Requirements to Open an Amazon Seller Account in Mexico

The requirements to open an Amazon seller account in Mexico come down to five things you need on hand before you register: a valid government-issued ID, a non-expired international credit card, a bank account in your name (or your company’s) to receive deposits, a phone number for verification, and your tax data with an RFC. If you’ll invoice as a legal entity (persona moral), you’ll also need the incorporation deed and the legal representative’s power of attorney. With that, you can start the registration in Amazon Seller Central today.

The confusion usually comes from mixing two separate things: what Amazon asks to open the account versus what the SAT (Mexico’s tax authority) asks to operate legally. Amazon wants to verify your identity and know which account to pay. The SAT wants you registered under the correct tax regime and issuing invoices. This article separates the two worlds so you arrive at registration with everything ready and don’t stall halfway through identity verification, which is where most sellers get stuck.

Before you type your first field, decide whether you’ll sell as an individual with business activity (persona física) or as a legal entity (persona moral), because that changes the documents you upload and the tax regime you declare. And if you already sell on another marketplace like MercadoLibre, this is a good moment to think about how you’ll keep your catalog, stock, and pricing in sync across channels, because opening Amazon without a plan for that is the perfect recipe for inventory chaos.

ID and identity verification

Amazon requires you to verify you’re a real person with official documents. For registration you need a valid photo ID: a passport or a voter ID (INE). Amazon often prefers the passport because it’s internationally recognized, but the INE works in most cases. The photo or scan must be complete, uncropped, with legible data and no glare.

The second document is proof that confirms your address: a recent bank or credit card statement (from the last 90 days) or a utility bill. The name and address on that proof must match exactly what you entered during registration. A lot of people fail here over a silly detail: they wrote the address with abbreviations in one place and spelled out in another, and Amazon rejects it. Copy the data exactly as it appears on the document.

Amazon also runs a video verification in some cases, where an agent confirms your identity live or asks you to show the document to the camera. Have the physical originals ready for that appointment. This step is the real filter: you can have a perfect RFC and bank account, but if identity verification doesn’t pass, the account won’t activate.

tax data: RFC and your regime with the SAT

To sell legally in Mexico you must be registered with the SAT with an RFC (tax ID) and a tax regime that allows commercial activity. As an individual, the most common regime is Business and Professional Activity, though RESICO (the Simplified Trust Regime) is attractive for its low rates if you stay under the income caps. As a legal entity, your general regime already lets you invoice.

Amazon will ask for your RFC and your up-to-date Constancia de Situación Fiscal (tax status certificate). You download this for free from the SAT portal or with your e.firma, and it carries your RFC, regime, fiscal ZIP code, and address. Amazon uses this data to correctly invoice its fees and commissions, and so you can deduct those expenses. If your regime doesn’t match the account type you open, you’ll hit problems invoicing later.

Watch a point many ignore: Amazon Mexico withholds and reports certain taxes. As a seller, you’ll issue invoices (CFDI) for your sales and receive invoices from Amazon for its fees. Having the right regime from day one keeps you from discovering at month’s end that you invoiced wrong and that your real net margin was thinner than you thought, once you subtract taxes and fees you hadn’t accounted for.

bank account and credit card

You need two distinct financial instruments and shouldn’t confuse them. The credit card is so Amazon can charge the Professional plan subscription (a monthly fee) and any pending charge; it must be a valid international card, not expired, with available funds or credit. The bank account is where Amazon deposits the money from your sales, after subtracting its commissions.

The bank account must be in your name if you’re an individual, or in the company’s name if you’re a legal entity. Amazon deposits in Mexican pesos to local banks without intermediaries, so a standard Mexican account’s CLABE is enough. Make sure the account holder matches the Amazon account holder exactly; a name mismatch blocks payments.

The Professional plan charges its monthly fee regardless of how much you sell, while the Individual plan charges a per-unit fee with no fixed subscription. If you plan to move volume or use advertising and the Buy Box, Professional almost always pays off. It’s worth calculating this alongside the rest of your startup investment; we break it down in the guide on how much you need to invest to start selling on Amazon.

individual or legal entity: what changes

The choice between individual with business activity and legal entity changes documents, taxes, and legal liability. As an individual, registration is faster: your ID, RFC, and proof of address are enough. It’s the natural route to start, test the market, and validate products without the administrative load of a company.

As a legal entity you need to upload the incorporation deed, the legal representative’s notarized power of attorney, and verify the company’s beneficial owners (people with a relevant stake). Amazon asks this to comply with “know your customer” rules. The process takes longer and demands more paperwork, but it looks better to suppliers, lets you deduct more expenses, and protects your personal assets.

There’s no single answer. Many sellers start as individuals and migrate to a legal entity when volume justifies it. What matters is that the tax regime, the bank account, and the Amazon account type are consistent with each other from the start, because changing the holder on an already-operating Amazon account is a slow, risky process.

the requirement Amazon doesn’t ask for but you need: control of your catalog and stock

Amazon won’t ask you for a system to manage your inventory, but the moment you have more than a handful of SKUs, and especially if you also sell on MercadoLibre or Shopify, you’ll need one. The classic multichannel seller problem is that each marketplace lives in its own dashboard, with its own stock, its own fees, and its own pricing. You end up piecing the info together by hand in an Excel sheet that’s already out of date the moment you open it.

That lack of control has real consequences: you sell a unit on Amazon that you already sold on MercadoLibre, you run out of stock without noticing, or you find out a product has been selling below its true cost for weeks because you never updated the fees. A unified catalog solves the root: a single view where each product exists once, with consolidated stock and connected channels, instead of fragments you have to reconcile.

The difference between reacting late and deciding on time is real time. When inventory, sales, and margin update on their own in one place, you stop spending hours squaring figures and start seeing the business as it is today, not as it was three days ago. If you’re going to run several channels, understanding real-time inventory matters as much as having your RFC ready, and winning the Buy Box depends on never running out of stock over a sync error.

final checklist before you register

Before creating the account, have this gathered and verified: a valid government ID (passport or INE) with a legible photo; proof of address under 90 days old that matches your address exactly; a valid, non-expired international credit card; the CLABE of a bank account in your name or the company’s; your RFC and an up-to-date Constancia de Situación Fiscal; and a phone number to receive the verification code.

If you’re going the legal-entity route, add the incorporation deed and the legal representative’s power of attorney. And be clear on your tax regime before you start, because it’s tied to how you’ll invoice and how much tax you’ll pay. Remember that Amazon’s commissions vary by category and eat straight into your margin; it’s worth reviewing them before you set prices, which we detail in Amazon Mexico category referral fees explained.

Meeting the requirements opens the account; what makes it profitable is the daily operation: not running out of stock, not selling below cost, and knowing at every moment which channel leaves you the most margin. That’s the work that starts the day Amazon approves you, and it’s far easier when you don’t depend on a spreadsheet you update by hand.