Mexico requires import permits for duty-free car parts
A decree waived the 10% tariff on parts for assembling cars on Oct. 13. A new rule makes those imports depend on a permit starting Friday.
Carmakers in Mexico will need a prior permit from the Economy Ministry to import parts for assembling cars under tariff code 9803.00.01, starting Friday, Oct. 30. A rule published today in the Official Gazette applies the requirement to those goods when they are imported for good or placed in a bonded warehouse.
The code covers parts and components for assembling cars at plants that hold bonded-warehouse authorization. It is the same one that a decree on Oct. 13 freed for five years from a 10% import tariff.
For carmakers, the savings are no longer automatic: without a permit, those parts cannot come in under the code.
The ministry's foreign trade office issues the permits. Before it can do so, it needs a favorable opinion from another unit, known by its initials DGIPAT, which the text does not spell out, and the applicant must meet the ministry's guidelines.
Those are the same guidelines the decree called for and that had yet to be published. The rule does not include them either. It points to SNICE, the ministry's foreign trade information system, where they will appear with no announced date. There is also no official list of the carmakers that qualify.
The rule amends the foreign trade regulations the ministry issued on May 9, 2022, adding a clause to rule 2.2.4 and an item to Annex 2.2.1. Economy Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon signed it on Oct. 19.
The requirement will last as long as the decree: five years from Oct. 14, 2026.
