Electronic time records are now the law in Mexico

On May 1, 2026, Mexico's Official Gazette published the Federal Labor Law (LFT) reform that cuts the workweek from 48 to 40 hours. Most of the conversation has been about the hours. For a field operation, the bigger change is elsewhere: a new fraction XXXIV in Article 132, which requires employers to:

Electronically record the working hours of each worker, including start and end times, and provide them to the authority when required.

The Ministry of Labor (STPS) must issue the rules defining who it applies to and which exceptions exist; under the decree's transitory articles, those rules take effect on January 1, 2027. Non-compliance carries a new fine of 250 to 5,000 UMA (Article 994, fraction IV Bis). With the 2026 UMA at 117.31 pesos, that's 29,327.50 to 586,550 pesos.

The timeline

The reduction is gradual. Every January 1, the maximum ordinary hours go down and the allowed weekly overtime goes up:

	Ordinary workweek	Allowed overtime
2026	48 h	9 h
2027	46 h	9 h
2028	44 h	10 h
2029	42 h	11 h
2030	40 h	12 h

Decree reforming the LFT on the reduction of working hours, DOF May 1, 2026, second and fourth transitory articles

With a workweek that changes every year and an overtime cap that changes too, the spreadsheet a supervisor fills in on Friday stops being enough.

Who has to prove the hours

This isn't new, but the reform makes it more visible. Article 784 of the LFT already provides that when there's a dispute over ordinary and overtime hours (if overtime doesn't exceed nine hours a week), the burden of proof falls on the employer. If a technician claims overtime and the company only has a paper sign-in sheet, the burden is on the company.

The new fraction adds a detail that matters: the electronic record "will be full proof if it is shown to have been agreed between the worker and the employer." A time clock the worker never sees or accepts is worth less than a record the worker generates and can check.

The decision: the record comes from the work, not the office

In waydot, working hours aren't entered after the fact. They're generated on the technician's phone:

• Shift start and end are recorded in the app, with the time and location of the moment, even without signal.
• The day's visits are tied to the shift, with verified on-site arrival and departure.
• The technician sees their own record. If they forgot to close the shift or the battery died, they request a correction; the supervisor approves it, and the original record isn't deleted but supplemented with who requested it, who approved it and why.

Because attendance and work come from the same device, they cross-check on their own. If someone clocks in at 8:00 and their first activity is at 10:30, the system doesn't decide anything; it flags it for review. The supervisor stops reviewing the entire payroll and reviews a short list of exceptions: unclosed shifts, hours without activity, mileage far from the route driven, expenses without receipts.

What stays with your accountant

waydot calculates pay periods, earnings, deductions and loans from verified work. The contribution base salary, IMSS and INFONAVIT contributions, income tax withholding and the payroll CFDI must be validated with your accounting team or payroll provider. It's also worth reviewing with your lawyer how to document the agreement with workers on the recording mechanism, so that it counts as full proof, and reading the STPS rules once they're published.

Sources

• Federal Labor Law, current text (last amended DOF May 14, 2026): Articles 132 fraction XXXIV, 784 and 994 fraction IV Bis; transitory articles of the May 1, 2026 decree.
• Mexican Senate, approval of the LFT reform reducing the workweek to 40 hours.
• INEGI, 2026 UMA value.