All In Shipping to Mexico: What a Customs Included Rate Should Actually Cover

Sellers ask for an all in rate because they want one number to price against. Providers offer one because it wins the quote. Both are reasonable, and the arrangement fails when the two sides mean different things by the word all.

This article sets out the seven charges that make up a landed cost into Mexico, says which ones a fixed rate can sensibly absorb, and names the two that should never be inside one. The aim is a quote you can compare rather than a number you have to trust.

The seven charges, and who controls each

Four of the seven are genuinely within a provider's control and can be quoted as a fixed rate. Three are set by statute and by the goods themselves, which is why an all in rate that appears to absorb them is either carrying a large risk premium or is going to produce an invoice adjustment later.

The two that should never be inside a fixed rate

Import duty depends on the tariff classification and the origin of the goods. IVA is fixed as a rate and variable as an amount, because it applies to the customs value plus duty:

"El impuesto se calculará aplicando a los valores que señala esta Ley, la tasa del 16%."

Ley del Impuesto al Valor Agregado, Article 1

A provider quoting a rate that includes duty and IVA is quoting a rate against a tax base they do not control. When the goods change, the classification changes, or the exchange rate moves, the number changes with it. The seller has bought certainty that does not exist, usually at a premium.

The better structure is a fixed service rate plus statutory charges at cost, with the calculation method stated. That is comparable across providers, and it does not break when a SKU changes.

If you are still deciding whether to import in your own name, that decision comes first and is covered in Importing Into Mexico for the First Time: The Onboarding Nobody Sequences Correctly.

Why brokerage can be fixed and DTA cannot

Brokerage is a service fee. It ranges from 3,500 to 15,000 MXN per shipment depending on complexity and the number of tariff lines, and a provider handling consistent traffic can commit to a number within that range.

The customs processing fee is not a service. It is 8 per thousand of customs value with a floor of 258.91 pesos, and it belongs to the state. A provider can advance it and pass it through, but presenting it as part of their own rate obscures the one charge whose behavior the seller most needs to understand, because below roughly 32,364 pesos of customs value it behaves as a flat fee rather than a percentage.

Clearance is a defined process, and that is why the broker matters

"Para efectos de esta Ley, se entiende por despacho aduanero el conjunto de actos y formalidades relativos a la entrada de mercancías al territorio nacional y a su salida del mismo."

Ley Aduanera, Article 35

"En México solo un agente aduanal con patente puede presentar el pedimento."

Servicio de Administración Tributaria

The declaration is filed by a licensed broker holding a patente. A provider offering an all in rate is buying that service on your behalf, and the quality of it shows up as clearance speed rather than as a line on the invoice. Two quotes at the same price can differ by days at the border, and nothing in the rate card reveals which is which.

The 2026 change to who can operate

"A partir del 1º de julio de 2026, se libera a nivel nacional la operación de las agencias aduanales."

Secretaría de Economía

The operating framework for customs agencies was liberalized nationally. For a seller comparing quotes, the practical effect is a wider field of providers rather than a change to the charges themselves. The seven line structure above is unchanged; what changed is how many organizations can present the entry.

Five questions that make quotes comparable

• Which of the seven charges are inside the number. Ask for the list, not a yes.
• How duty and IVA are calculated and passed through. If the answer is that they are included, ask what happens when the classification changes.
• What triggers a re quote. Weight tolerance, tariff lines per entry, inspection outcomes.
• Who is the importer of record. This decides who carries the liability, and liability is shared.
• What the rate assumes about consolidation. A rate priced on 1 entry a week is a different rate at 5 entries a week.

Liability does not travel with the invoice

"Both importers and brokers will be liable for instances of undervaluation, tariff misclassifications, and false or incomplete customs entries."

Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan and Aronoff LLP

An all in rate can move a cost, and it does not move a liability. Undervaluation and misclassification remain the importer's exposure regardless of who prepared the paperwork, which is why the classification question belongs in the seller's own records rather than only in the provider's file.

