Foreign Law Guide

FOREIGN LAW GUIDE

Researching the Law of Mexico

At a glance

Legal system family
Civil law, codified. The Chamber of Deputies traces the official character of federal laws, regulations and decrees to articles 2 to 5 of the gazette statute, to article 27 fraction XVI of the federal public administration act, and to article 3 of the Codigo Civil Federal. 2
Official gazette
Diario Oficial de la Federacion. Article 5 of its statute, as amended by a decree published on 31 May 2019, provides that it is published in electronic form and that its edition has official character. 1
Constitution in force
Constitucion Politica de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, published in the Diario Oficial de la Federacion of 5 February 1917 with an erratum notice in the issue of 6 February 1917. 2
Language of the authoritative text
Spanish, as one national language among several rather than a designated official one. Article 4 of the Ley General de Derechos Linguisticos de los Pueblos Indigenas makes the recognised indigenous languages and Spanish national languages of equal validity. 3

The Mexican gazette statute is unusually explicit about what happens to paper, and the institutions it names are the most concrete answer to that question in this guide. Article 5 of the Ley del Diario Oficial de la Federacion y Gacetas Gubernamentales, in the wording a decree published on 31 May 2019 gave it, provides that the gazette is published in electronic form and that its edition has official character.

It then keeps printing. One copy is produced with identical characteristics and content, for the purposes of physical documentary evidence and to guarantee publication where force majeure makes the electronic edition unreachable, and that copy stays in the publisher's own newspaper library. Six further certified copies go out, to institutions the article names one by one: the newspaper library of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the General Archive of the Nation, the presiding office of the Chamber of Deputies, the presiding office of the Senate, the office of the President of the Supreme Court, and the office of the President of the Republic. Bodies with constitutional autonomy may ask for a certified copy of their own.

Article 8 is about the reader rather than the document. Access to the electronic edition is free. Beyond that, the competent authority has to name the offices in the states where people who cannot reach information technology will be given facilities to consult the gazette. A publication statute with a clause about the person who has no connection is rarer than it should be, and Japan reached the same problem from the other end by keeping a physical notice board.

Article 7 Bis carries the technical duties, and the decree prints three of its five fractions: circulate the electronic edition on the day of its edition, unless force majeure makes that impossible; keep, conserve and preserve both the electronic and the printed edition; and build technological development and innovation into the processes of editing and distributing the gazette. The other two fractions appear on the page as a numeral followed by an ellipsis, because the 2019 decree did not amend them, and this page does not say what they contain.

There is a trap in reading any of this from the gazette itself. What the Diario Oficial carried on 31 May 2019 was a reforming decree, and a reforming decree prints only what it changes. Fractions of an article left untouched appear on that page as a numeral followed by an ellipsis. The provisions quoted above are complete because they were themselves amended; anything the decree did not touch has to be read somewhere else.

The name of the act contains a second purpose that most readers slide past. It is the Ley del Diario Oficial de la Federacion y Gacetas Gubernamentales, and article 1, in the wording the 2019 decree gave it, sets two objects: regulating the publication of the federal gazette so as to favour its maximum publicity, accessibility and availability, and establishing the general bases for creating sectoral government gazettes. Article 2 then defines the gazette itself as the organ of the constitutional government of the United Mexican States, of permanent character and of public interest.

In Mexico that somewhere is the Chamber of Deputies compilation, and the Chamber is careful about what it is offering. Its own notice says the compilation of federal laws and regulations there is informative only, and that the organ of publication with official character for federal laws, regulations and decrees is the Diario Oficial de la Federacion. It cites three provisions for that: articles 2 to 5 of the gazette statute, article 27 fraction XVI of the federal public administration act, and article 3 of the Codigo Civil Federal.

The constitutional record sits on the same site and opens with a detail worth pausing over. The original publication is given as the issue of 5 February 1917. The next entry is an erratum notice in the issue of 6 February 1917. The Constitution was corrected in the gazette the day after it was gazetted, and both issues are offered as scanned images rather than as searchable text. The most recent reforms recorded there, on the judicial power and on a new ground for annulling an election for intervention from abroad, were published on 2 June 2026.

