SPEI in Mexico: a business guide to hours, limits and reconciliation

A company with a subsidiary, a contractor or customers in Mexico soon meets the same three questions: when does the money arrive, how much can be sent in one transfer, and how do you prove to an auditor that a credit belongs to a given invoice. The answer to all three starts with SPEI, the interbank payment system run by Banco de México, but it does not end there.

At Soulbit Academy we summarize what Banxico publishes about SPEI and translate it into treasury decisions: hours, limits, the CEP receipt, returns, and where CoDi and DiMo fit. This article is informational. SPEI is public infrastructure operated by Banco de México and is not a Soulbit product.

What SPEI is and how a business uses it

SPEI, the Sistema de Pagos Electrónicos Interbancarios, is the payment system Banco de México operates to move pesos between accounts held at different financial institutions in Mexico. According to Banxico's official SPEI information, transfers are immediate and the system runs without interruption.

For a business, SPEI is the rail behind most transfers between Mexican banks: paying a supplier, collecting from a customer, running payroll or moving cash between its own accounts at different institutions. A company does not sign up for SPEI itself. It reaches the system through its bank or another participating institution, and that institution sets the channel, the fee and the limits.

Three parties matter:

• The first is the sending bank, which receives the company's instruction and submits it to the system.
• The second is the receiving bank, which credits its customer or returns the funds if it cannot.
• The third is Banxico, which operates the system and publishes the CEP receipt but does not manage the company's accounts.

SPEI hours: 24 hours, 7 days a week and what changes for treasury

SPEI operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including weekends and holidays, according to the official Banco de México page. As of October 2026 that source describes no daily closing of the system, so a payment does not wait for banking hours to arrive.

That availability changes three treasury routines:

• The first change is the balance: it can move on a Saturday or a holiday, so Monday's balance is not simply Friday's.
• The second change is control: an approval that used to wait for a business day can now be executed at any hour and needs a named owner.
• The third change is the close: the month-end cutoff must define which date and time count for each credit.

Two schedules are easy to confuse. The first is the system's, which is continuous. The second is the schedule of whichever service you use around it. For example, looking up a CEP on the Banxico portal is available from 09:30 to 23:00, Monday to Sunday, according to the CEP page. A payment made overnight is credited, but its receipt can be retrieved later.

Who may approve a payment at any hour is a control question, covered in the guide to internal controls for payment approval.

SPEI transfer limits: who sets them and what a company should request

The maximum amount of a company's SPEI transfer is set by each financial institution according to its contract and channel, not by a single published cap that applies to everyone. In the official Banxico material reviewed, the SPEI information page describes the system and the fees charged to participants but lists no per-transaction limit for businesses.

That makes the limit a contractual data point. For each bank it works with, a treasury team should document four things:

• The first is the per-transaction limit in each channel, for example online banking or a batch payment file.
• The second is the cumulative daily limit by account and by user.
• The third is the transfer fee the bank charges the company, which is separate from the fee Banxico charges participants.
• The fourth is the process, and its response time, for raising a limit temporarily.

The table below separates who decides each element. It is this article's reading of the cited sources and not an official rule.

Element	Who defines it	What the company should do
24/7 operation of the system	Banco de México	Design controls that work outside business hours
Per-transaction limit	Each financial institution	Request it in writing per channel and confirm whether it can be raised
Daily limit per user	Each institution and the company's own policy	Align it with the approval matrix
Fee per transfer	Each institution, per its tariff	Ask for the current tariff and review it at each renewal
CEP receipt	Banco de México	Add it to the payment's supporting file

Is there an official minimum or maximum amount for paying through SPEI?

The official source reviewed does not publish one maximum for all companies. The caps you see come from the bank, the channel and the account profile. Before a large payment run, such as a month-end supplier batch, confirm the available limit with your bank and ask for any increase well in advance.

The CEP receipt: using the Comprobante Electrónico de Pago to reconcile

The Comprobante Electrónico de Pago (CEP) is the document Banco de México provides to verify that a payment was made through SPEI. To look one up, the official CEP portal asks for the payment date, the tracking key or reference number, the sending and receiving institutions, the beneficiary account and the amount.

