Labour Reform 2023: Mexico changes mandatory minimum vacation for employees

published on 3 January 2023 | reading time approx. 3 minutes

For 52 years, the legal vacation entitlement had remained unchanged at only 6 working days, and only after one year of employment. The number of vacation days gradually increased after longer periods of employment. In order to adapt to today's international standards, the Mexican legislator has increased the minimum number of vacation days.

On December 27, 2022, the law modifying employees' leave entitlement was published in the Official Gazette of Mexico (Diario Oficial de la Federación) and will be effective from January 1, 2023. This change has to be applied as soon as possible to the individual and collective employment contracts in force.

Vacation days will continue to be scaled according to the seniority of the employee. The Ministry of Labour and Social Security has published the following breakdown for this purpose:

Seniority	Vacation Days
Year 1	12 days
Year 2	14 days
Year 3	16 days
Year 4	18 days
Year 5	20 days
from 6 to 10 years	22 days
from 11 to 15 years	24 days
from 16 to 20 years	26 days
from 21 to 25 years	28 days
from 26 to 30 years	30 days
from 31 to 35 years	32 days

The main new regulations of the reform of the Federal Labour Law are in detail:

Article 76; Employees with more than one year of service are entitled to paid annual leave, which in no case may be less than 12 working days and increases by 2 working days for each additional year of service until 20 working days are reached. Beginning with the 6th year, the vacation period increases to 2 days for each additional 5 years of service.

Article 78 now allows employees to use the leave days to which they are entitled in accordance with their seniority and in the breakdown they prefer, granting the right to a minimum of 12 consecutive days.

These increases are also intended to improve productivity in companies by extending employees' rest periods.

Contractual agreements that go beyond this new minimum vacation entitlement remain unaffected by the new regulations. At the same time, this reform imposes on employers in Mexico an obligation to pay increased vacation compensation and increased payments of severance pay.