Written for Mexico. This analysis applies to Mexican federal tax law — ISR (income tax), IVA (VAT) and SAT rules — and cites Mexican statutes. Amounts are in Mexican pesos (MXN).
For SPEI transfers there's Banxico's CEP: public lookup, official certificate, two minutes. For international ones there is no official CEP — and in that void live weeks of anxiety, "we already sent it" claims impossible to verify, and frauds with doctored SWIFT receipts. But the real evidence and tracking do exist: they're called MT103 and UETR, and you request them from the bank. Anyone who deals with foreign counterparties should master both.
MT103: the "CEP" of international transfers
The MT103 is the SWIFT message with which one bank orders payment to another: it contains the date, amount, currency, originator, beneficiary, banks involved and references. When someone tells you "I already transferred it to you from abroad", there's only one professional reply: "send me the MT103" (or their transfer confirmation with the SWIFT reference). The sender gets it from their bank — every bank hands it to its customer, sometimes for a small fee — and it's the document with which your bank can locate funds that "don't show up". Without an MT103 or a reference, the transfer is a rumor. And in the other direction: every international payment you send should be filed with its MT103 — it's your proof of payment with suppliers, and part of the transaction's supporting file in any review of flows with foreign parties.
UETR: the money's tracking number
Under SWIFT gpi, each payment carries a UETR — a unique end-to-end identifier, the money's "tracking number". With it, banks see exactly where in the chain the payment is: whether it has already left, at which correspondent bank it's being held, whether it reached the destination bank and is awaiting crediting, or whether it was returned. Your bank runs the gpi tracking at your request — and there's also a public tracker (J.P. Morgan's gpi Payment Tracker, linked in the Resource Center) where you paste the UETR and see the payment's status along the chain without depending on anyone. The magic request when something doesn't arrive: "I request gpi tracking with the operation's UETR" — it turns the conversation from "we have to wait" into an answer with a location and a status.
Do you move recurring international payments — client collections, capital between countries, suppliers?
The protocol we set up with cross-border clients: an MT103 filed for every payment sent, the UETR recorded, payment instructions hardened against the 'account change' fraud, and the tax-and-exchange support for each flow (source, concept, applicable exchange rate). International payments with no file are disputes waiting for a date.
Where the money gets stuck (and the honest timelines)
The typical international transfer passes through correspondents — intermediary banks — and each one can hold it for a compliance review (names resembling watchlist entries, vague payment descriptions, sensitive countries) or bounce it for incomplete data. Normal timelines: same day to 2-3 business days; with a fussy correspondent or a compliance review, one or two weeks with nothing actually "wrong". The three avoidable causes of delay: a beneficiary name that doesn't exactly match the account holder, a vague payment description (include the invoice/contract reference), and incomplete intermediary-bank data. And the fraud alert that's worth the whole article: the "supplier" who changes the deposit account by email mid-operation — no account-change instruction is accepted without verification through a channel other than the one that sent it.
Frequently asked questions
Someone sent me a 'SWIFT receipt' as a PDF — how do I know if it's real?
Unlike the CEP, there's no public portal to validate it — the real verification is for YOUR bank to locate the operation using the document's reference/UETR. Ask your bank to trace it with that data: if the reference doesn't exist on the network, the PDF was a prop. In the meantime, apply the usual rule: nothing is handed over against receipts, only against credited funds.
How long does it take for a transfer that already reached my Mexican bank to be credited?
Once at your bank, crediting depends on its foreign-exchange and compliance review process — from hours to a couple of days. If your gpi tracking says 'delivered to the beneficiary bank' and you don't see the credit within 48 hours, file a claim with your bank using the UETR: the ball is unequivocally in their court, and that's exactly what the tracking lets you prove.
Are there withholdings or tax filings for receiving money from abroad?
Receiving money does not by itself trigger tax — what the money is does: taxable income, a loan (document it and report it if it exceeds thresholds), a return of your own capital. Banks report international flows and the SAT cross-checks them via CRS/FATCA, so every relevant inflow should have its story documented before anyone asks.
Let's talk about your case
The first step is always the same: an honest diagnostic of where you stand. Write to us on WhatsApp or call — same business-day response.