Buen Fin and Federal Holidays
Tara A. Spears
Who doesn’t love to shop? People with limited income, such as those that work for minimum wage, could only dream about holiday shopping until the Mexican Department of Labor came up with a plan. First, the 1970 Federal Labor Article 87 law went into effect. The Aguinaldo stipulates that all workers must receive a Christmas bonus of 15 days additional salary. In an additional effort to make purchasing for the holidays possible for all, the inception of a deep discount, cross country sale campaign positively impacted the worker and the economy.
El Buen Fin —with the slogan “The cheapest weekend of the year”— is an annual shopping event held in Mexico since 2011, inspired by the U.S. Black Friday business strategy. The creators of this initiative, the Business Coordinating Council (Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, CCE) in collaboration with the Federal Government, banking institutions, and private sector organizations, had the goal to reduce unemployment, strengthen the domestic market, and stimulate consumer activity before the holiday season. While Buen Fin is designed to support essential consumer spending, it has generated more than 338.9 billion pesos in revenue in 2024 alone. The President announced that this year’s program will begin on Thursday, thus expanding the sales period to November 13 to 17, 2025. (Merca2.0) Not only stores participate but many online merchants as well as airlines.
According to the Mexican Sales Association, up to 80% of Mexican consumers will participate in El Buen Fin this year. Don’t be surprised if your workers ask for their Christmas bonus/ Aguinaldo payment before these dates.
In addition to the strict law enforcement regarding the Christmas bonus, the Labor Law also stipulates that workers must be paid double if they work on a federal holiday. To simplify scheduling my domestic workers, I print out the yearly paid holiday list in October and put it on my refrigerator.
Another Mexican salary issue is the mandatory double pay for employees working on a statutory holiday. In December, Christmas day, followed by New Year’s Day, requires additional salary payment. If an employee works on December 25 or January 1, they actually must be paid double time in addition to their regular time, which in effect is triple time. This is true for any statutory holiday throughout the year on which an employee may work. If the day happens to fall on a regularly scheduled work day, and they have the day off, they still must be paid. And again, if they work that day, they get triple time. In the case of most domestic help they typically are not scheduled to work on holidays but you need to be aware of the Mexican statues to avoid creating an unhappy labor situation. Oh the 2026 holiday list, the dates in black are the when you must pay triple time salary.
Another labor related issue is that of tipping workers and other service providers.
If you forget to tip your mailman, bottled water delivery guy, or trash collector in November, Christmas is a good time to make amends and, for those who buy regularly online and have the items delivered, you might consider tipping your local couriers as well, if you don’t tip them throughout the year. If you are staying at a hotel, don’t forget to leave tips for your chamber maid and the wait staff, even if you’re staying at an ‘all inclusive’ resort’.
“Tips speak louder than words.” is a reminder that actions (like tipping) can express gratitude more than words. It’s important to budget a decent tip into your planned outing-if you can’t afford a tip either stay home or skip a cocktail in order to have enough for the server. One needs to remember that people in the service industry work for low wages and tips help to boost that income to an acceptable level. The economic reality is that many in the service/hospitality jobs can barely survive on the salary alone.
Since the very affordable domestic help makes our time in Mexico so comfortable, tipping and paying the Christmas bonus is a simple way to show your appreciation of their work and to help local families enjoy the holidays.
