Corruption in Mexico
Institutional corruption in the country
Corruption in Mexico has permeated several segments of society—political, economic, and social—and has greatly affected the country's legitimacy, transparency, accountability, and effectiveness. Many of these dimensions have evolved as a product of Mexico's legacy of elite, oligarchic consolidation of power and authoritarian rule.
In Transparency International's 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, Mexico was scored 27 out of 100, where 0 is "highly corrupt" and 100 is "very clean". This is an eight-point loss compared to Mexico's highest score in 2014, and a insignificant increase compared to 2024, when Mexico scored its lowest ever at 26. When ranked by score, Mexico ranked 141th among the 182 countries in the 2025 Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison with regional scores, the best score among the countries of the Americas was 75 (Canada), the average score was 42 and the lowest score was 10 (Venezuela). For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 89 (Denmark, ranked 1), the average score was 42, and the worst score was 9 (Somalia and South Sudan, both ranked 181 in a tie).
History
Corruption in Mexico traces back to colonial times. With the arrival of Spanish conquistadors to Mexico, the Spanish crown granted positions of power to certain wealthy and influential individuals. These offices were often short-lived because officials were charged with collecting revenue, maintaining order and sustaining their regions while only relying on local sources of wealth and sustenance.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Corruption in Mexico” is institutional corruption in the country. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Corruption, Mexico and Institutional, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17004096. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2025, 2014 and 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “Corruption in Mexico” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.