The language field is where a Mexican page is easiest to get wrong, and there is a statute on the point that does not say what a reader expecting one official language would predict. Article 4 of the Ley General de Derechos Linguisticos de los Pueblos Indigenas, published in the gazette on 13 March 2003, makes the indigenous languages recognised under it and Spanish national languages by their historical origin, with the same validity in the territory, location and context in which they are spoken. Article 7 makes the indigenous languages valid, as Spanish is, for any public matter or formality and for full access to administration, services and public information.

So the honest statement is the one in the fact block: the gazette publishes in Spanish, and Spanish is a national language rather than the designated official one. Nothing in the material loaded for this page names a single official language of the Republic. A guide that wrote Spanish into that field without the qualification would be reporting the practice and quietly contradicting the statute.

Two host notes. The gazette answers at dof.gob.mx and refuses the www form outright, because its certificate does not cover that name, so a stored link with the prefix will fail before it reaches the site. The Chamber serves its pages in ISO-8859-1.

Primary sources online

SOURCES

  1. Decreto reforming the Ley del Diario Oficial de la Federacion y Gacetas Gubernamentales, DOF 31 May 2019. Diario Oficial de la Federacion, Secretaria de Gobernacion. https://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5561613&fecha=31/05/2019. Accessed 2026-08-30. The gazette carrying the decree that rewrote the gazette's own statute. Article 1 as amended gives the act two objects, regulating the publication of the federal gazette and establishing the general bases for creating sectoral government gazettes, and article 2 defines the gazette as the organ of the constitutional government of the United Mexican States, of permanent character and of public interest. Article 5 as amended makes the electronic edition the official one, requires one printed copy with identical characteristics and content for physical documentary evidence and as the fallback where force majeure makes the electronic edition unreachable, keeps that copy in the publisher's own newspaper library, and sends six certified copies to six named institutions. Article 7 Bis prints three of its five fractions here, on circulating the electronic edition on the day of its edition, on keeping and preserving both editions, and on incorporating technological development into editing and distribution; fractions II and IV are elided as a numeral and an ellipsis because this decree did not amend them, and nothing on the Mexico page states what they contain. Article 8 makes access free and requires offices to be named in the states where people without access to information technology can consult the gazette. Being a decree rather than a consolidated text, it prints only the provisions it changed and elides the rest.
  2. Constitucion Politica de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, publication and reform record. Camara de Diputados del H. Congreso de la Union, Direccion General de Proceso Legislativo. https://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/ref/cpeum.htm. Accessed 2026-08-30. The record of how the Mexican Constitution was published and what has happened to it since. The original publication is given as the Diario Oficial de la Federacion of 5 February 1917, with an erratum notice in the issue of the following day, both offered as scanned images. The page gives the most recent reforms, on the judicial power and on a new ground for annulling an election for foreign intervention, as published on 2 June 2026. Its own disclaimer states that the compilation is informative only and that the organ of publication with official character for federal laws, regulations and decrees is the Diario Oficial de la Federacion, citing articles 2 to 5 of the gazette statute, article 27 fraction XVI of the Ley Organica de la Administracion Publica Federal, and article 3 of the Codigo Civil Federal. The page is served in ISO-8859-1.
  3. Ley General de Derechos Linguisticos de los Pueblos Indigenas, DOF 13 March 2003. Diario Oficial de la Federacion, Secretaria de Gobernacion. https://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=698625&fecha=13/03/2003. Accessed 2026-08-30. The statute the language field on the Mexico page rests on, read in the gazette issue that published it. Article 4 makes the indigenous languages recognised under the act and Spanish national languages by their historical origin, with the same validity in the territory, location and context in which they are spoken. Article 7 makes the indigenous languages valid, as Spanish is, for any public matter or formality and for full access to administration, services and public information. Nothing in the fetched text designates a single official language.

Reviewed 2026-08-30. 3 sources cited on this page.