Buried inside the sweeping domestic-policy package known as the "One Big Beautiful Bill," which President Trump signed on July 4, 2025, was a line item many migrant households didn't notice until it appeared on a receipt. As of Jan. 1, 2026, anyone funding an outbound money transfer with physical cash, a money order or a cashier's check owes an added 1% on the amount sent, under rules the IRS and Treasury Department formalized this spring. Move the same money electronically — through a U.S. bank account or a bank-issued debit or credit card — and the transfer owes nothing extra. That split has effectively carved the remittance business into a taxed lane and a tax-free one.
The distinction matters because of who typically uses which lane. Sheinbaum has pointed to roughly three in ten dollars leaving the U.S. for Mexico as cash handed over at a storefront counter — often at markup-heavy shops offering wire services like Western Union. That figure can look at odds with Banxico's own data showing that 99% of remittances arrive in Mexico electronically, but the two statistics describe different moments in the same transaction: Banxico is measuring how money lands on the Mexican side, while Sheinbaum's number describes how it was funded at the U.S. counter — cash paid to a clerk can still travel the rest of the way electronically, so the two figures aren't actually in conflict.
