Last year was most likely a record year for remittances to Mexico, with more than US $59 billion flowing into the country in the first 11 months of 2024.
The Bank of Mexico (Banxico) reported that Mexico received $59.518 billion in remittances between January and November 2024, a 2.9% increase to the same period of 2023.
Mexicans abroad sent $63.31 billion home in 2023, a record high. Banxico will publish remittances data for all of 2024 in early February.
The amount of money Mexicans living and working abroad have been sending to Mexico on an annual basis has been on the rise for more than a decade. While a new remittances record was almost certainly set in 2024, the pace of growth slowed after a 7.6% year-over-year increase in 2023.
The vast majority of remittances to Mexico are sent from the United States, where millions of Mexicans live and work. In 2023, 96% of remittances to Mexico came from the United States, “the majority from California and Texas,” according to the bank BBVA. Some of the money is the proceeds of drug trafficking, according to a 2023 report by a Mexican think tank.
The long-running increase in annual remittances totals could conceivably be broken in 2025 if United States President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his promise to carry out “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Millions of Mexican families depend on remittances sent from the United States by Mexican immigrants, who have been described as “heroes and heroines” by President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Average remittance amount increases more than 20% in 5 years
Banxico reported that almost 151 million individual remittances were sent to Mexico between January and November 2024. Just over 99% of that number were sent electronically.
The average remittance amount in the first 11 months of 2024 was US $395, a 21.5% increase compared to 2019.
A significant depreciation in the value of the Mexican peso in the second half of 2024 meant that recipients of remittances ended up with more pesos in their pockets.
Prior to Mexico’s 2024 general elections, the peso was trading at about 17 to the US dollar, meaning that a $395 remittance was worth 6,715 pesos. At the current USD:MXN exchange rate (around 20.4), that same remittance is worth 8,058 pesos.
Remittances surge 10% annually in November
Mexico had its best ever November for remittances, receiving a total of $5.43 billion.
That figure represented a 10.6% increase compared to November 2023, but a 5% decline compared to the previous month.
The average remittance sent to Mexico in November was $397, slightly higher than the average in the first 11 months of 2024.
Remittances sent from Mexico on the rise as well
Banxico said that remittances totaling US $1.19 billion were sent out of Mexico in the first 11 months of last year. That figure was 25% higher than the $957 million total recorded between January and November 2023.
An increasing number of foreigners are working in Mexico instead of — or before — attempting to migrate, legally or illegally, to the United States, a factor that helps explain the increase in outgoing remittances.
CORRECTION: The original version of this article said that almost 151,000 individual remittances were sent to Mexico between January and November 2024. In fact, almost 151 million separate remittances were sent.
With reports from El Financiero, Forbes México and La Jornada
