> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Cancún Will Waive a Hotel Remodelling Fee Worth About 90 Pesos a Square Metre. Doing the Work Without a Licence Costs at Least 65 Per Cent More. - URL: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/renueva-cancun-hotel-remodelling-licence-fee-waiver-uma-per-square-metre-2026/ - Published: 2026-10-30T13:23:29.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-01T05:19:44.000Z - Description: Mayor Ana Paty Peralta announced Renueva Cancún at the Cancún Travel Mart on 22 October 2026, under which hotels may be exempted from remodelling licence fees. The municipal tax law sets that fee at 0.77 UMA a square metre in the tourist zone, about 90.33 pesos. - Author: Theon Alleyne - Tags: Business, Mexico, Tourism, Regulation, Quintana Roo \--- title: "Cancún Will Waive a Hotel Remodelling Fee Worth About 90 Pesos a Square Metre. Doing the Work Without a Licence Costs at Least 65 Per Cent More." slug: renueva-cancun-hotel-remodelling-licence-fee-waiver-uma-per-square-metre-2026 canonical: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/renueva-cancun-hotel-remodelling-licence-fee-waiver-uma-per-square-metre-2026/ date: 2026-10-30 desk: Business tags: \['Business', 'Mexico', 'Tourism', 'Regulation', 'Quintana Roo'\] feature\_image: renueva-cancun-hotel-remodelling-licence-fee-waiver-uma-per-square-metre-2026-title.png description: "Mayor Ana Paty Peralta announced Renueva Cancún at the Cancún Travel Mart on 22 October 2026, under which hotels may be exempted from remodelling licence fees. The fee is 0.77 UMA a square metre for commercial and services construction in the tourist zone." --- **Quick summary:** Mayor Ana Paty Peralta announced Renueva Cancún at the Cancún Travel Mart on 22 October 2026, under which hotels may be exempted from remodelling licence fees. The municipal tax law sets that fee at 0.77 UMA a square metre for commercial and services construction in the tourist zone. By LCN Business Desk A hotel in Cancún deciding whether to refit its rooms this year has an incentive announced and a fee schedule unchanged. What the incentive is worth is set in article 79 of the municipal tax law. What it does not reach is set in article 81. ## What did the mayor announce? A programme called Renueva Cancún, under which hotels may be exempted from remodelling licence fees, with the conditions still to be set. **Ana Paty Peralta**, the mayor of **Benito Juárez**, announced it on **22 October 2026** at the opening of the **Cancún Travel Mart**. In the words carried by Quadratín Quintana Roo, "los hoteles podrán quedar exentos del pago de licencias de remodelación", hotels may be exempted from paying remodelling licences. Quadratín attributes the programme to the **Ayuntamiento de Benito Juárez**, the municipal government, rather than to the state. The verb is conditional, and so is the programme: Quintana Roo Hoy reports that the municipality "deberá precisar los requisitos y procedimientos", must still specify the requirements and procedures. The reported scope covers remodelling of rooms, lobbies and restaurants, and applies to existing hotels rather than new construction. The same event carried the sector's own numbers. **Rodrigo de la Peña Segura**, president of the **Asociación de Hoteles de Cancún, Puerto Morelos e Isla Mujeres**, put attendance at more than 400 delegates from 20 countries. ## What is the fee being waived? 0.77 of a unit of account for every square metre, which at this year's value is about 90 pesos. The charge sits in **article 79** of the **Ley de Hacienda del Municipio de Benito Juárez**, which makes the object of the duty "el estudio y en su caso, la expedición de toda licencia de construcción en sus diversas modalidades", the study and where applicable the issue of every construction licence in its various forms. The tariff is per square metre of construction and is expressed in **UMA**, Mexico's Unidad de Medida y Actualización. | Article 79 tariff, per square metre | In UMA | At the 2026 UMA | | ---------------------------------------- | -------- | --------------- | | Commercial or services, **tourist zone** | **0.77** | **90.33 pesos** | | Commercial or services, urban zone | 0.38 | 44.58 pesos | | Commercial or services, other zones | 0.58 | 68.04 pesos | | Industrial and any other kind | 0.96 | 112.62 pesos | | Residential, hotel zone | 0.38 | 44.58 pesos | Sources: Ley de Hacienda del Municipio de Benito Juárez, article 79, fracciones I and II, as reformed in the Periódico Oficial del Estado of 16 December 2024\. Peso figures are La Caribeña News calculations at the 2026 UMA of 117.31 pesos a day. A hotel is a commercial or services construction in the tourist zone, which is the first line in that table. Article 79 names no hotel category of its own, and the law uses "Zona Turística" in that tariff while