Chinese cars in Mexico: which brands sell there and since when

Mexico is the largest market for Chinese-brand passenger cars in the Americas. El Economista counted 27 Chinese car brands operating in the country in July 2026: 21 with an official corporate presence — BAIC, BYD, Changan, Chirey, Deepal, Denza, Foton, GAC Motor, Geely, GWM, Hongqi, JAC, Jaecoo, Jetour, Leapmotor, Lynk & Co, MG, Omoda, Soueast, Xpeng and Zeekr — and six arriving through importers, including Bestune, DFSK, Dongfeng, JMC and Seres. Two have left: Neta cancelled its Mexican operation before it began selling, and SEV, a badge applied by the Mexican solar company Solarever to imported vehicles, ended operations in April 2026.

On the numbers, the Mexican Association of Automobile Distributors put 2025 sales of Chinese brands at 143,536 units, with MG Motor first on 48,816, JAC second on 24,445 and Geely third on 22,258; Changan and Great Wall Motor completed a top five that accounted for 130,684 units, or 91 percent of the Chinese-brand total. Growth slowed towards the end of 2025, to 2.5 percent for the year. Share depends on the count: reporting of INEGI figures in January 2026 put brands classified as Chinese at 9.4 percent of the new light-vehicle market, while AMDA's wider count reached about 15 percent, and BYD's volumes are not reported through those channels.

Tariffs changed on 1 January 2026. A decree passed by Congress on 10 December 2025, signed on 23 December and published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 29 December 2025, reformed tariff lines of the General Import and Export Duties Law. It set a 50 percent general import duty on passenger cars, including the electric line 8703.80.01 and the hybrid and plug-in hybrid lines 8703.40.99 and 8703.60.99, and on light trucks under heading 8704, and a 25 percent duty on motorcycles under heading 8711. These are the general rates, which apply to countries that do not have a free-trade agreement in force with Mexico; China does not.

Local assembly is limited. JAC has been assembled at Ciudad Sahagún, Hidalgo since 2017 by Giant Motors Latinoamérica, which passed 100,000 vehicles assembled there in October 2025 and expanded capacity in 2025. BYD announced a Mexican plant and then shelved it: in early July 2025 the company was reported as having suspended the plan, citing geopolitical tensions and uncertainty over United States trade policy.