Mexican Retail in 2025: For Every 10 That Exit, 12 Enter. Resilience —or Breaking Point?

In Mexico’s retail market, the recovery hasn’t come with large expansions, but with something more subtle: stability. With low tenant turnover, limited delivery of new space, and a replacement dynamic rather than actual growth, the sector has been consolidating occupancy levels not seen since before the pandemic.

During the first quarter of this year, the occupancy rate reached 93.4% —its highest point since mid-2020 and slightly above the 93.3% recorded at the end of 2024. This maintains the upward trend seen in the first quarters of the past three years, suggesting that we may reach early 2020 levels in the coming quarters, when occupancy stood at 94%.

However, not everything about this scenario signals renewed momentum. While the market continues to recover and gain color after the blow of the pandemic, gross absorption remained low —around 37,600 square meters— compared to the quarterly levels seen in the past three years, which typically doubled or tripled recent figures. In that sense, occupancy strengthened not through demand but through limited new deliveries and little tenant movement.

In fact, at the start of 2025, vacant retail space —around 30,200 square meters— was among the lowest on record, according to SiiLA. This occurred even as more than 170 brands vacated space, half of which reduced their footprint, and the other half exited malls entirely. And yet, among the latter, the flow was net positive: for every 10 that left, 12 came in —pointing to a market that knows how to regenerate without losing traction.

The numbers reveal something critical: sometimes, the most valuable thing isn’t what grows, but what doesn’t disappear.

In 2020, as the pandemic began, for every 10 brands that left a mall, 17 entered. It was a gesture of resistance —perhaps even confidence— as many opted to stay or join just as the world was shutting down. But that impulse didn’t last. In 2021, the balance flipped: for every 10 exits, only nine arrivals followed. The market no longer resisted; it gave way.

That downturn coincided with what was, paradoxically, the strongest recent year for economic growth: in 2021, Mexico’s GDP expanded 6%, but not due to structural strength —it was a rebound effect. The economy had just contracted by a historic -8.4% in 2020, and the recovery was driven by business reopenings, U.S. growth, and a spike in domestic consumption.

So, while macro figures showed growth, retail remained out of sync: confidence had cooled, and new entries weren’t enough to make up for departures.