Mexico: New employer obligation to pay housing loans of employees on leave

Employer Action Code: Act

Recent amendments to the Law of the National Housing Fund Institute for Workers (INFONAVIT, in Spanish) require employers of employees on sickness, disability or family leave who have outstanding housing loans from INFONAVIT to make loan payments on behalf of those employees. The reforms also expand INFONAVIT’s responsibilities to include a new social leasing program for INFONAVIT-owned housing, with an option for tenants to purchase the property at a reduced cost.

Key details

• The amendments require employers to make INFONAVIT loan payments on their employees’ behalf when employees are on unpaid sickness, disability or family leave, including when pay replacement benefits are provided by social security (Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social – IMSS). The amendments do not appear to include any measures for recovery of the employer cost from IMSS or the employee
• Loan payment amounts (unchanged by the amendments) are normally paid via deductions from employees’ salaries, based on a percentage of monthly earnings up to 25 times the Unit of Measurement and Update (UMA), i.e., up to 85,986.50 Mexican pesos (MXN) as of February 1, 2025. The INFONAVIT Law does not set a specific cap on monthly loan payments. The only exception is for employees earning the minimum wage, for whom payments are capped at 20% of monthly pay under the Federal Labor Law
• As under prior law, employers must continue to make the mandatory contribution of 5% of covered pay to INFONAVIT for employees on disability leave who receive pay replacement benefits from IMSS
• On termination of employment, repayment of any outstanding loan balance remains the former employee’s responsibility. Employees may ultimately use the savings in their INFONAVIT account (funded by mandatory employer contributions) to repay the loan balance

Employer implications

The legislation calls for employers to comply with the new requirements by September 17, 2025 (the loan payment due date for the July to August 2025 period). While potential challenges to the constitutionality of the amendments are likely, employers are encouraged to assess how many of their employees have active INFONAVIT loans, update their payroll systems as needed, evaluate the financial impact and obtain legal counsel on compliance specifics. According to INFONAVIT data, as of March 2025 there were 5.7 million active housing loans, with a total outstanding balance of MXN 1,869.29 billion (approximately USD 97 billion). The estimated average loan balance is around MXN 327,946 (USD 16,900). With 22.4 million employees registered with the IMSS at that time, an estimated 26% of the IMSS-covered workforce holds an active INFONAVIT loan. Failure to make the required loan payments on behalf of employees may result in fines ranging from three to 350 times the daily value of UMA (MXN 113.14 as of February 1, 2025), among other penalties.