The Law Does Not Say in Which Sectors Cash Stops Being an Option. The Ministry Decides in Fifteen Business Days.

On 8 September 2026 the Mexican Executive submitted to the Chamber of Deputies a bill that enacts an entirely new statute: the Digital Economy Law for Digital and Electronic Payments (Ley de Economía Digital para Pagos Digitales y Electrónicos). Twenty-two articles across five Titles, plus five transitional provisions.

Almost everything published about it describes it as a financial inclusion law. In its explanatory memorandum it is, from beginning to end. But the operative text contains a power the memorandum does not mention once: the power to designate sectors in which digital payment may be the only admissible form of payment.

That power comes with no criteria, no catalogue and no penalty regime. And between entry into force and the rules that bind there are thirty business days.

1. What this is, and what it is not yet

It is a bill. It is not law.

It was published in the Parliamentary Gazette of the Chamber of Deputies, year XXIX, number 7121-G, Annex G, of Tuesday 8 September 2026. The signature page is dated in Mexico City on that same 8 September 2026 and is signed by the President of the Republic, under article 71, fraction I, of the Mexican Constitution.

Chamber of origin: Deputies. Worth noting, because the other major bill of this session touching foreign investment, the Foreign Investment Law bill of 30 August 2026, went to the Senate. Two different legislative routes and two different calendars.

Currency warning. The legislative status of this bill may have changed since 8 September 2026. We do not know whether it has been referred to committee, reported out, or amended. Verify before relying on any part of this guide.

If enacted as submitted, transitional article FIRST provides that the Decree enters into force the day after its publication in the Official Gazette of the Federation.

2. The power: digital payment as the only form of payment

It fits in two lines. Proposed article 13, transcribed:

«La Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público determinará los sectores estratégicos y actividades relevantes en los cuales la aceptación de Medios de Pagos Digitales y Electrónicos podrá ser la única forma de pago.»

In substance, and this rendering is ours rather than an official translation: the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit will determine the strategic sectors and relevant activities in which acceptance of digital and electronic payment methods may be the only form of payment.

Article 14 develops the mechanics. The authorities competent under the rules applicable to each strategic sector or relevant activity will issue the general administrative provisions setting the conditions, requirements, obligations and operating rules for receiving digital and electronic payment methods in those sectors as the only form of payment. They may also establish sector-specific mechanisms and deadlines for the gradual transition from cash to digital payment.

Read it precisely, because it is not what many are taking from it. It is not a general obligation to accept digital payments. It is a power to designate sectors in which cash ceases to be an admissible means of payment. The designation is not in the statute: it is delegated in full to the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit.

And the perimeter of who it can reach is wide. Article 2, fraction VI, defines Providers of Goods or Services as individuals or legal entities, public or private, that habitually and professionally carry out Economic Transactions in which they commercialise goods or services. Fraction IX defines an Economic Transaction as any act of commerce under the Commercial Code relating to the sale of goods, the provision of services, the granting of temporary use or enjoyment of goods, and the importation of goods or services.

So: anyone who habitually and professionally sells goods or provides services is a Provider. If their sector is designated, cash stops being an option for them.

What counts as a digital payment method. Article 2, fraction VIII, is deliberately broad: QR codes, NFC devices enabling payments, debit and credit cards, funds transfer orders including direct debit, any device, card or interface enabling payments or transfers, and any others recognised under general rules.

3. The memorandum justifies adoption. It does not justify the mandate.

The explanatory memorandum is, from beginning to end, a financial inclusion argument.

It invokes the 2024 National Financial Inclusion Survey by Mexico's National Institute of Statistics and Geography. It reports that between 2021 and 2024 the use of cash as a frequent payment method fell from 90.1% to 85.2% for purchases of five hundred pesos or less, and that the use of electronic transfers and mobile applications rose from 1.6% to 4.4%. It notes the regional gap: nearly 10% in Mexico City against barely 6% in the southern region. It develops the argument that transactional history is a route to credit for small business.

And it states its thesis in one sentence:

«La brecha no está en la infraestructura sino en la adopción.»

The gap is not in the infrastructure but in adoption.

Article 13 is not adoption. It is a mandate.

We read the memorandum in full and found not a single paragraph that justifies, explains or even mentions the power to designate sectors in which digital payment is the only form of payment. The entire reasoning goes to the proposition that the infrastructure already exists and what is missing is use. The provision that actually binds, the one that can make cash inadmissible across an entire sector, does not appear in the reasoning that supports the bill.

This is an observation about the document, not about the drafter's intent. There may be a justification that was not written down. What we can state is that it is not in the published text, and that this absence is exactly the kind of gap worth raising while the bill is in committee.

4. Thirty business days to the rules, and the law does not say which sectors

The transitional provisions set a very short calendar.

