New water law restricts industrial access to water in Mexico

The government has decided to put an end to the secondary water rights market, meaning industries will have to turn to unconventional water resources for new supplies.

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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum published new regulations on 11 December that will significantly restrict industrial access to new water rights. 

The new General Water Law, and amendments to the National Water Law, which were mandated by the Constitution in 2012, now prohibit private transfers of water rights and assign all responsibility for granting, renewing and, critically, reassigning water rights, to the National Water Commission (Conagua).

Conagua now has 180 days (deadline 9th June 2026) to issue implementation rules setting out criteria for how it will allocate new water rights, although it’s understood domestic use will be prioritised. 

For industry, this means that securing groundwater extraction now hinges on federal discretion, making reuse, desalination and closed-loop systems the only “politics-proof” water resources.

Before the reform, private transfers of secondary water-rights allowed industrial users to buy water rights from other users (usually farmers) in cases where no new allocations were available. This mechanism was central to industrial expansion in water-scarce regions such as Mexicali, Tecate and Rosarito, while also providing useful revenue for agricultural users.

As Mario López, water specialist and former manager in Conagua, told GWI: “Any private transmission of water rights is now cancelled. The volume once allocated to the water right title returns to a newly created national water reserve [when land is sold], and central offices in Conagua will decide who gets it. The transactional certainty that supported industrial expansion evaporates overnight.”

Another concern is that although Conagua has been given more responsibility, it has not been given any additional resources to administer the new water rights scheme, even though it is already stretched thin. 

Reuse or die

With the situation for water rights now highly uncertain, several states are looking at incentives to promote investments in reuse. While the reform does not provide a clear framework for industrial reuse, it is expected that local utilities will retain the mandate to negotiate agreements directly with industrial end-users. This opens the door for investment in states with more proactive governance, such as Nuevo León, Guanajuato, Querétaro and Jalisco, which are already pursuing on-site WWTPs and dedicated reuse schemes for industrial parks.