The tracking key (clave de rastreo) is the most useful field for reconciliation. It is the identifier that lets a payment be located across institutions, and it should be stored next to the invoice being paid or collected. A simple SPEI reconciliation follows four steps:

1. The first is to capture, for every outgoing payment, the tracking key and the description sent to the beneficiary.
2. The second is to match each credit on the statement to the order, invoice or contract that caused it.
3. The third is to retrieve the CEP when a customer says it paid or a supplier says it was not paid.
4. The fourth is to file the CEP with the invoice and with the tax payment receipt where one applies.

The last point touches tax. A SPEI collection against an invoice on credit terms usually calls for the CFDI payment complement, a topic explained in the Mexican CFDI explained for foreign companies. The CEP does not replace that tax document: it supports the payment, not the tax.

Does the CEP prove that my customer paid my invoice?

The CEP proves that a SPEI transfer existed with that date, tracking key, amount and beneficiary account. By itself it does not prove the payment belongs to a specific invoice, because that depends on the description or reference the customer entered. Ask customers to include the invoice number in the transfer.

A foreign parent that consolidates a Mexican subsidiary will also hold other currencies, and the principles of multi-currency bank reconciliation apply to the peso account too: one statement, one matching rule and one owner.

Returns and uncredited payments: how to treat them in the books

A SPEI return happens when a transfer accepted by the system cannot be credited to the beneficiary's account and the funds go back to the originating account. Banxico's official page mentions a fee for returns received on orders accepted by SPEI that were not credited to customer accounts, which confirms this is an expected flow of the system.

How to treat it depends on what failed. The table below orders the typical cases and the most likely treasury action. The causes are illustrative examples from this article, and the real reason is reported by the receiving bank.

Situation	What it usually means	Treasury action
A sent payment reappears as a credit with the same reference	The receiving bank could not credit it (for example, an incorrect account detail)	Book the return, link it to the original payment and fix the supplier record
A customer says it paid and there is no credit	There may be an account or reference error	Ask for the tracking key and look up the CEP; escalate to the bank with that data
A credit with no identifiable invoice	The customer left out the invoice number or paid several invoices together	Keep it as an open item with a deadline and contact the customer
Payment to the wrong beneficiary	A data-entry error on the destination account	Contact the bank immediately; recovery depends on the bank and the third party

Two controls reduce these cases. The first is to validate the beneficiary and destination account before approving a payment, with a second check for new accounts and account changes. The second is to avoid marking an invoice as paid until the credit is identified.

CoDi and DiMo: what they are and when they matter to a business

CoDi and DiMo are two collection and payment schemes developed by Banco de México for institutions that take part in SPEI. According to the official CoDi page, CoDi lets users collect and pay with QR codes and NFC from a mobile phone, at any hour, and CoDi operations carry no additional fee.

The practical difference for a business is where the collection starts. In a standard SPEI transfer, the payer types in the beneficiary's account. In CoDi, the merchant generates a collection request as a QR and the customer confirms it in their banking app. DiMo is another Banxico electronic payment scheme, and this guide does not describe its terms because we did not verify them on the official page consulted.

These schemes matter in two cases. The first is in-person or online collection from consumers, where a QR avoids asking for an account. The second is reconciliation, because the collection ends as a transfer matched against the statement line and, where it applies, the CEP. They are not separate treasury processes: they are another way to start the payment.

For how SPEI compares with instant payment systems in other countries, see instant payments in Latin America: Pix, SPEI and Bre-B.

SPEI and cross-border payments: what Soulbit delivers today and what it does not

SPEI moves pesos between Mexican accounts and does not solve collections or payments with other countries. A company that invoices a customer in the United States or pays a contractor in Europe needs an international route with its own currency, timing, paperwork and tax treatment. SPEI may take part at the end, once the funds are already in a Mexican account.

Soulbit V1 delivers a company balance in stablecoins (USDC and USDT) and in fiat (USD, EUR and GBP), with institutional custody, payment links, collection QR codes, recurring or batch payroll and eOTC conversion by quote on request. Soulbit's local bank rail exists only in Colombia. Soulbit does not operate on SPEI and does not replace your bank in Mexico.

What it can offer is a complement for cross-border flows: receiving a payment from abroad through a payment link or a collection QR, holding the balance in a stable currency and disbursing it to recipients. The route for a company in Mexico is covered in receiving international payments in USDC in Mexico.

What Soulbit does not do: it does not provide banking services, issue cards, pay yield on balances or offer an API for the company's accounting software in V1. Which channel suits each payment depends on amount, destination and cost, and that decision belongs to your treasury team.