A shelter in Mexico costs you two things: an administrative fee, published at anywhere from under US$100 to about US$400 per employee per month, and the pass-through costs underneath it, which are mostly payroll. In a 100-operator plant, the fee is roughly 16% of the monthly bill and payroll is roughly 64%. Compare quotes on all-in cost per employee per month, never on the fee.
We operate a shelter, so this article prices our own industry. The reason it needs writing is that almost nobody publishes a number: provider pages describe the fee structure and then stop, and the ranges you do find come from comparison sites rather than rate cards. Choosing between providers is a separate job, handled in our shelter company scorecard.
(Every shelter quote is a true number attached to a different set of assumptions. This is why two of them never match, and why the cheaper one so often wins the meeting and loses the year.)
What a Shelter Invoice Is Actually Made Of
A shelter bill has two halves. The pass-through half is your own operation’s cost, paid by the provider on your behalf. The fee half is what the provider charges to run it. Here is the full anatomy, line by line.
| Line | What it is | Fee or pass-through |
|---|---|---|
| Wages and statutory burden | Salaries plus IMSS, INFONAVIT, state payroll tax, aguinaldo and vacation premium | Pass-through |
| Profit sharing and severance | PTU each May, severance when people leave | Pass-through, often pre-funded |
| Administrative fee | Per employee per month, or per paid hour, usually banded by headcount | Fee |
| Rent and utilities | The building, power, water, waste | Pass-through, sometimes bundled |
| Customs and freight | Broker charges, duties, inbound and outbound transport | Pass-through |
| Transaction charges | Per customs entry, per system user, per permit renewal after the first | Fee |
| Percentages | On purchasing, on payroll, or on VAT recovered for you | Fee |
| Recruiting and start-up | Charged per hire, plus onboarding at the beginning | Fee |
That list is not speculation. Tetakawi, a shelter operator, names the fee per pedimento, the percentage on purchases or payroll, the cut of recovered VAT, the recruiting fees, the start-up fees and the markups on pass-through costs in its own guide. The company’s cost page is equally blunt about the headline: “There is no single market rate for shelter services in Mexico.”
The Only Public Shelter Contract, and What It Shows
Shelter agreements are private, with one useful exception. A Shelter Labor Services Agreement filed with the SEC, between IVEMSA and Masimo, is public because a listed company had to file it. The rates are redacted. The machinery is not.
- Labor bills weekly, as a pass-through, based on hours paid. Not monthly, and not estimated.
- The administrative charge runs off an hourly rate schedule, invoiced weekly, net seven days.
- Deposits come first. A pre-operation deposit and an initial payroll deposit, both due within ten days of signing.
- A severance fund equal to 10% of weekly payroll, or a bond covering termination of up to 70 employees.
- A 36-month term, with rates fixed for those three years, then adjusted for minimum wage and inflation.
That contract is from 2000, so treat the specifics as era-appropriate. The shape has not changed: weekly billing, a deposit before you start, a severance reserve, a three-year term and an escalator waiting at the end of it.
A Worked Monthly Total for 100 Operators
Nobody publishes one of these, so here is ours. A plant in Nuevo Leon with 100 direct operators paid MXN 450 a day, in 30,000 square feet of Class A space, with the administrative fee at US$250 per employee per month.
| Monthly line | Amount | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll, fully loaded with statutory burden | US$100,163 | 64% |
| Administrative fee at US$250 per head | US$25,000 | 16% |
| Rent at US$0.70 per square foot | US$21,000 | 13% |
| Severance reserve at 10% of payroll | US$10,016 | 6% |
| Total before utilities, customs and freight | US$156,179 | 100% |
| All-in cost per employee per month | US$1,562 |
Our assumptions, stated so you can argue with them: the payroll line comes from the 2026 statutory calculation in our breakdown of what it costs to employ someone in Mexico, converted at the official rate of MXN 18.4250 on 16 October 2026. Rent sits inside the US$0.69 to US$0.80 per square foot range published for Class A space in Monterrey, Juarez and Tijuana in 2024. Utilities, customs brokerage, duties and freight are excluded because they move with your product, not your headcount.
Now the useful part. Move the fee across its whole published range and the all-in number barely flinches: US$1,462 at a US$150 fee, US$1,562 at US$250, US$1,712 at US$400. A 167% swing in the fee moves your total cost by 17%. Buyers spend their negotiating energy on the smallest line on the page.