articles 80 and 84 use "Zona Hotelera". [Mexico's IMSS published an accord in the Diario Oficial on 21 October 2026 tying voluntary pension top-up contributions to a worker's last salary plus one UMA, or 117.31 pesos a day](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/mexico-imss-modalidad-40-accord-temporary-study-april-2027-2026/). The column above uses that figure, which took effect on 1 February 2026. On a 10,000 square metre refit the waiver is therefore worth about **903,000 pesos** on this newspaper's arithmetic, and on a single 40 square metre room about 3,613. ## What does the law already exempt? Maintenance, entirely, without any programme. **Article 81** draws the line the programme sits on. It requires a licence "para las obras de reparación de edificios, así como para cualquier demolición, excavación, relleno, reconstrucción o ampliación", for repair works to buildings and for any demolition, excavation, fill, reconstruction or expansion. Then it provides: "No requerirán de licencia o autorización las acciones de conservación y mantenimiento de edificios." Conservation and maintenance of buildings require no licence or authorisation. So a refit that counts as maintenance pays nothing today, and a refit that counts as repair pays the tourist-zone rate. Which side a given job falls on is the whole value of the exemption, and the municipality has not published the requirements that would place it. ## What does the same work cost without a licence? Between 65 per cent and about sixteen times more, and on a second offence as much as half the cost of the works. **Article 80** sanctions work carried out without a licence at "1.27 a 12.74 UMA por metro cuadrado", from 1.27 to 12.74 UMA a square metre. Against the article 79 licence at 0.77, the floor of that range is **65 per cent higher** and the ceiling is **about sixteen times higher**, on this newspaper's arithmetic from the two rates. The same article then sets a second measure that is not expressed per square metre at all. The fine "podrá ampliarse hasta un 50% del costo estimado de la obra en caso de reincidencia", may be extended to **half the estimated cost of the works** where the offence is repeated. For a refit of the order of the Hyatt Zilara's reported investment, that is the largest exposure anywhere in these articles, and it is not a function of floor area. | The same square metre, three ways | In UMA | At the 2026 UMA | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- | ---------------------------- | | Licence, article 79, tourist zone | **0.77** | **90.33 pesos** | | Regularising afterwards, article 83, up to five times the article 79 tariff | **up to 3.85** | **up to 451.64 pesos** | | Working without a licence, article 80 | **1.27 to 12.74** | **148.98 to 1,494.53 pesos** | Sources: Ley de Hacienda del Municipio de Benito Juárez, articles 79, 80 and 83\. Peso figures are La Caribeña News calculations at the same UMA value. Article 80 also prices reopening a site the municipality has sealed: 17.35 UMA in the urban zone and **23.12 UMA in the hotel zone**, about 2,035 and 2,712 pesos. The gap between the first row and the third is the reason a fee waiver is a compliance measure as much as an investment one. A hotel that applies pays about 90 pesos a square metre today and nothing under the programme. A hotel that does not apply is exposed to a floor of about 149. ## Does the law already discount this fee? Yes, by up to half, and for a different reason. Article 79 provides that where construction or expansion accompanies the opening of a first business under the state's economic development law, "se otorgará un descuento de hasta el 50% en el pago de la licencia de construcción", a discount of up to 50 per cent on the construction licence, subject to requirements the ayuntamiento sets. The fee is therefore already discountable inside the law that creates it, on conditions a municipality defines. What the law does not contain is a remodelling exemption for existing hotels, which is what was announced. The instrument matters because of where it sits. The Ley de Hacienda del Municipio de Benito Juárez is state legislation, reformed by the Congreso del Estado de Quintana Roo and published in the Periódico Oficial, most recently for these articles on 16 December 2024\. The 50 per cent discount is written into that law rather than granted beside it. ## Why is Cancún offering this now? Because the arrival numbers have fallen all year, and the sector's employment with them. | Cancún and Quintana Roo in 2026 | The figure | Source | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------ | | International passengers, Cancún airport, September against September 2025 | **848,775 from 962,546, down 11.8%** | ASUR data as reported | | International arrivals, January to September | **down 6.5%** | as above | | International