Key facts at a glance
RESICO rate range
1.00%–2.50%
flat, on gross income collected
RESICO annual limit
$3,500,000
MXN, 2026 threshold
PM withholding
1.25%
credited against your ISR
Here's the headline number: on $600,000 a year, a RESICO contributor pays roughly $6,600 in ISR (a 1.10% flat rate), while a salaried empleado earning the identical $600,000 pays $109,294through the progressive sueldos y salarios table, an 18.2% effective rate. That's not a rounding difference, it's a roughly 16x gap in tax paid on the same gross income.
But that headline number is deliberately incomplete. RESICO strips away employer-funded IMSS, aguinaldo, vacation premium, PTU eligibility, and Ley Federal del Trabajo severance protections, real value a formal sueldo provides that the tax comparison alone doesn't capture.
See what a sueldo of your size actually nets after ISR.
Open the Mexico calculatorTwo entirely different tax structures
Sueldos y salarios ISR is progressive: 11 monthly bands from 1.92% to 35%, applied to your taxable salary, with your employer withholding and remitting it automatically. RESICO is flat: a single rate (1.00%, 1.10%, 1.50%, 2.00%, or 2.50%) applied directly to your total ingreso cobrado for the month, whichever tier that month's income falls into, with zero deductions allowed against it.
Note the mechanic here is different from a progressive table: RESICO doesn't tax the amount inside each band at its own rate the way a progressive table does. If your monthly income lands in the 1.10% tier ($25,001–$50,000), the entire month's income is taxed at 1.10%, not just the portion above $25,000. That's a materially simpler (and, at these rates, materially lower) calculation than the sueldo table.
RESICO only applies to personas físicas with actividades empresariales, servicios profesionales (honorarios), or arrendamiento, not to salaried employment. You can't elect RESICO instead of sueldos y salarios ISR at the same job; the two regimes attach to fundamentally different legal relationships (independent contractor invoicing via CFDI versus formal employee on nómina).
RESICO vs salaried ISR at three income levels
Same gross annual figure, taxed under each regime's own rules. RESICO assumes the full amount is collected as ingreso from independent activity; sueldo figures are ISR only (no IMSS).
| Annual income | RESICO rate | RESICO tax | Sueldo ISR (eff. rate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $300,000 | 1.00% | $3,000 | $41,42013.8% |
| $600,000 | 1.10% | $6,600 | $109,29418.2% |
| $1,200,000 | 2.00% | $24,000 | $284,83323.7% |
RESICO tax uses the 2026 tabla mensual (Art. 113-E LISR), applied by monthly tier. Sueldo ISR figures from the Mexico Salary Calculator.
What the low RESICO rate doesn't include
A formal sueldo comes with employer-funded IMSS (healthcare, disability, retirement contributions, with the employer paying the larger share of most sub-items), mandatory aguinaldo (at least 15 days' pay), vacation premium, PTU eligibility, and Ley Federal del Trabajo severance protections if you're let go. RESICO contributors get none of this automatically; you can register with IMSS voluntarily as a trabajador independiente, but you pay the full contribution yourself, employer and employee share combined.
You also carry your own compliance burden under RESICO: issuing CFDIs for every payment received, filing monthly provisional payments, and keeping records the SAT can audit, none of which a salaried empleado has to think about, since the employer handles it all through nómina.
Why many independent professionals still come out ahead
Freelancers, consultants, and independent contractors under RESICO often deliberately price their rates well above what an equivalent salaried role would pay, specifically to self-fund the missing pieces: private health insurance instead of employer IMSS, voluntary retirement savings (AFORE voluntary contributions or private alternatives), and a cash buffer for the income volatility a formal job wouldn't carry.
Whether that trade nets out ahead depends heavily on how much above-market you can actually charge as an independent, and how much you personally value the stability and legal protections a formal sueldo provides. There's no universally correct answer, but the tax-rate gap alone (1% to 2.5% vs up to 35%) is real and substantial enough that it's worth running the full comparison for your own numbers before defaulting to either path.
See your sueldo-side numbers exactly
Run your salary through the ISR table, band by band, to compare against your own RESICO estimate.
Open the Mexico Salary CalculatorMonthly briefing
Get our monthly salary and market update
Salary movements, contractor rate changes, tax updates, and new tools. Sent once a month, no noise.
No spam. Unsubscribe any time. GDPR-compliant.
Frequently asked questions
What is RESICO, and who can use it?
RESICO (Régimen Simplificado de Confianza) is a simplified tax regime for personas físicas earning empresarial, professional, or arrendamiento (rental) income, under Articles 113-E to 113-J of the Ley del ISR. It applies flat rates of 1.00% to 2.50% directly on income actually collected (ingresos efectivamente cobrados), with no deductions permitted, replacing the progressive tarifa that applies to regular sueldos y salarios (salaried) income. It's mandatory, not optional, for anyone meeting the income threshold and activity type. Critically, it does not apply to salaried employment: if you're on a company's nómina as an empleado, RESICO simply isn't available to you, this comparison is really 'independent contractor under RESICO' versus 'formal employee.'
Why is RESICO's tax rate so much lower than salaried ISR?
Because it's calculated completely differently: a flat percentage (1.00% to 2.50%, depending on your monthly income tier) applied directly to gross income collected, versus the salaried tarifa's progressive bands (1.92% to 35%) applied to taxable income. On $600,000/year, RESICO's effective rate lands around 1.1%, since $50,000/month sits in the 1.10% tier, while the same amount as salaried income pays $109,294 in ISR (18.2% effective) after running through the progressive table. The gap is real and large, but RESICO comes with real trade-offs, no employer-side IMSS, no aguinaldo, no PTU, no severance protections, that the tax rate alone doesn't capture.
What's the income limit for RESICO, and what happens if I exceed it?
$3,500,000 MXN in accumulated annual income (the 2026 threshold, adjusted for inflation under Art. 113-E LISR). If you cross that limit at any point in the year, the SAT automatically moves you to the Régimen General at the close of the fiscal year, where rates climb progressively up to 35%, the same table salaried employees use, but now with self-employment obligations (own invoicing, own provisional payments, own record-keeping) rather than an employer withholding for you.
Does RESICO include IMSS or other social benefits?
No, and this is the core trade-off. RESICO contributors are not automatically enrolled in IMSS the way empleados are; they can voluntarily register (as a trabajador independiente) but must pay the full contribution themselves, employer and employee portions combined, if they want healthcare and retirement coverage. Formal empleados get IMSS coverage with the employer paying the larger share, plus aguinaldo, vacation premium, and severance protections under the Ley Federal del Trabajo, benefits that don't exist under RESICO at all.
If a company withholds tax when I invoice them under RESICO, how does that work?
If you issue a CFDI (invoice) to a persona moral (a company), that company must withhold 1.25% ISR on the payment. That withheld amount isn't an extra tax, it's a credit you apply directly against your monthly RESICO provisional payment, so your net RESICO tax burden doesn't change, only who remits it to the SAT first.
So is RESICO or a salaried job the better financial choice?
Purely on the tax rate, RESICO wins decisively at every income level shown above. But 'better financial choice' has to include what a formal sueldo buys you that RESICO doesn't: employer-funded IMSS (healthcare, disability, retirement contributions), aguinaldo, vacation premium, PTU eligibility, and labour-law severance protections if you're let go. Many independent professionals in Mexico deliberately price their RESICO rates well above an equivalent salary specifically to self-fund those missing benefits (private health insurance, voluntary retirement savings) and still come out ahead after doing so. Whether that trade works for you depends on your own risk tolerance and how much you value formal-employment protections.