Where the Published Ranges Come From
Treat every range you read, including the ones here, as orientation rather than a quote. Calder & Vale puts 2026 fees at under US$100 to about US$400 per employee per month and says plainly that the figures come from providers and aggregator sites. Prince Manufacturing, a provider, publishes a different unit entirely: US$1.50 to US$4.00 per direct labor hour, covering HR, compliance, the legal entity, payroll and IMMEX administration.
Those two units are not comparable until you convert them. At roughly 190 paid hours a month, US$1.50 to US$4.00 an hour lands between US$285 and US$760 per employee, which overshoots the per-head range by a distance. Same market, same service, two scales that disagree. Always ask which unit the number is in before you react to it.
What Is Never in the Fee
Run this checklist against any quote, because the gap between two proposals is usually a list of things one of them quietly left out.
- Severance and profit sharing. Both are yours, and PTU lands every May from your second year.
- Equipment, tooling and freight. Your machines, your shipping, your import duties.
- Roles the provider assumes you will hire. A customs analyst or an HR coordinator moved onto your payroll makes any fee look smaller.
- Expat support. Housing, schooling and travel for your own people.
- Exit costs. Notice periods, termination fees and the transfer work covered in our guide to moving to your own entity.
Tetakawi’s own illustration of this is sharp: two quotes arriving about US$40,000 a year apart, where the cheaper one assumed the client would hire a customs analyst. Hire the analyst and the gap closes. Nobody lied, and the budget was still wrong.
How the Fee Moves With Headcount
Shelter fees are usually banded, so the rate per head steps down as you grow. That cuts both ways. A plant of 25 pays the top of the scale and carries any monthly minimum almost alone, while a plant of 500 negotiates from a much better seat and starts asking why it is renting administration at all.
Two contract details decide what the bands are worth. The first is the escalator: rates typically hold for the initial term, then adjust annually for inflation and the minimum wage, which has risen fast in Mexico lately. The second is the minimum term, commonly about three years. Ask for the band table and the escalator formula in writing, not the single number for today’s headcount.
The point where the arithmetic turns against the model entirely is a separate question, and an honest one for us to answer: it is covered in when a shelter is the wrong choice.
How to Compare Two Quotes Properly
One number settles it: all-in cost per employee per month, with every line named. These are the five steps we use, and the same ones we expect a prospect to run on us.
- Normalise the unit. Convert per-hour fees to per-head at your real paid hours, including overtime.
- List the roles each quote assumes you hire. Price them at Mexican salaries and add them to that quote.
- Name every percentage. On purchasing, on payroll, on recovered VAT, and the markup on each pass-through.
- Add the one-offs. Deposits, start-up fees, recruiting per hire, system users, permit renewals.
- Model year three. Apply the escalator and your planned headcount, then compare totals again.
Do that and the cheapest headline rate usually stops being the cheapest arrangement. We will answer all five in writing for our own shelter program, which is the only fair way to ask anyone else to.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a shelter company cost in Mexico?
Published administrative fees run from under US$100 to about US$400 per employee per month, or US$1.50 to US$4.00 per direct labor hour. Those fees sit on top of pass-through costs, which are dominated by payroll.
What does the shelter fee include?
Typically payroll administration, HR, accounting, customs and trade compliance, and the use of the provider’s legal entity and IMMEX program. It does not include your wages, rent, duties, freight, equipment, severance or profit sharing.
What is the real all-in cost per employee?
In our 100-operator example it is about US$1,562 per employee per month, of which the fee is US$250. Payroll and its statutory burden account for roughly two thirds of the total.
Are there hidden fees in shelter contracts?
They are rarely hidden, but they are easy to miss: charges per customs entry, per system user, per permit renewal, percentages on purchasing or recovered VAT, recruiting fees and start-up fees. Ask for each one by name before signing.
Do shelter fees go down as headcount grows?
Usually yes, through banded rates that step down with volume. Ask for the full band table and the annual escalator, since rates are typically fixed only for the initial term of about three years.
A shelter quote is a model of your operation, so the assumptions matter more than the rate. Send us your headcount, your space and your import volume and we will build the all-in monthly number with you, line by line, free of charge.