A worked comparison of two quotes

Two providers quote the same 500 unit consolidation of US origin goods with a 20,000 dollar invoice and 1,200 dollars of freight, at an assumed 18 pesos to the dollar. Provider A quotes an all in figure. Provider B quotes a service rate plus pass through. The comparison only works once both are normalized.

Provider A's single number has to contain roughly 64,600 pesos of statutory charges plus their own service cost plus a margin for the risk that any of it moves. Provider B's number is smaller because it contains only the service. Comparing the two headline figures directly is meaningless, and that is exactly what most comparisons do.

What happens when a SKU changes

Swap 100 of those units for Chinese origin goods and the duty line stops being zero. Under Provider B the invoice shows the new duty and the IVA that sits on top of it, and the service rate is unchanged. Under Provider A one of 2 things happens: the rate is re quoted, or the provider absorbs a cost they did not price. Neither is a surprise to anyone who has read the structure, and both are a surprise to the seller who bought a fixed number.

The exchange rate question nobody asks

The customs value is converted at the official rate published for the entry date. A move from 18 to 19 pesos raises the IVA on the example shipment by roughly 3,400 pesos, which is more than the entire DTA line. A rate card that appears to include IVA is therefore carrying a currency exposure, and the premium for it is somewhere inside the number.

Consolidation assumptions hide inside the rate

The fixed charges are per entry: brokerage from 3,500 MXN and the DTA floor of 258.91 pesos. A quote built on weekly consolidation spreads those across a week of volume. The same quote used for daily shipments pays them 5 times as often, and the per unit cost rises accordingly even though the rate card did not change.

This is why the consolidation assumption belongs in writing next to the rate. Two identical rate cards can produce costs that differ by a factor of 5 depending on how often the entries are filed.

A simple normalization worksheet

• List the 7 charges down the page.
• For each quote, mark each charge as included, passed through at cost, or excluded.
• Add the statutory charges at cost to any quote that excludes them.
• Divide by the units in a realistic consolidation, not a best case one.
• Compare the resulting cost per unit, not the headline.

Five lines of arithmetic remove the ambiguity that an all in number creates. It is worth doing once per provider and then again whenever the catalog's origin mix changes, because that is the variable that moves the statutory side without touching the service side.

What a re quote trigger list looks like

Every fixed rate has conditions under which it stops applying, and a provider who has not written them down has simply postponed the conversation. Six triggers cover almost every case: a change in origin mix, a change in tariff lines per entry, weight or cube outside a stated tolerance, a change in consolidation frequency, an inspection rate above an agreed level, and a currency move beyond a stated band.

Asking for that list before signing is not adversarial. It is the fastest way to find out whether the provider has priced the work or priced the win.

Where sellers actually lose money on all in rates

Rarely on the headline. Almost always on 3 things that sit outside it: an inspection that generates storage and re delivery, a document query that holds the entry while the goods accrue demurrage, and a classification disagreement that surfaces after clearance rather than before. None of those are in the rate card, and all 3 are cheaper to prevent than to invoice.

That is the argument for spending time on the document set rather than on the last few percent of the freight rate. A complete file shortens the crossing and removes the conditions under which the extra charges arise.

A worked example of the same four charges on a small order sits in Dropshipping to Mexico: The Landed Cost Per Order, Line by Line.

How BringGo Ship Handles This

BringGo Ship quotes a fixed service rate for the four charges we control and passes the statutory charges through at cost with the calculation shown. Our proposals state the consolidation assumption, the re quote triggers and who acts as importer of record, so sellers can normalize our quote against any other. Where a catalog has a mixed origin position, our team prices the service and states the duty and IVA method rather than bundling a tax base we do not control.

Frequently asked questions

Is an all in rate ever the right structure? Yes, for the four controllable charges on stable, repeating traffic with a settled classification. It is the wrong structure for a mixed origin catalog where the duty position varies by SKU.

Why do two quotes differ so much? Usually because they include different subsets of the seven charges. Comparing them requires normalizing to the same list first.

Can the DTA floor really make small shipments expensive? Yes. Below roughly 32,364 pesos of customs value the fee is the fixed minimum of 258.91 pesos, so a small shipment pays the same as a larger one.