Mexico's Remittances Fell for the First Time Since 2013

Mexico received $65.1 billion in personal remittances in 2025, according to the World Bank. That is 4.2% less than the $67.9 billion of 2024.

It is the first annual fall since 2013. And among the twenty economies that received the most, it is the only one.

Eleven years up, then down

The World Bank’s series for Mexico runs from 1995. Its previous falls came in 2008, 2009 and 2010, with two more small ones in 2012 and 2013.

From 2014 to 2024 the figure rose every single year, from $24.0 billion to $67.9 billion. That is eleven consecutive increases, and the amount nearly tripled.

The 2025 figure breaks that run. The drop is $2.8 billion, which leaves Mexico still the second-largest recipient in the world, well ahead of France in third. The change is in direction, not in rank.

Everyone else grew

The world total, on the World Bank’s own aggregate, rose 6.4% to $925.6 billion.

India received $150.7 billion, up 9.5%, more than twice Mexico’s total. The Philippines rose 3.2%, Pakistan 15.9%, Bangladesh 23.1%, Guatemala 18.6%.

Egypt rose fastest among the top twenty: 40.5%, from $29.6 billion to $41.5 billion. Two years earlier, in 2023, it had received $19.5 billion. Its 2025 total is more than double that.

Nepal grew 30.6% and Uzbekistan 27.3%. Honduras, the twentieth-largest recipient, grew 25.3%.

France, Germany and Belgium appear in the top twenty because the World Bank’s measure includes compensation of cross-border workers alongside money sent home by migrants. They are recipients in the accounting sense, not in the sense most people mean by remittances.

Where it matters most

Size and dependence are different rankings. As a share of the economy, the largest recipients in 2025 are Tajikistan, where remittances equal 57.7% of GDP, Tonga at 39.3%, Nepal at 32.3%, Honduras at 30.1% and El Salvador at 27.5%.

Mexico’s remittances are 3.6% of its GDP. The fall is large in dollars and modest relative to the economy.

What it costs to send

The World Bank also tracks what a $200 transfer costs to each receiving country, though that series runs only to 2023.

In 2023, sending $200 to Mexico cost 2.65% on average across the providers the bank tracks — under the 3% target set in the Sustainable Development Goals. India was 1.76% and the Philippines 1.67%. Bangladesh was 7.65%.

Of the 92 countries with a valid 2023 value, 44 were at or below 3%. The median was 3.26%, so the typical receiving country is still just above the target. Four were above 10%: Cuba at 19.63%, Angola 12.78%, Sierra Leone 10.34% and Tajikistan 10.33% — which means Tajikistan, the most remittance-dependent economy in 2025, was in 2023 also one of the four most expensive to send money to.

Why this matters

Remittances are one of the largest cross-border payment flows that exist, and for most of the last decade the only question about them was how fast they would grow. Mexico’s 2025 figure is the first time in eleven years that the world’s second-largest recipient has moved the other way.

For payment providers serving transfers into Mexico, a 4.2% fall in the total is a meaningful change in the pool of transfers being competed for. The World Bank series records what Mexico received, not where it came from, so it cannot show which sending corridors fell. For everyone else, the 19 other large recipients growing at between 3% and 40% say the global market is still expanding — just not everywhere.

What this is not

These are World Bank estimates for the most recent year, and they are revised as countries finalise their balance-of-payments data. The 2025 figures, including the size of Mexico’s fall, may change.

The data record how much was received, not why. This article does not attribute Mexico’s decline to any cause, and none should be read into it.

2025 values exist for 132 economies, against 163 for 2024. Ethiopia is the only one of the thirty largest 2024 recipients without a 2025 figure.

The cost series is two years older than the volume series and prices a $200 transfer. It is not the cost of every transfer actually made. Three values in it are negative, and therefore impossible — Malawi in 2022 and 2023 and Myanmar in 2022 — and are excluded.

HaiPay did not contact the World Bank or the Bank of Mexico.

What to watch

Whether the revision moves Mexico back above zero. A 4.2% fall in a preliminary estimate is large enough to survive most revisions, but not certain to.

Whether Egypt’s jump holds. Doubling in two years is a large move in a series that also fell sharply in 2022 and 2023, from $31.5 billion to $19.5 billion.

And whether the cost series catches up. The volume data now run to 2025 and the price data stop at 2023, which means the most recent change for the world’s second-largest recipient has no price to set against it yet.