5. The contingency, and the case the text does not resolve

Article 15 opens a valve: where a Contingency makes it impossible to receive digital and electronic payment methods, payment in cash or by cheque is permitted.

Article 16 closes it: contingencies in strategic sectors or relevant activities "may not justify permanent or recurring non-compliance with the obligations under this Law".

And article 2, fraction II, defines Contingency as an extraordinary, unforeseen or unavoidable event or circumstance of act of God or force majeure that temporarily affects the continuity, availability or functioning of the infrastructure, systems, services or operations carried out through electronic and digital means.

The three pieces together leave one case unanswered. A locality without stable telecommunications coverage does not suffer an extraordinary, unforeseen and unavoidable event temporarily affecting continuity. It suffers a permanent condition. It does not fit the article 2 definition of Contingency, and therefore does not trigger the article 15 valve. And article 16 expressly forbids contingencies from justifying recurring non-compliance.

The memorandum itself acknowledges that access to digital payments is regionally uneven, and the figure it cites, 10% in Mexico City against 6% in the south, describes that unevenness. The operative text does not translate that acknowledgement into a rule. We do not know how this is meant to be resolved; it may be left to the article 14 transition "mechanisms and deadlines". The text does not say.

6. The definition of "Entities", and an omission that creates an avoidable doubt

Proposed article 2, fraction IV, defines "Entities":

«Entidades: instituciones de crédito, a las sociedades financieras de objeto múltiple, a las sociedades financieras populares, a las sociedades financieras comunitarias, a las sociedades cooperativas de ahorro y préstamo, a las entidades financieras que actúen como fiduciarias en fideicomisos que otorguen crédito, préstamo o financiamiento al público, las uniones de crédito y las instituciones de tecnología financiera, así como las sociedades que de manera habitual otorguen créditos, préstamos o financiamientos al público;»

In substance: credit institutions, multiple purpose financial companies (SOFOM), popular financial companies, community financial companies, savings and loan cooperatives, financial entities acting as trustees in trusts that lend to the public, credit unions and financial technology institutions, as well as companies that habitually grant credit, loans or financing to the public.

First, because alarmist readings are circulating. The closing clause does not turn everyone who finances their customers into an Entity. Commercial credit falls outside. A company that sells merchandise and grants thirty-day payment terms does not grant credit "to the public": it agrees a payment term within a specific commercial relationship. Nor does a manufacturer that finances its dealer network from its own balance sheet fall inside: a dealer network is a closed and determinate group, not "the public".

Three reasons support that reading. "To the public" presupposes an open, indeterminate offer of credit as such. The clause closes an enumeration of eight figures that lend as a business, and a residual clause takes its meaning from what it closes. And the article 20 obligations, described in section 8, only make sense for someone who lends as an activity: they have no possible application to a merchant invoicing on terms.

Second, and this is what is worth flagging. Mexican law already knows how to draft this, and the bill did not use the known formula.

Article 87-B of the General Law of Auxiliary Credit Organizations and Activities requires, in order to be a multiple purpose financial company, that the company set out "expressly as its principal corporate purpose the habitual and professional conduct of one or more of the activities of granting credit, financial leasing or financial factoring".

The bill had that formula available and dropped two of its three elements: it does not require a principal corporate purpose and it does not require the activity to be professional. It keeps only "habitually".

And the contrast is internal, within the same article 2: fraction VI, for Providers, does say "habitually and professionally". The drafter knew how to add "professionally" and added it where it wanted. In fraction IV it did not.

What that omission produces. It does not make the merchant an Entity, for the three reasons above. It produces something quieter and more irritating: an unnecessary grey zone in the very definition that decides who bears the article 20 obligations, in a statute that moreover does not define "habitually", does not cross-refer to any definition elsewhere, and does not name the supervisor.

A company near the line has no standard to measure itself against and no authority to ask. That doubt could have been closed by adding one word, and the word was already in the article next door.

What the text does not resolve, and we will not fill in: which authority supervises article 20 compliance for an unregulated company that does lend to the public, and what "habitually" means in this context.

7. The trust mechanisms, and a hidden evidentiary rule

Title Two creates two trust mechanisms for the digital contracting of financial services.

Digital CURP, articles 5 and 6. It will be accepted as a trust mechanism in the digital contracting of financial services, under the general rules issued by the competent authorities, and without prejudice to any other mechanism those authorities enable. The User chooses between Digital CURP and any other official identification mechanism. Article 2, fraction III, defines it as the digital version of the Unique Population Registry Code under articles 91 Bis, first paragraph, and 91 Quinquies of the General Population Law.

Digital Citizen File, articles 7 and 8. A trust mechanism for consulting or using Users' documents or information, which Entities shall accept in the contracting of and access to financial services when the User so requests. Users may request its consultation and portability. Article 2, fraction V, refers its regulation to the National Law to Eliminate Bureaucratic Procedures.