passengers, January to August | **down 6.1%**, about 846,000 fewer | Sal! Revista | | International arrivals, January to August | **down 6.7%** | DataTur as reported | | Average hotel occupancy, Cancún, January to August | **71.2%, from 73.7%** | DataTur as reported | | Formal accommodation employment, Quintana Roo, August against August 2025 | **down 3.2%** | Consejo Hotelero del Caribe Mexicano | | Regular flights from the United States, summer 2026 | **about 20% fewer** | as reported | The decline is not one number. Depending on the period and the source it runs from about 6 to about 12 per cent, and no account retrieved here reconciles the airport operator's series with the federal tourism data. A reader should treat the direction as settled and the magnitude as a range. Capital is still going in at the top of the market. The reopening of the Hyatt Zilara Cancún was presented with an investment figure above **US$80 million**, which is the scale of refit the programme is addressed to. ## How does this compare with the rest of the region? Quintana Roo has been adding routes while this fell, and a sharper collapse elsewhere in the Caribbean has had no fee response at all. [Mexico gave Brazilians an electronic visa on 5 February 2026 and applications tripled, and Quintana Roo is now chasing the traffic, with its airport operator working to open a first direct Brazil to Cancun route](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/cancun-brazil-electronic-visa-routes-guyana-mexico-steel-trade-2026/). Demand-side work and cost-side work are running at the same time, from two different levels of government. [Aeroméxico will fly nonstop from Mexico City to Montego Bay from 18 March 2027 and to Nassau from 19 March, three times a week each, subject to government approval](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/aeromexico-montego-bay-nassau-routes-guyana-mexico-visa-2026/). [Cuba drew 419,863 international visitors between January and July 2026, 37.2 per cent down on the same period a year earlier](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/cuba-tourism-collapse-us-sanctions-sotic-georgetown-2026/). Against that, Cancún's single-digit fall is a different order of problem, and the municipal response to it is a fee. [Jamaica's Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett proposed a Caribbean Tourism Resilience Fund financed by visitor fees at the Caribbean Tourism Organisation Ministerial Council in Georgetown on 6 October 2026](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/caribbean-tourism-resilience-fund-bartlett-visitor-levy-sotic-2026/). One destination is proposing to add a visitor charge while another removes an operator charge. ## What has not been published? No requirements, no application window, and no instrument creating it. No requirements, procedures or eligibility conditions have been published. No start date or closing date for applications appears in any account retrieved here. Whether façades are covered is reported by some accounts and not by others. And no municipal agreement, cabildo resolution or Periódico Oficial publication creating the exemption has been identified. One outlet headlined the programme as a route to remodelling illegal hotels. Its own text does not carry that, and no other account uses the framing, so it is set aside here. ## What is settled, and what is not? The fee, the penalty and the exemption in article 81 are settled, because they are in the law. The programme is an announcement. Article 79's tariff, article 80's sanction, article 81's licence requirement and maintenance exemption, article 82's demolition tariff and article 83's regularisation multiple are from the Ley de Hacienda del Municipio de Benito Juárez as published by the Congreso del Estado de Quintana Roo, with the amendment dates the law itself records. The ratios between the article 79 licence and the article 80 sanction are this newspaper's arithmetic from the two published rates. The 2026 UMA of 117.31 pesos a day was published by INEGI and is carried independently in this newspaper's reporting of the IMSS accord of 21 October 2026\. The announcement, its date, its venue and the attendance figure are from Quadratín Quintana Roo and Quintana Roo Hoy, both of 22 October 2026. Not established: the requirements, procedures and eligibility conditions of the programme; the instrument that creates it and whether it requires an amendment to the Ley de Hacienda or a municipal agreement beneath it; the application window; whether façades are included; whether the exemption is total or partial; how the municipality will distinguish repair under article 81 from maintenance; how many hotels the municipality expects to use it; and what the waiver is forecast to cost municipal revenue. The peso conversions here are this newspaper's arithmetic from the