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CANCÚN, Mexico — Standing before the assembled leadership of Mexico's banking sector, President Claudia Sheinbaum delivered an announcement that will reshape the daily routines of millions of Mexican drivers: cash will no longer be accepted at the country's gas stations or highway toll booths before the end of 2026. Digital payment, she said, is not a suggestion. It is a mandate.

The declaration came during the 89th Banking Convention of the Mexican Banking Association, held in Cancún on March 20 — a gathering that drew the heads of Mexico's largest financial institutions alongside executives from Visa, Mastercard, and international organizations including representatives from the Bank for International Settlements and BlackRock. The audience was, in other words, precisely the group with the infrastructure to make Sheinbaum's directive a reality.

"Our goal this year is to make digital payment of gasoline and tolls mandatory," Sheinbaum told the convention. She framed the move as a cornerstone of a broader effort to digitize the Mexican economy and reduce its dependence on cash transactions — a goal that the administration has been building toward through a series of policy steps, digital payment platform upgrades, and banking sector partnerships since Sheinbaum took office.

THE DIGITAL TOOLS BEHIND THE MANDATE

The Sheinbaum administration is leaning on two existing platforms to execute the transition: CoDi and DiMo — commission-free mobile payment apps developed by Mexico's central bank, Banco de México. The government is also working with Banco de Bienestar, the state welfare bank with more than 3,000 branches, to extend digital payment access to recipients of government social programs. The newly formed Digital Transformation Agency has been tasked with cutting through permitting red tape to fast-track the installation of payment infrastructure at gas stations and toll plazas nationwide.

The implementation plan, according to the president, includes nationwide information campaigns, prepayment options for tolls, and phone-based payment systems designed to reduce congestion at toll plazas and eliminate the inefficiencies and corruption risks associated with cash-handling at high-volume points of sale. All toll booths across federal highways are expected to operate exclusively on digital payment before the year is out.

What the government has not yet specified is a hard cutoff date — the precise day after which a driver arriving at a toll booth with only paper pesos will find no mechanism to use them. Officials have signaled a gradual rollout, acknowledging that both the public and gas station operators will need time to adapt. No penalty structure for non-compliant operators has been formally announced.

"Rejection is overwhelmingly predominant and is articulated as a structural critique of the banking system." — Dinamic social media analysis, March 20, 2026

The announcement has not been received quietly. A social media analysis conducted by the monitoring platform Dinamic, tracking more than 12,800 posts across X, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram in the 48 hours following the convention, found that more than four in five responses to the digital payment announcement expressed opposition.