Send money from Canada to Mexico
Grey pays Mexican pesos into a bank account identified by its 18 digit CLABE, delivered over SPEI, the network Mexican banks settle between themselves on. BBVA México, Santander México, Banorte, Banamex and HSBC México are all reachable. Your Grey balance is held in US dollars, provided by Lead Bank, in pounds or in euro, and becomes pesos at the moment you send. The household collecting it in Guanajuato or Tlaxcala joins nothing and opens nothing.
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Who is on this corridor, and when
Mexico is the one destination out of Canada with a season attached to it. Every spring, workers arrive under the seasonal agricultural worker programme for the greenhouses around Leamington and Kingsville, the orchards of the Okanagan and the Fraser Valley, the fields of Norfolk County and the vineyards of the Niagara peninsula. They work through to the autumn on a Canadian payroll, and money goes home to Guanajuato, Tlaxcala, Hidalgo, Puebla and the State of Mexico the whole time they are here.
Running alongside that is a settled Mexican community in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Winnipeg, students with parents in Monterrey or Guadalajara, and Canadian firms with a plant, a supplier or a contractor somewhere between Tijuana and Querétaro. Three quite different rhythms, one payout route.
They all finish in the same place: an 18 digit CLABE, which is the number Mexican banks route a transfer with, and a peso credit arriving over SPEI. Nobody in Mexico registers with Grey to receive it.
Three steps from Canada to a CLABE
Sign up
Opening a Grey account is free and takes about five minutes, with one valid identity document to hand. Workers coming for the season are better off doing this before they fly than after they arrive.
Fund
Grey does not keep a Canadian dollar balance. You hold US dollars, provided by Lead Bank, pounds or euro, filled by money reaching you from a client, an employer or a transfer you arrange yourself.
Send
Enter the 18 digit CLABE. The peso amount, the rate and the fee appear together. Confirm, and the rate is fixed from that point. The SPEI credit typically arrives within minutes.
What it costs to reach a Mexican account
This corridor is thick with agents, kiosks and cash counters, and most of them advertise on the fee alone. A counter charging nothing visible can hand over fewer pesos than one charging openly, because the difference has already been taken in the rate. Read the peso figure at the bottom of the screen, not the headline at the top.
A seasonal worker carries a second cost that rarely gets named: the trip to send. An hour into town from a farm outside Leamington, on a day off, in a week that has not got many. Sending from a phone in the bunkhouse costs nothing in time, which on this corridor is a real part of the price.
How the rate to pesos is fixed
The rate appears before you confirm, and confirming is what freezes it. The peso figure you approved is the figure that reaches the CLABE. Nothing is recalculated afterwards and nothing is adjusted later in the day because the market moved.
For a worker sending most of a fortnightly pay packet home, that is the difference between a household in Tlaxcala knowing what is coming and guessing at it. The rate you read on Friday is the rate that settles on Friday.
A bank wire, a remittance counter, or this
An international wire from RBC, TD Canada Trust, Scotiabank, BMO or CIBC is built for an occasional large payment, not for a fortnightly transfer off a farm payroll. It travels through correspondent banks, the exchange rate is decided inside the bank instead of shown to you as its own number, and what actually reached Mexico tends to become clear only afterwards. Interac e-Transfer, the thing most Canadians reach for first, stops at the border and is no help here at all. Grey puts the rate and the fee in front of you before you commit, pays over SPEI, and tracks the transfer from confirmation to settlement.
What your recipient in Mexico sees
Nothing is downloaded, signed up for or collected in person. The pesos appear in the account they already use, as an ordinary incoming credit.
A CLABE, not an account number alone
BBVA México, Santander México, Banorte, Banamex and HSBC México are all reachable. What you need from your recipient is the 18 digit CLABE, which their banking app shows alongside the shorter account number.
Delivered over SPEI
SPEI is the network Mexican banks use between themselves, so the credit lands the way a domestic transfer would rather than as a foreign payment waiting to clear. Send from a funded balance at the end of a shift in Kingsville and the pesos typically reach Tlaxcala within minutes.