law's UMA rates, not figures the municipality has published. A hotelier can read the fee being waived in a law last reformed in December 2024\. The conditions for waiving it do not yet exist in writing. ### The entities - **Ayuntamiento de Benito Juárez** is the municipal government of the Mexican municipality that contains Cancún. - **Ana Paty Peralta** is the mayor of Benito Juárez, who announced the programme. - **Renueva Cancún** is the announced programme under which hotels may be exempted from remodelling licence fees. - **Cancún Travel Mart** is the trade event at whose 2026 opening the programme was announced. - **Ley de Hacienda del Municipio de Benito Juárez** is the municipal tax law of the state of Quintana Roo that sets the construction licence tariff. - **UMA**, the Unidad de Medida y Actualización, is the Mexican unit of account used to express the tariff, worth 117.31 pesos a day in 2026. - **Congreso del Estado de Quintana Roo** is the state legislature that reforms the Ley de Hacienda. - **Periódico Oficial del Estado** is where those reforms are published. - **Asociación de Hoteles de Cancún, Puerto Morelos e Isla Mujeres** is the hotel association whose president gave the attendance figure. - **Consejo Hotelero del Caribe Mexicano** is the body that reported the fall in formal accommodation employment. - **ASUR** is the operator of Cancún airport, whose passenger series the arrival figures come from. - **DataTur** is the Mexican federal tourism data system. ### What the title card shows Every data point on the article's title card, in text. - **0.77 UMA.** The article 79 tariff a square metre for commercial and services construction in the tourist zone. - **90.33 pesos.** That tariff at the 2026 UMA of 117.31 pesos, on this newspaper's arithmetic. - **1.27 to 12.74 UMA.** The article 80 sanction a square metre for work carried out without a licence, about 149 to 1,495 pesos, which is 65 per cent to sixteen times the licence. - **Half the cost of the works.** What article 80 allows the fine to be extended to on a repeat offence. - **No licence required.** What article 81 provides for conservation and maintenance of buildings. - **Up to 50 per cent.** The discount article 79 already allows on a construction licence for a first business. - **22 October 2026.** When the programme was announced at the Cancún Travel Mart. - **Down 11.8 per cent.** Cancún airport international passengers in September against September 2025. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Renueva Cancún? A programme announced by Mayor Ana Paty Peralta at the Cancún Travel Mart on 22 October 2026, under which hotels may be exempted from paying municipal remodelling licence fees. Reported coverage extends to rooms, lobbies and restaurants in existing hotels. The municipality has still to specify the requirements and procedures. ### How much is the fee that would be waived? Article 79 of the Ley de Hacienda del Municipio de Benito Juárez sets 0.77 UMA a square metre of construction for commercial and services construction in the tourist zone, which is about 90.33 pesos at the 2026 UMA of 117.31 pesos a day. On a 10,000 square metre refit that is about 903,000 pesos, on this newspaper's arithmetic. ### Do all hotel works need a licence? No. Article 81 requires a licence for repair works, demolition, excavation, fill, reconstruction and expansion, and expressly provides that conservation and maintenance of buildings require no licence or authorisation. Which side a particular refit falls on determines whether the exemption is worth anything, and the municipality has not published the criteria. ### What happens to a hotel that remodels without a licence? Article 80 sanctions work without a licence at 1.27 to 12.74 UMA a square metre, about 149 to 1,495 pesos, which is between 65 per cent and about sixteen times the 0.77 UMA licence on this newspaper's arithmetic. On a repeat offence the fine may be extended to half the estimated cost of the works. Reopening a sealed site in the hotel zone costs 23.12 UMA, about 2,712 pesos. Article 83 charges up to five times the article 79 tariff to regularise a licence afterwards. ### Why is Cancún doing this? International arrivals have fallen through 2026\. Cancún airport handled 848,775 international passengers in September against 962,546 a year earlier, down 11.8 per cent, with the January to September fall at 6.5 per cent, and the Consejo Hotelero del Caribe Mexicano reported formal accommodation employment in Quintana Roo down 3.2 per cent in August year on year. ### Is the programme in force? No instrument creating it has been identified. The announcement is reported, the requirements and procedures have not been published, and no application window has been stated. The fee it would waive remains in force in the Ley de Hacienda del Municipio de Benito Juárez.