How to pay contractors in Mexico

Confirm SAT registration and the invoice workflow

SAT provides a tax framework for individuals with business and professional activities, alongside guidance for issuing electronic invoices, known as CFDI. Ask the contributor to confirm their applicable tax regime and invoice process with their adviser; do not assign one regime to every reviewer or annotator.

Agree which legal entity receives the invoice and how task earnings and bonuses are described. For a foreign customer, have the contributor confirm the correct recipient fields before the first invoice. Your platform’s earnings statement can explain the calculation, but should not replace a required CFDI.

Collect the right bank details for the payment route

Banco de México describes CLABE as an 18-digit bank account identifier. When the selected payout route requires a CLABE, validate its format and confirm that the beneficiary matches the contracting party before sending a batch.

A valid CLABE alone does not confirm that a particular cross-border payment route is supported. Agree the receiving bank, settlement currency, fees, and required references with Toku. If earnings are quoted in USD and settled in MXN, make the conversion basis visible to the contributor.

Make small task payments easy to reconcile

For frequent annotation work, give each earnings statement a period, accepted task count, rate, and separately identified bonus. Agree how the invoice relates to that statement and to each transfer, especially when several small earnings amounts are paid together.

Before launch, review the actual working arrangement separately from tax registration and payment setup. Document who accepts deliverables, handles corrections, and resolves disputed earnings.

How Toku handles contributor IP in Mexico

Toku’s contributor agreements include IP assignment for deliverables. We work through the rights your project needs, including use in training and evaluation, modification, and licensing or resale of datasets and software. The contracting arrangement should document how those rights reach your company, including any transfer through Toku.

Mexico’s copyright law generally requires written, paid, time-limited transfers of economic rights, with registration for effects against third parties. Software assignments have a specific exception to the general duration limit. The appropriate terms therefore depend on whether the deliverable is code, written expert analysis, or another type of work.

Work through the deliverable definition, compensation, duration, registration, and intended uses with Toku and your legal team. Keep the author’s non-transferable moral rights separate from the economic rights assigned; do not assume one perpetual assignment clause fits every output.