GreyTag, if they are on Grey
A sibling or a cousin who already holds a Grey account can be paid by GreyTag instead. Free, instant, and no CLABE involved.
How the balance gets filled
Grey is funded from outside Canada, so for a new sender the real question is where the money in the balance comes from, not how the payout behaves once it leaves.
From a client
Contract and freelance work paid in US dollars, pounds or euro lands straight in the matching balance. Common at the Toronto and Vancouver end of this corridor.
From an employer
Pay from a company outside Canada can be received into the balance and left there until the transfer date, converting once on the way out rather than twice.
From a transfer you arrange
Money you already hold elsewhere can be moved in and parked. Growers and firms paying Mexican suppliers usually keep the balance topped up ahead of an invoice date.
However it arrives, the balance stays in one currency until you press send, and the conversion into pesos happens once, at a rate you have already seen.
What Canadians send to Mexico for
Seasonal pay going home
A worker in a Leamington greenhouse or a Kelowna orchard sending most of each pay to Guanajuato or Tlaxcala, week after week, from spring through to harvest. Regular amounts, and a household at home built around them.
Family support year round
Groceries, electricity and a grandmother's medicines in Michoacán or Oaxaca, paid from Toronto or Calgary on the same date each month, in the off season as much as in the season.
Building at home
A house going up a room at a time in a village in Hidalgo, paid for across several seasons. Materials one year, the roof the next. The longest running project on this corridor by far.
Suppliers and contractors
A Canadian firm settling an invoice with a plant in Querétaro or Monterrey, or paying a contractor in Tijuana. A company CLABE is entered exactly like a household one.
Four uses carry most of this corridor, and the farming season shapes at least two of them.
Why Canadians use Grey on the Mexico corridor
Open the account, put money into a balance, ask home for the 18 digit CLABE. Most people finish the first two in an evening and send within the same week.
If you are coming for the season, do all of it before you fly. That way the first pay can go home the week it lands rather than the week after you have found a storefront and worked out its hours.
FAQs
What is a CLABE and do I need one to send from Canada?
A CLABE is the 18 digit number Mexican banks route payments with. Grey needs it to pay pesos into your recipient's account.
Where does my family in Mexico find their CLABE?
In their banking app or printed on a statement, usually beside the shorter account number. Any branch of their bank can also read it out.
I am in Canada on the seasonal agricultural worker programme. Can I use Grey?
Yes. The account is free, opens in about five minutes with one valid identity document, and the transfer goes from your phone rather than a storefront.
Can I top up Grey with Canadian dollars from my farm payroll?
No. Grey does not keep a Canadian dollar balance. You hold US dollars, provided by Lead Bank, pounds or euro, and convert to pesos when you send.
What is SPEI and why does it matter for my transfer?
SPEI is the network Mexican banks settle domestic transfers on. Grey pays over it, so the pesos arrive as a normal credit rather than a foreign payment.
Which Mexican banks can Grey pay into?
BBVA México, Santander México, Banorte, Banamex and HSBC México are all reachable, provided you have the recipient's 18 digit CLABE.
Does my mother in Guanajuato need a Grey account to receive pesos?
No. She registers for nothing. The pesos land in the Mexican account she already holds and show up as an ordinary incoming credit.
Can I use Interac e-Transfer to send money to Mexico?
No. Interac e-Transfer does not cross the Canadian border. Grey converts from a US dollar, pound or euro balance and pays pesos into a CLABE.
Can I keep using the account after the season ends and I go home?
The account stays open and stays yours. What changes is where the money funding your balance comes from once the Canadian payroll stops.
Can my company pay a Mexican supplier's invoice this way?
Yes. A supplier's CLABE is entered exactly like a household one, and the peso total appears before you confirm the payment.
How long does a transfer from Canada to Mexico take?
Transfers from a funded Grey balance typically arrive within minutes over SPEI. Getting money into the balance in the first place is the slower step.
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