Foreign Exchange Guide to Mexico

Mexican Peso (MXN) general currency information

What is the Mexican Peso currency code and symbol?

The three letter currency code for the Mexican Peso is MXN and the symbol is $.

Which countries use the Mexican Peso?

It is the domestic currency in Mexico.

Contributing to a little more than 2% of the foreign exchange market daily turnover, the Mexican peso is the world’s second most traded emerging market currency, behind only the Chinese yuan. The peso is subdivided into 100 centavos.

The peso’s value is heavily influenced by commodities prices, particularly oil.

As an emerging market currency, the peso is considered riskier than currencies from major developed nations, which means that its value will fall against those currencies (especially JPY, CHF, USD, GBP and EUR) during periods of economic uncertainty or when global geopolitical risk is elevated, or during bouts of high market volatility.

Mexicans are mostly concerned with the value of their currency against the US dollar, since more than 80% of Mexican exports go to the US, with whom Mexico shares a free trade agreement.

The peso has consistently depreciated against the dollar since it's all-time high in 1972, when USD/MXN traded at just 0.01. By 1990, USD/MXN was at 2.7; at the end of 1994, after the currency was devalued by Mexico’s government, USD/MXN stood at 5.7; by the year 2000, the USD/MXN was meandering around 9.5; in 2009, the rate reached 15.6; and in January 2017, the peso reached an all-time low when USD/MXN traded as high as 22.03.

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Mexican Peso (MXN) in the markets

2018 has been something of a yo-yo year for the Mexican peso, but by October-10 (the day of this report) it was one of the best performing currencies of the year.

Against the US dollar, the peso’s 10 percent gain between January and mid-April was entirely offset by a 14 percent decline to mid-June, which preceded a recovery of 9 percent to October, hence the yo-yo.

As of writing, the peso held year-to-date gains over the US dollar (M$19.17), euro (M$22.10) and Australian dollar (M$13.54) of 2.7 percent, 7 percent and 13.5 percent respectively.

Recent peso strength led up to and then followed a September agreement by Mexico, Canada and the US to form a new trade deal, the USMCA, which replaces 1994’s NAFTA.

In October, TradingEconomics.com offered respective twelve-month USD/MXN and EUR/MXN forecasts of 19.57 and 22.11, indicating little change from current levels.

The interactive chart below shows the USD to MXN exchange rate for the previous 3 months with rate alerts for days when the exchange rate moved up or down significantly or for 30 day highs and lows.

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USD-MXN 3 Month chart

USDMXN currency converter

Sending money to Mexico

When searching around for information on how to get a good exchange rate when sending money to Mexico you need to start with finding out the latest Mexican Peso foreign-transfer exchange rate.

Then compare your bank's exchange rates to several licensed FX providers exchange rate and fees to see how much you can save (we make that calculation easy here).

Get a better deal for foreign transfers to Mexico

When sending money to Mexico it’s important to compare your bank’s rates & fees with those we have negotiated with our partner money transfer providers. To get a better deal you should follow these 4 simple steps :

1. Open an account with a BER reviewed FX provider (id docs may be required)
2. You specify the local or Mexican Peso amount you want to transfer
3. Make a local currency domestic transfer for the requested amount to the provider's bank account in your country
4. Once your funds are received by the provider the converted MXN amount will be transfered to the recipient account you specify in Mexico.

Use our Send to MXN calculator to compare the exchange rates of FX specialist providers rates versus your bank's standard rates you can hopefully save around 5% and maybe more - end result is more Mexican Peso deposited into the recipient bank account and less margins and fees kept by the banks!

Major MXN cross rates