Risk bulletin

Importers Registry: the suspension that halts your operations without any fine

No registration, no customs clearance. Registration depends on being current with tax obligations, and the SAT can suspend it.

LEXURE Regulatory Compliance Practice Team 4 min read Regulatory status verified in 2026

For an importer, arriv­ing at cus­toms and dis­cov­er­ing that its reg­is­tra­tion has been sus­pended, with the goods in the cus­toms facil­ity and clients wait­ing, can cost more than a fine.

What the law requires

Anyone bring­ing goods into Mex­i­can ter­ri­tory must be reg­is­tered in the Importers Reg­istry (Padrón de Impor­ta­dores) and, where appli­ca­ble, in the Spe­cific Sec­tors Importers Reg­istry (Padrón de Impor­ta­dores de Sec­tores Especí­fi­cos) or the Sector Exporters Reg­istry (Padrón de Expor­ta­dores Sec­to­rial), kept by the Tax Admin­is­tra­tion Ser­vice (SAT), under Arti­cle 59, sec­tion IV, of the Cus­toms Law (Ley Adu­an­era). To be reg­is­tered, they must be cur­rent in com­ply­ing with their tax obli­ga­tions, prove their reg­is­tra­tion in the Fed­eral Tax­pay­ers Reg­istry and meet the other require­ments of the Reg­u­la­tions and of the SAT rules. The Gen­eral For­eign Trade Rules (Reglas Gen­erales de Com­er­cio Exte­rior) set out the require­ments and the grounds for sus­pen­sion in their chap­ter on reg­istries, and their Annex 10 lists the spe­cific sec­tors.

Reg­is­tra­tion is not set­tled with a single filing: because it depends on being cur­rent with tax obli­ga­tions, an omit­ted return, an unpaid tax assess­ment or an unre­ported change of address can affect it at any time, even if the com­pany has changed noth­ing in its for­eign trade oper­a­tions.

The cus­toms author­ity has the power to sus­pend importers and exporters from those reg­istries under the appli­ca­ble pro­vi­sions (Arti­cle 144, sec­tion XXXVI). In turn, a cus­toms broker who clears goods for an unreg­is­tered importer, when reg­is­tra­tion is required, risks can­cel­la­tion of its license (Arti­cle 165, sec­tion X), so no broker will agree to do it.

What to do and by when

  1. Check your tax com­pli­ance opin­ion (opinión de cumplim­iento) every month; if it is neg­a­tive, cor­rect it before your next import.
  2. Verify that your tax address can be located by the author­ity and that your advanced elec­tronic sig­na­ture is valid.
  3. Con­firm whether your goods require sector-spe­cific reg­is­tra­tion under the cur­rent Annex 10.
  4. Check that the details of your for­eign sup­plier and of your tax address in the cus­toms entry form (ped­i­mento) are accu­rate.
  5. Assign one person to review the reg­istry status peri­od­i­cally, so that you learn of a sus­pen­sion before your cus­toms broker does.

Recommendations to mitigate risk

With­out an active reg­is­tra­tion, goods cannot be cleared. In addi­tion, if the name or address of the for­eign sup­plier or the importer’s tax address declared in the cus­toms entry form is false or nonex­is­tent, or the sup­plier cannot be located at the stated address, the goods and the means of trans­port car­ry­ing them are sub­ject to pre­cau­tion­ary seizure (Arti­cle 151, sec­tion VI). A reg­istry sus­pen­sion does not in itself result in a fine, but it stops the supply chain until it is resolved, and each day the goods are held car­ries stor­age costs and the cost of fail­ing to deliver to clients.

How we approach it at LEXURE

We mon­i­tor the require­ments for your reg­is­tra­tion and address the grounds for sus­pen­sion; if a sus­pen­sion does occur, we handle the rein­state­ment.

If your com­pany imports reg­u­larly and does not review its com­pli­ance opin­ion every month, sched­ule a diag­nos­tic meet­ing with us.

Schedule a diagnostic meeting See our service lines

Legal basis

  1. Customs Law, last amended in the Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF) on November 19, 2025, Articles 59, section IV, 144, section XXXVI, 151, section VI, and 165, section X. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  2. General Foreign Trade Rules for 2026, Annex 10, DOF January 14, 2026. SAT 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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