Importing Door Hardware from China into Mexico 2026: Padrón de Importadores, Customs Broker, Pedimento, Tariff Classification and NOM Labeling

Importing door hardware from China into Mexico is not complicated, but it is a procedure with fixed steps, and the problems usually start where one of them was assumed rather than checked. A container of locks that arrives before the importer is registered, under the wrong fracción, or without the label the rules require, waits at the port while the costs run.

This guide sets out the public procedure in the order a first import meets it. It quotes no tariff rates: they depend on the fracción and they have changed in 2026, so the only rate worth using is the one your customs broker confirms for your goods when you import. We are a manufacturer in China, not a Mexican customs broker, and nothing here replaces one.

1. RFC and the Padrón de Importadores

To import goods into Mexico on a definitive basis, the importer has to be registered in the Padrón de Importadores kept by the SAT. The requirements the SAT publishes include an active RFC, a valid e.firma, a positive compliance opinion under article 32-D of the Código Fiscal de la Federación, a tax address recorded as located, a validated buzón tributario, and a customs broker, customs attorney or legal representative designated to carry out the operations. The application is made through the SAT portal.

Some fracciones also require registration in the Padrón de Importadores de Sectores Específicos, a separate procedure with its own requirements. Check whether yours is one of them before placing the order, not after the goods have shipped.

2. The customs broker and the encargo conferido

In practice an import is carried out by an agente aduanal, a licensed customs broker. The importer authorizes the broker through an encargo conferido registered with the SAT, and from then on the broker classifies the goods, prepares and files the pedimento, calculates and pays the contributions, and checks the non-tariff regulations that apply. Choose a broker who works the port where your goods will arrive; for sea freight from Asia that is usually a Pacific port such as Manzanillo or Lázaro Cárdenas.

3. The fracción arancelaria

The first six digits of a tariff code are international, and door hardware sits almost entirely in two headings: 8301 for locks and their keys and parts, and 8302 for mountings and fittings such as hinges, handles without a locking function, flush bolts and door closers. Mexico extends the code to an eight-digit fracción in the Ley de los Impuestos Generales de Importación y de Exportación and, since 2020, adds a two-digit commercial identification number, the NICO.

Whether an article locks decides the heading, so a mortise lock case and a hinge travel under different codes even in the same container. Our guide Door Hardware HS Codes 2026 explains the split between 8301 and 8302 and the subheadings that are most often confused.

Classification is the importer's responsibility, exercised through the broker. A supplier in China can state the six-digit code reliably; the Mexican fracción and NICO should be confirmed by your broker, and where a product will be imported repeatedly the customs authority accepts consultations on tariff classification. Your broker can tell you whether one is worth requesting.

4. The 2026 tariff: check the rate in force, not your last shipment

A decree amending the Mexican import tariff was published in the Diario Oficial de la Federación on 29 December 2025 and took effect on 1 January 2026. It raised the general import tax on a large number of fracciones for goods from countries that have no trade agreement with Mexico, China among them. The new rates are not uniform: each fracción has its own, and the tariff has been amended again during 2026.

So a cost calculated on last year's rate can be wrong by a wide margin. Ask your broker for the rate that applies to your fracción, from China, at the date of your import. The pedimento also carries other contributions, among them the customs processing fee (DTA) and VAT (IVA), and your broker should also check whether the Secretaría de Economía has a countervailing duty (cuota compensatoria) in force for that fracción and that origin.

5. NOM-050 commercial labeling

NOM-050-SCFI-2004 sets the general commercial information that products sold to consumers in Mexico must carry when no more specific standard applies. The label has to be in Spanish, and other languages may appear alongside it. It covers, among other items, the name of the product when it is not obvious, the quantity, the name or business name and address of the manufacturer or importer, the country of origin, warnings where the product is hazardous, and instructions where they are needed for use or care. The standard itself lists exclusions, among them replacement parts identified by part number or code.

Whether compliance is checked at the border depends on the fracción. The Secretaría de Economía's general rules on foreign trade include an annex, 2.4.1, known as the NOM annex, that lists the fracciones whose standards must be met at the point of entry. If your fracción is listed, the goods have to comply when they are imported, under the procedures those rules allow; if it is not, the label still has to be correct when the product reaches the consumer.

If the label will be applied in China, have the text approved, with your importer details, before production starts. If you offer a warranty, it has requirements of its own.

6. Origin and the certificate of origin

Mexico and China have no free trade agreement, so a certificate of origin from China does not earn a preferential rate. Origin still matters: it is what places the goods under the 2026 rates for countries without an agreement, and what decides whether a countervailing duty applies. The commercial invoice states the country of origin, and your broker will tell you when a certificate of origin is also required.

7. Incoterms

The Incoterm decides who pays freight and insurance and where the risk passes, and it has to match who will be the importer in Mexico. FOB names a port of loading in China and leaves the sea freight to the buyer; for containers handed over at a terminal, the ICC's Incoterms 2020 rules point to FCA as the better fit. CFR and CIF have the seller pay the freight to the Mexican port, while the risk still passes when the goods are loaded in China.

DDP makes the seller responsible for importing and paying the duties in Mexico, which requires being the importer of record there, with an RFC and a place in the Padrón de Importadores. A supplier in China normally has neither, so DDP from China usually means a third party is importing in the supplier's name. EXW leaves even the Chinese export formalities to the buyer, which is rarely practical.

8. The documents to ask your supplier for

A commercial invoice that describes each item so it can be classified (what it is, what it does, its material), with quantities, unit values, the Incoterm and the country of origin. A packing list with the number of cartons and the net and gross weights. The bill of lading. A certificate of origin where your broker asks for one. For anything not obvious from its name, the technical information that decides the heading: whether it locks, what it is made of, what it fits.

Your broker transmits the invoice data electronically through the VUCEM single window, as the COVE, and that record has to agree with the pedimento and with what was paid. An invoice that undervalues the goods, or describes a lock as a fitting, is a problem for the importer, not for the supplier who wrote it.

What a supplier in China can and cannot do

We can describe each product accurately, state the six-digit HS code and the country of origin on our documents, and publish materials, dimensions and functions in Spanish on our product pages, which is what a broker needs to classify. We cannot be the importer of record in Mexico, we do not classify goods into the Mexican tariff, and we do not quote Mexican tariff rates, because they are not ours to confirm.

Before the first order: five checks

The importer is registered in the Padrón de Importadores, and in the sectoral padrón if the fracción requires it. A broker has been given the encargo conferido. The broker has confirmed the fracción, the NICO and the rate in force from China. You know whether the fracción is in the NOM annex and the label text is approved. The Incoterm matches who is importing. With those five settled, the container waits at the port only as long as the procedure itself takes.