Remittances to Mexico rose again in the first half of this year, and Mexican coverage led on the number Banco de México puts at the top of its release: $30,759m between January and June, against $29,842m a year earlier, a rise of 3.1%, with June alone up 4.2% to $5,472m. Measured in the currency the money is actually spent in, households received substantially less.
Converting each month's dollars at that month's average exchange rate, first-half remittances came to 537.0 billion pesos this year against 594.8 billion last year — a fall of 57.8 billion pesos, or 9.7%. Adjusting for Mexican consumer prices as well, and expressing both years in June 2026 pesos, the decline is 81.9 billion, or 13.2%. On an average-of-first-half-2025 price base the same fall is 78.7 billion. The direction does not depend on the choice.
Nor does it depend on the exchange rate chosen. Running the conversion through nine different published rates — Banco de México's FIX, the rate published in the official gazette, the settlement-date and close-of-session rates, four interbank quotes and the US Federal Reserve's own series — gives nominal declines between 57.5 and 58.5 billion pesos. The spread across all nine is under 2%, and none changes the sign.
The cause is mostly the currency rather than prices. The peso averaged 19.93 to the dollar across the first half of last year and 17.46 across the first half of this one, an appreciation of 12.4%, while Mexican consumer prices rose 4.0%. Decomposed, the exchange rate supplies about 77% of the loss in real peso terms and inflation about 23%. Had this year's dollars been converted at last year's rates, they would have been worth 3.1% more in pesos, not 9.7% less.
That makes this a peso-appreciation story rather than a remittance-decline story, and it is worth saying so plainly: the senders sent more, and the strength of the receiving currency took it away at the counter. It also cuts the other way on the headline. Deflated by US consumer prices, the first-half dollar flow was itself flat, down 0.2% — so the reported dollar increase is largely a nominal one too.
One footnote on the June figure. Several Mexican outlets compared June against a base of $5,201m for June 2025, which is the original unrevised print. Banco de México's current series carries June 2025 at $5,253m, and it is that revised figure which produces the 4.2% the central bank reports. The two do not reconcile, and the revised one is the one the bank is using.