My Water Concession Expires in Three Years. What Do I Need to Start Doing Today?

In short

Since 11 December 2025, a Mexican water concession can only be extended if the request is filed between three years before the title expires and six months before it expires. Outside that window the law treats silence as a waiver. The window is now two and a half years long instead of four and a half, and the authority will decide the request partly on your record of paying water duties.

This guide is the practical side of our earlier analysis, What Mexico's Water Reform Took Away From Industrial Concession Holders. That piece explains what changed. This one is about what to do with each title you hold, starting this month.

1. Put every title in one of three positions

The amended Article 24 of the Ley de Aguas Nacionales sets the extension window at “between the three years prior to the end of its term and six months before its expiry.” Counting from today, 24 September 2026, every title you hold sits in one of three positions.

2. Missing the window is final

Article 24 is explicit: “Failure to file the request referred to in this Article within the established period shall be deemed a waiver of the right to request the extension.” The reform shortened the window. It did not soften the sanction.

There is no transitional relief for a holder who had not filed. The decree's Third Transitory Article protects procedures already pending on 11 December 2025, which are resolved under the rules in force when they were filed. It says nothing about a holder who was inside the old five-year window and had not yet filed. That holder now counts under the new three-year rule.

So the first question for every title is not whether to file, but whether anything was filed before 11 December 2025. If it was, that request is decided under the old rules, including the old instruction to consider the full recovery of the holder's investments. If it was not, the new rules apply.

3. What the authority will weigh, and what you control

Under the amended Article 24, in deciding on the characteristics of the extension, the authority considers “water responsibility and compliance with obligations regarding payment of water duties.”

Water responsibility is defined in Article 3, section XLV BIS, in general terms: responsible management and good practices, without exceeding the volumes granted. The decree's Seventh Transitory Article instructs the authority to regulate the criteria and procedures that will give that standard its content. As of the date of this guide, that regulation has not been issued.

That leaves one criterion you can prepare for with certainty: payment of water duties. It is now written into the extension decision itself. An unresolved difference over duties is no longer only a tax question. It feeds the renewal.

And one criterion you can prepare for with evidence, even before it is defined: actual use. Whatever content water responsibility receives, it will be assessed against what you extract and how you measure it. The decree separately instructs the authority to promote an official standard on measurement systems.

4. Build the file so the clock starts

Article 22 of the Ley de Aguas Nacionales requires the authority to answer within sixty business days from filing, “once the file is duly complete.” If it does not answer, Article 17 of the Ley Federal de Procedimiento Administrativo treats the silence as a denial, which can be challenged before the Federal Administrative Justice Court. Our earlier analysis explains why that mechanism survives the reform.

Two consequences follow for how the request is prepared.

The clock depends on a complete file. A file the authority considers incomplete does not start the sixty days, and it can consume months of a window that is now only two and a half years long. The file should be complete on the day it is filed, not completed later in response to a request for information.

It has to be filed with the unit that is competent to decide. The functions of the water authority are distributed among its central administration, the basin organisations and the local offices. Our earlier analysis explains why silence from a unit that was not competent to decide may be lawful, and therefore hard to challenge on the merits. Identify the competent unit for each title before filing.

Until a new regulation is issued, the procedural requirements are those of the Reglamento de la Ley de Aguas Nacionales of 1994, last amended in August 2014, applied to a law rewritten in December 2025. Check the current requirements for the specific procedure before assembling the file.

5. Six things to start this month

6. Three things that change the plan

A transfer or a change of use. The decree's transitory regime keeps the prior provisions in force until the new regulatory framework is issued, with the express exception of transfers and changes of use. If a sale of the plant, a corporate reorganisation or a change in how the water is used is on the horizon, it is governed by the new rules already. Plan the extension and the transaction together.

A title with volume you are not using. A regulation published on 4 August 2026 governs the guarantee fee against caducidad for unused volume. Our guide on unused volume explains when it applies.

Publication of the missing rules. The regulation defining water responsibility and the new Reglamento are both pending. When either is published, the criteria in section 3 and the procedure in section 4 may change. A file prepared today should be reviewed against them before it is filed.

What remains open

The content of water responsibility has not been published. The Reglamento applied to extension requests predates the reform by eleven years. The First Transitory Article required the regulatory provisions to be issued within 180 days of entry into force; that period ended on 10 June 2026 and the provisions have not been issued.

None of that changes the window. The three-year rule and the waiver are in the text of the law and apply today.

Companion analysis

Where does each of your titles sit in the window?

Describe your water concessions: expiry dates, use, basin organisation and anything pending before CONAGUA. A lawyer will tell you which position each title is in and what the file needs before it is filed.

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