Risk bulletin

Advertising regulated products on social media and through content creators

The sanitary advertising permit does not distinguish between television and social media. Each advertisement needs its own, even if a third party publishes it.

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

Many health, sup­ple­ment and well­ness brands moved their adver­tis­ing to social media and con­tent cre­ators, as if the san­i­tary regime applied only to tele­vi­sion. The law, how­ever, reg­u­lates adver­tis­ing by its sub­ject matter, what­ever the medium in which it is dis­sem­i­nated.

What the law requires

Under Arti­cle 300 of the Gen­eral Health Law (Ley Gen­eral de Salud), the Min­istry of Health (Sec­re­taría de Salud) has author­ity to autho­rize adver­tis­ing that refers to health and to the prod­ucts and ser­vices the law reg­u­lates, and adver­tis­ing of those prod­ucts and ser­vices requires a permit (Arti­cle 375, sec­tion VII). All adver­tis­ing must be ver­i­fi­able as to qual­ity, origin, prop­er­ties and ben­e­fits, and must have guid­ing and edu­ca­tional con­tent (Arti­cle 306).

The Adver­tis­ing Reg­u­la­tion (Reglamento de la Ley Gen­eral de Salud en mate­ria de Pub­li­ci­dad) requires a permit for, among others, the adver­tis­ing of dietary sup­ple­ments, medicines, herbal reme­dies, med­i­cal equip­ment and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion ser­vices; for medicines and devices, when the adver­tis­ing is aimed at the gen­eral public (Arti­cle 79). The permit is granted for a spe­cific adver­tise­ment, and the holder may not modify the char­ac­ter­is­tics on which it was granted (Arti­cle 83). It is granted to the holder of the san­i­tary autho­riza­tion or, where appli­ca­ble, to the adver­tiser (Arti­cle 84). Each post in which a con­tent cre­ator pro­motes the prod­uct is, in prac­tice, an adver­tise­ment, so the permit for a cam­paign does not cover the vari­a­tions each cre­ator intro­duces in their own format.

Under Arti­cle 171 of the Reg­u­la­tion on San­i­tary Con­trol of Prod­ucts and Ser­vices (Reglamento de Con­trol San­i­tario de Pro­duc­tos y Ser­vi­cios), sup­ple­ments also may not be cred­ited with ther­a­peu­tic, pre­ven­tive or reha­bil­i­ta­tive prop­er­ties.

What to do and by when

  1. Iden­tify which prod­ucts in your port­fo­lio require an adver­tis­ing permit.
  2. Obtain the permit for each piece before pub­lish­ing it, includ­ing the pieces that con­tent cre­ators dis­sem­i­nate.
  3. Give cre­ators an approved script and con­trac­tu­ally pro­hibit unau­tho­rized claims.
  4. Keep the doc­u­men­ta­tion that sup­ports each claim about the prod­uct.
  5. Set up a review of each post before it is dis­sem­i­nated, with a record of who approved it and under which permit.

Recommendations to mitigate risk

Dis­sem­i­nat­ing adver­tis­ing with­out a permit, or adver­tis­ing that does not meet the require­ments of Arti­cle 306, is pun­ish­able under Arti­cle 421, which sets six thou­sand to twelve thou­sand times the min­i­mum wage, a ref­er­ence that, under the 2016 con­sti­tu­tional de-index­a­tion, is under­stood to be made to the Unit of Mea­sure­ment and Update (UMA): 6,000 to 12,000 UMA (MXN 703,860 to MXN 1,407,720). The author­ity may also order the sus­pen­sion of adver­tis­ing mes­sages as a secu­rity mea­sure of imme­di­ate effect (Arti­cle 404, sec­tion VIII), and for a brand that depends on its dig­i­tal pres­ence, that sus­pen­sion can cost more than the fine.

How we approach it at LEXURE

We review your pieces and your con­tent cre­ator pro­gram, process the per­mits and draft the con­tracts with agen­cies and cre­ators.

If your brand is pro­moted on social media with­out adver­tis­ing per­mits, sched­ule a diag­nos­tic meet­ing with us.

Schedule a diagnostic meeting See our service lines

Legal basis

  1. General Health Law, Articles 300, 306, 375, section VII, 404, section VIII, and 421. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  2. Regulation of the General Health Law on Advertising, Articles 79, 83 and 84. Current text (opens in a new tab)
  3. Regulation on Sanitary Control of Products and Services, Article 171. Published text (opens in a new tab)
  4. Political Constitution of the United Mexican States (Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos), decree DOF January 27, 2016, third transitional article. Current text (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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