed­ing. Under Arti­cle 2 of the Fed­eral Law of Con­tentious Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dure (Ley Fed­eral de Pro­ced­imiento Con­tencioso Admin­is­tra­tivo), this pro­ceed­ing is brought before the Fed­eral Court of Admin­is­tra­tive Jus­tice (Tri­bunal Fed­eral de Jus­ti­cia Admin­is­tra­tiva) against the final admin­is­tra­tive deci­sions set out in the court’s organic law. The com­plaint is filed within thirty days after the day on which notice of the chal­lenged deci­sion took effect, in writ­ing or online through the Online Jus­tice System (Sis­tema de Jus­ti­cia en Línea); the choice of chan­nel cannot be changed later (Arti­cle 13, amended on June 9, 2026). For deci­sions whose amount does not exceed thirty times the annu­al­ized Unit of Mea­sure­ment and Update (UMA), that is, MXN 1,283,839.20, the sum­mary pro­ceed­ing is avail­able in cer­tain cases (Arti­cle 58-2).

Sus­pen­sion. Filing the appeal for review stays enforce­ment of the act if this is expressly requested, the appeal is admis­si­ble, the public inter­est and public order are not harmed, and, where appli­ca­ble, dam­ages to third par­ties are secured (Arti­cle 87 of the Fed­eral Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dure Law). In the court pro­ceed­ing, the instruct­ing mag­is­trate may order a stay of enforce­ment and pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures so that the dis­pute is not ren­dered moot (Arti­cle 24 of the Fed­eral Law of Con­tentious Admin­is­tra­tive Pro­ce­dure). For tax fines, a stay usu­ally requires secur­ing the tax claim.

Appeal or court pro­ceed­ing. For fed­eral admin­is­tra­tive acts, the law gen­er­ally allows a choice between the appeal before the author­ity itself and the pro­ceed­ing before the Court. The appeal is quicker to pre­pare and can cor­rect obvi­ous errors by the author­ity; the court pro­ceed­ing brings the matter before a judi­cial body and allows a broader review. Nei­ther path guar­an­tees the out­come. The choice depends on the type of act, the defect alleged, and the urgency of stop­ping enforce­ment.

Amparo, as a last resort. An amparo (con­sti­tu­tional injunc­tion) pro­ceed­ing may be avail­able against the judg­ment or the final act; the gen­eral dead­line to file it is fif­teen days under Arti­cle 17 of the Amparo Law (Ley de Amparo).

What to do and by when

  1. On the same day you receive the deci­sion, record the date of ser­vice and cal­cu­late the dead­lines for each path.
  2. Iden­tify the law gov­ern­ing the penalty, because it deter­mines whether an appeal, a direct court pro­ceed­ing, or both are avail­able.
  3. Decide promptly between an appeal and a court pro­ceed­ing: the appeal can cor­rect errors before the author­ity itself; the court pro­ceed­ing takes the matter to an inde­pen­dent court.
  4. If you need to pre­vent a clo­sure from being enforced or a fine from being col­lected, expressly request a stay and pre­pare the cor­re­spond­ing guar­an­tee.
  5. Gather the evi­dence you did not submit during the pro­ceed­ing, because in many cases you will be able to offer it.
  6. For online pro­ceed­ings, con­firm that your elec­tronic sig­na­ture and your access cre­den­tials are valid before the last day.
  7. Keep the enve­lope, the ser­vice notice, or the elec­tronic acknowl­edg­ment of the noti­fi­ca­tion, because the cal­cu­la­tion of the dead­line depends on them.
  8. If the deci­sion stems from an inspec­tion visit, review the record and its exhibits, because pro­ce­dural defects can also be raised.

Recommendations to mitigate risk

If the deci­sion is not chal­lenged within the dead­line, it becomes final. A final fine becomes enforce­able and, in the case of fines that con­sti­tute tax debts, may be col­lected through the admin­is­tra­tive enforce­ment pro­ce­dure. A clo­sure that has not been stayed is car­ried out, with the oper­at­ing cost that entails, even if the case is later won. In addi­tion, choos­ing an improper path can use up the dead­line for the cor­rect one.

In a hypo­thet­i­cal sce­nario, a com­pany receives a fed­eral fine on a Friday, for­wards it to its account­ing firm the fol­low­ing Tues­day, and dis­cusses it inter­nally for two weeks. By the time it decides to appeal, the fif­teen-busi­ness-day dead­line for the appeal for review is about to expire, and the defense is pre­pared against the clock, with no time to gather evi­dence that could change the out­come.

Self-assessment

Answer yes or no about your own com­pany.

  1. Do you record, on the same day, the date of ser­vice of each deci­sion from an author­ity?
  2. Do you know which law gov­erns each penalty you have received and which defense is avail­able?
  3. Do you know the dif­fer­ence between the fif­teen-day dead­line for the appeal for review and the thirty-day dead­line for the court pro­ceed­ing?
  4. Do you know that a stay must be expressly requested?
  5. Have you iden­ti­fied how you would secure a tax fine if you needed to stay its col­lec­tion?
  6. Are your elec­tronic sig­na­ture and your access to the Online Jus­tice System valid?

How we approach it at LEXURE

We ana­lyze the deci­sion, deter­mine the avail­able path and the exact cal­en­dar, and pre­pare the appeal or the com­plaint together with the request for a stay. We assess with you the cost and like­li­hood of each path, with­out promis­ing results, so that the deci­sion is made on an informed basis and within the dead­line.

If your com­pany has received a fine or a clo­sure order, sched­ule a diag­nos­tic meet­ing with us as soon as pos­si­ble, because the dead­line is already run­ning.

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Legal basis

  1. Federal Administrative Procedure Law, Articles 28, 83, 85, 86, and 87. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  2. Federal Tax Code, Article 121. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  3. Federal Law of Contentious Administrative Procedure, last amended DOF June 9, 2026, Articles 2, 13, 24, and 58-2. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  4. Amparo Law, Article 17. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  5. 2026 value of the Unit of Measurement and Update, National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). Official publication (opens in a new tab)

This note is for information only and describes the law in force on the verification date. It is not legal advice on a specific matter. It is a translation of the Spanish original: Mexican law is published in Spanish, and the official Spanish texts prevail.

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