Labor certificate for avocado exports: what it is, the phases and what you submit

Tariff item 0804.40.01, NICO 00. Since October 1, 2026, avocado leaving Mexico under that line of the customs declaration (pedimento) carries an attached labor certificate for avocado exports, issued by the STPS, Mexico’s labor ministry (Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social), on a platform called VELAGRO (DOF, October 1, 2026; the DOF is Mexico’s official federal gazette).

Here you get only the official record, with document and date, so you know what falls to your fruit packing house. This text is not legal advice: a labor lawyer or your customs broker has to validate your case. The machine side is kept separate, on the avocado packing line page.

What is the labor certificate for avocado exports?

The October 1 agreement defines it in its Third point: a non-transferable document in the holder’s name, issued by the STPS through VELAGRO, that constitutes a non-tariff regulation and certifies that those who take part in the value chain meet their labor and social security obligations. It gets declared on the pedimento at the time of customs clearance and transmitted as an attached digital document (Fourth point).

Its legal basis is article 283 Quáter of the Ley Federal del Trabajo, Mexico’s Federal Labor Law, added on May 1, 2026. It comes on top of the other export requirements, because the Fifth point makes clear that it exempts you from none of them. What you already carried for plant health keeps running on its own track.

Since when is it mandatory, and which document says so?

If you read that during the pilot a missing certificate did not block the pedimento, that was what the Ninth Provision said in June, and the September 14 amendment changed it. A news item from June no longer tells you what customs asks for today. Certificates requested and issued in VELAGRO since September 15 are valid from the agreement’s entry into force (second transitory article).

The five phases of the pilot program, with their dates

This comes from the Fifth to Tenth points of the Technical Agreement, with the changes published in the DOF on November 5, 2026. In phase 3, each certificate evaluates the previous month: the 25% one reviews February 2027, the 50% one March, the 75% one April and the 100% one May (Eighth point). In phase 4, the 25% technical factor certificate reviews June and the 100% one reviews September (Ninth point). The March certificate rides on the February numbers.

Who applies for it and what falls to the packer?

The exporter applies for it (October 1 agreement, Fourth point; STPS, Bulletin 84/2026). The Third point of the Technical Agreement names four participants:

If you pack for someone else, the exporter registers you as part of its chain (Guidelines, Nineteenth point) and will ask you for your legal name, RFC (tax ID), employer registration (registro patronal) and address. The platform can check with IMSS your enrollment movements and the contributions assessed and paid (Twenty-sixth). Even if you apply for nothing yourself, your employer registration and your contributions enter the exporter’s review. In phase 2, the exporter entered for each packing house its RFC, name and volume packed per month, with the operations from July to September 2026. If you pack under contract for several exporters, each one registers you with the metric tons per month (Sedeco Michoacán, Nov 5, 2026).

If you pack and export, you are the one who applies. For a company, the e.firma, Mexico’s official electronic signature, has to belong to the legal entity; the legal representative’s is not accepted (Guidelines, Ninth point). Better to check it before the week of the window.

What do you submit in VELAGRO?

The procedure is an electronic form (Guidelines, Twentieth point) with what the Seventh Provision asks for:

• Valid e.firma, legal name, representative and the document proving their authority.
• RFC, employer registration with IMSS and address of the applicant.
• The same data for each participant in the chain.
• Number of metric tons to export.
• Information and records on production, packing, marketing, export and social security.

The form annexed to the Guidelines also asks, per participant, for the REPSE folio number, orchard or grower identifier, hectares, volume produced or traded, activity in the chain and number of workers. It pays for the kilos per orchard on your receiving tickets to match what the exporter reports. The STPS also warns on that form that it may disseminate and publish the information under the terms of the transparency law.

The STPS rules within a maximum of 5 business days; if it does not answer, the certificate is deemed granted (Twenty-eighth). If something is missing, it sends a single notice and there are 5 business days to correct it; if the notice goes unanswered, it dismisses the application (Twenty-first to Twenty-fourth).

Certificate types and how long each one lasts

That scale comes from the Guidelines (Thirty-second) and applies in the permanent regime. Below the minimum level the certificate does not get issued, and you can apply again once you are in compliance (Thirty-third). During the pilot, the Technical Agreement sets the validity for each phase, and the STPS can issue an unclassified certificate of up to three months, twice a year (Fortieth). Since November 5, 2026, the Technical Agreement also allows the STPS to issue unclassified certificates with differentiated validity periods during the pilot, under criteria it will set according to the results (Eighteenth point). While it is valid, it covers an unlimited number of pedimentos (Technical Agreement, Fifteenth). Your compliance level decides how many times a year you apply again.

What is known about the Technical Factor?

The official record fits in a few lines. The June Provisions define the Technical Factor (Factor Técnico) as the unit that establishes a correspondence between the minimum labor needed at each phase of the chain and the quantity of goods produced (Second, section IV). The Technical Agreement says it will be determined through provisions to be published in the DOF, coordinated by the STPS, SADER (Mexico’s agriculture ministry) and IMSS (Sixteenth), and it schedules 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% from July to November 2027 (Ninth, amended in the DOF on November 5, 2026).

It still has no published values: as of November 11, 2026 we had not located them in the DOF or on the VELAGRO portal, and the November 5 amendment does not carry them either. Until they come out, there is no math to do.

What to have ready at your packing house

RFC and employer registration at hand, IMSS contributions up to date, the REPSE folio number of the harvesting company if you are the one who hires it, kilos per orchard and per lot, and the number of people who work on your packing floor. If you want to see where each stage of the fruit falls, it is in how avocados are packed for export. January 2027 also brings a 46-hour workweek and electronic records.

The phase 2 window closed on November 7, 2026, and as of November 11 we had found no published extension. The certificate from that phase is valid until March 7, 2027. The next window runs from March 1 to 7, 2027 and requires 25% of the chain to have an employer registration with IMSS (DOF, November 5, 2026).