Mexico manufacturing directory: 2026 industry and regional breakdown

Mexico's national business directory lists 656,617 manufacturing establishments. That headline number says little about where a U.S. buyer can actually source. Most of those establishments are bakeries, tortilla shops, and one-person workshops. The base that matters for most sourcing is far smaller, far more concentrated, and very unevenly spread across the country.

This report breaks Mexico's manufacturing base down by size, industry, and state, using INEGI's May 2026 directory release. It separates two things that are easy to confuse: how many establishments exist and what we've verified they can do.

Most establishments are very small

Of the 656,617 establishments, 87.9% have five or fewer employees. Only 39,790 (6.1%) have 11 or more, and 5,093 have more than 250.

The small end is not irrelevant. It includes specialized machine shops, embroidery workshops, and artisan producers that some buyers want. But for most programs, the 11+ segment is where suppliers with dedicated equipment, a quality process, and capacity for repeat orders are concentrated. The rest of this report focuses there unless noted.

Industries: food leads, then metal, plastics, and apparel

Among establishments with 11 or more employees, food is the largest industry (17.1%), followed by fabricated metal products (11.2%), plastics and rubber (8.2%), and apparel. Food leads because of the sheer number of mid-size processors, many of which serve the domestic market.

Industries differ sharply in how much of their base is mid-size or larger:

• Computers and electronics: 72.2% of establishments have 11+ employees, and 54.2% have more than 50. This is an industry of large plants.
• Transportation equipment: 60.3% have 11+ employees, and 46.4% have more than 50.
• Plastics and rubber: 43.5% have 11+, an unusually high share for an industry with thousands of establishments.
• Fabricated metal products: only 5.6% have 11+. The industry is dominated by small workshops, including residential ironwork, even though it is the second-largest industry at the 11+ level.

Five states hold half the mid-size and larger plants

Estado de México, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Nuevo León, and Mexico City together hold 49.8% of all establishments with 11 or more employees.

But counting establishments of all sizes gives a misleading picture of where industrial capacity sits. Puebla has 60,624 manufacturing establishments, the second-highest total, but only 4.1% of them have 11 or more employees. Nuevo León has fewer than a third as many establishments in total, yet 22.2% are mid-size or larger, and it has more plants with over 250 employees (577) than any other state.

The states with the highest share of mid-size and larger plants are the industrial north and the Bajío: Nuevo León (22.2%), Baja California (21.9%), Querétaro (17.1%), Chihuahua (15.3%), and Coahuila (13.2%), against a national average of 6.1%.

Each region has a specialty

Comparing each state's industry mix with the national mix shows what it's distinctively good at. The figure below is a location quotient: how many times more common an industry is among a state's 11+ plants than nationally.

State	Most over-represented industry	Times the national share
Guanajuato	Leather and footwear	7.5×
Puebla	Apparel	5.2×
Baja California	Computers and electronics	4.6×
Tamaulipas	Computers and electronics	4.1×
Sonora	Computers and electronics	3.9×
Chihuahua	Computers and electronics	3.5×
Coahuila	Transportation equipment	2.8×
Mexico City	Printing	2.8×
Nuevo León	Primary metals	2.6×
Querétaro	Transportation equipment	2.2×
Jalisco	Furniture	1.8×

Four of the six states bordering the U.S. have electronics as their strongest specialty. Explore every state in the interactive map.

What establishment counts can't tell you

A directory count says an establishment exists, what its main activity is, and roughly how many people work there. It doesn't say what the plant can make, to what tolerances, under which certifications, or whether it takes orders from outside companies.

That's the gap our research layer fills. So far we have:

These researched profiles are a working sample, not a statistical one: our research has started with job shops and contract manufacturers, so the share taking outside orders is higher than it would be for manufacturing as a whole. We report it to show what verification adds, not as a national estimate.

Methodology and limitations

Source. Establishment counts come from INEGI's Directorio Estadístico Nacional de Unidades Económicas (DENUE), May 20, 2026 release, manufacturing sectors 31–33. DENUE lists active economic units by location, main activity (SCIAN 2018), and employee range.

Size. Employee counts are reported in ranges (0–5, 6–10, 11–30, 31–50, 51–100, 101–250, 251+). "11+" means the 11–30 range and above.

Industries. Industries are SCIAN three-digit subsectors, which align closely with U.S. NAICS subsectors. Each establishment is counted once, under its main activity; a plant that also does secondary processes is counted only under its primary one.

Establishments, not companies. A company with several plants appears once per plant. Warehouses or offices registered under a manufacturing activity can appear in the data.

Researched profiles. Figures on verified websites and capabilities come from Agalma Sourcing's ongoing research, in which every capability is backed by a quote from the company's own website. The sample is not random and will change as research continues.

How to cite. Agalma Sourcing, "Mexico Manufacturing Directory: 2026 Industry and Regional Breakdown," October 2026, based on INEGI DENUE (May 2026).