Mexico pension spending share of SAT tax revenue 2026, Digi Mart USA News (Mexico): In the first nine months of the second year of the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, the federal government allocated 1.769 trillion pesos solely to cover contributory and non-contributory pension payments. That amount equals 41.20% of tax revenue collected by the SAT, which totaled 4.29 trillion pesos.
According to the report, it is the largest disbursement by the Mexican government for a January-to-September period since 1990, and the first time pension costs have exceeded 40% of tax income. Jaime Álvarez, investment vice president at Skandia, said pension spending continues to rise each year due to population aging, a growing number of retirees and pensioners, and annual adjustments to benefits set by law.
By comparison, the government allocated 20,800 million pesos to health care and vaccination services in the first nine months of 2026. The report states that pension allocations were therefore about 85 times larger than spending on public health care.
The report says that for every 100 pesos the SAT collects in taxes in 2026, the government will spend 41 on pensions, with the rest going to education, science, technology, infrastructure, public works, hospitals and citizen services. Total pension spending rose 7.17% in real annual terms, from 1.590 trillion pesos to 1.769 trillion pesos.
Of the total, 1.262 trillion pesos went to contributory pensions and retirements, while 507,443 million pesos went to non-contributory pensions linked to Bienestar programs. Within the non-contributory category, the Pensión Mujeres Bienestar program rose 204.14% in real annual terms, from 13,395 million pesos in 2025 to 42,278 million pesos in 2026.
The Pensión para el Bienestar de las Personas con Discapacidad Permanente rose 11.32% in real terms to 26,335 million pesos, while the Pensión para el Bienestar de las Personas Adultas Mayores increased 6.56% to 438,830 million pesos spent.
Julio Alejandro Millán, president of the firm Consultores Internacionales (CISC), said the pension spending problem is not unique to Mexico but occurs worldwide. He said Mexican authorities face it without the necessary resources or means to raise additional revenue, and pointed to insufficient technical reserves backing the defined-benefit system (Ley 73) and savings funds in individual accounts under the 1997 regime.
Millán said the complexity stems from demographics and health advances, as longer life expectancy means people reaching old age receive pensions, medical care and long-term care for more years. According to the report, pensions in payment under the Ley 73 system are covered by the federal budget: 783,346 million pesos in 2025 for 5.236 million pensioners according to the IMSS, rising marginally to 795,824 million pesos in 2026.
The report estimates federal spending at about 12,500 pesos per month for each pension in payment.
Millán also said a recent adjustment to Modalidad 40 corrects salary optimization incentives but does not create reserves. “The problem is not flexibility but scale, with millions of pensions and no specific fund to cover them,” he said.