And then comes article 9, which is larger than it looks:

«Los documentos digitales que obren en el Expediente Digital Ciudadano producirán los mismos efectos jurídicos que las leyes otorgan a los documentos físicos emitidos conforme a la normatividad vigente.»

Digital documents held in the Digital Citizen File will produce the same legal effects that the laws grant to physical documents issued under applicable rules.

That is a general evidentiary equivalence rule, drafted with no subject matter limit, placed inside a payments statute. It does not say "for purposes of this Law". It says they will produce the same legal effects that the laws grant to physical documents.

Why this matters to whoever runs compliance. The customer identification file required today by anti-money-laundering rules is built from documents and from its own verification standards. A trust mechanism declared by statute, carrying general evidentiary equivalence and portability at the holder's request, intersects with that file. Exactly how they fit together, and whether accepting the Digital Citizen File replaces, supplements or coexists with current identification requirements, is a question the text does not answer and that the general rules will have to resolve.

8. Three obligations you can already read

QR at the terminals, article 19, fraction IV. The Bank of Mexico may issue general provisions, jointly with the National Banking and Securities Commission and supervised by that Commission, requiring Entities that provide payment acceptance services through Point of Sale terminals for card payments to allow receipt of payments by digital and electronic payment methods using QR codes, in accordance with the technical and operating specifications issued by the Bank of Mexico. It is an interoperability obligation on acquirers, with a named supervisor.

The obligations of Entities, article 20. Take the actions necessary to promote financial inclusion; publicise their financial products and services to different population segments; promote the different account tiers for demand deposits; facilitate the granting of credit, financing and loans through digital means; and comply with any other obligations in applicable law.

The implementation obligations, article 12. Providers of Goods and Services and the authorities of the three levels of government, in order to implement payment methods, must enable the necessary infrastructure to receive them and promote their use, inform Users which ones have been enabled, adopt the measures necessary to address and remedy contingencies preventing acceptance, and implement any other action necessary to promote their use.

9. What the law does not contain

There is no penalty regime. We reviewed all five Titles and all twenty-two articles. The law imposes obligations and establishes no sanctions of its own. We are assuming the intention is for each sector and each supervisor to apply its own regime under its special law, but the text does not say so. It is an open question.

And it is not a minor absence when read alongside section 2: the law can make cash inadmissible as a means of payment in a sector, and it does not say what happens to whoever keeps accepting it.

There is no catalogue of sectors and no criteria for building one. See section 4.

There is no definition of "habitually", neither in article 2, fraction IV, for Entities nor in fraction VI for Providers.

It is also worth noting article 3: this Law does not exclude the application of the special laws applicable to the Entities and Providers concerned, financial and commercial law, banking, securities and commercial usage and practice, federal civil law, or the general provisions issued by competent authorities. This law adds; it does not replace.

10. What this guide does not tell you

It does not tell you whether the bill will pass, or in what form. It is a text under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies and everything above may change.

It does not tell you the legislative status as of the day you read it. Verify.

It does not tell you which sectors the Ministry of Finance will designate. There is no clue in the text or in the memorandum, and we will not invent one.

It does not tell you how the Digital Citizen File fits with the customer identification file required by current anti-money-laundering rules. We flag it as a question in section 7.

It contains no case law, because it cannot: this law does not exist as binding law and has not been interpreted by the Federal Judiciary or by the Federal Administrative Justice Court. Any document citing you a judicial precedent on this law is citing something that does not exist.

It does not analyse the constitutionality of the article 13 delegation. The debate over the limits of a statutory delegation empowering an administrative authority to define the universe of bound parties, and over freedom of commerce under article 5 of the Constitution applied to excluding cash as a means of payment, is real and serious. It requires its own analysis, which does not fit here.

It is not legal advice. Whether a specific company falls within a designated sector, or within article 2, fraction IV, depends on facts this guide does not know.

What we would do this week if we were you

1. Measure your cash collections, by point of sale and by region. It is the number you will need the day the sector determination is published, and today almost nobody has it to hand.
2. Identify your collection points with no viable digital alternative. Section 5 explains why an area without stable coverage does not fit the definition of Contingency.
3. If you operate point of sale terminals, review article 19, fraction IV. QR interoperability comes with a named supervisor.
4. If your company grants credit to the public as an activity, rather than as a sale term, go to section 6: the article 20 obligations apply to you even though you are not a regulated entity.
5. If you run compliance, start mapping how the Digital Citizen File would coexist with your current identification file. The article 9 evidentiary equivalence is not limited by subject matter.
6. If you have something to say about the absences in section 9, the moment is while it sits in committee.

Companion analysis

If the Ministry designates your sector, you have fifteen business days.

Describe to us which sector you operate in and how you collect today. A lawyer tells you whether the bill applies to you, which obligations can already be read and what is worth measuring before the sector determination is published.

A lawyer replies within one business day. Sending this does not create an attorney-client relationship.