What does the bill propose?
A legislative initiative in Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies seeks to shorten the review period for the national occupational disease tables from five years to two years. The bill, introduced by deputy (diputada) Elena Edith Segura Trejo and published on September 2, 2026 in the Gaceta Parlamentaria (Mexico’s official parliamentary bulletin), would amend articles 513, 514 and 515 of Mexico’s Federal Labor Law (Ley Federal del Trabajo). Three instruments are involved, which together determine which conditions are recognized as occupational diseases and how permanent disability resulting from occupational hazards is assessed: the Tabla de Enfermedades de Trabajo (table of occupational diseases), the Tabla para la Valuación de Incapacidades Permanentes Resultantes de los Riesgos de Trabajo (table for the assessment of permanent disabilities) and the Catálogo de las Cédulas para la Valuación de las Enfermedades de Trabajo (catalog of assessment forms for occupational diseases).
Under the bill, the three instruments would henceforth be updated jointly every two years, each January. To that end, Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, STPS) would seek the opinion of the Comisión Consultiva Nacional de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo (the national advisory commission on occupational safety and health) and of specialists every September of the preceding year. Extraordinary interim updates would remain possible when research warrants them, and the initiative also sets deadlines for submitting and approving the tables.
Context
The current five-year period stems from a reform of the same articles 513-515 of the Ley Federal del Trabajo, published on December 4, 2023 in the Diario Oficial de la Federación (Mexico’s official gazette). According to the US law firm Holland & Knight, that reform provides that the tables and the catalog are to be reviewed at least every five years, or sooner in light of medical developments. There is no fixed international standard for the review frequency: the International Labour Organization (ILO) re-adopted its own non-binding list of occupational diseases in 2010 and describes it primarily as a model that countries can use when drawing up and updating their national lists, without itself prescribing a fixed review cycle.
Why now?
The bill follows the December 2023 reform, which added 88 new occupational diseases to the table. On April 30, 2024, the STPS subsequently presented the Catálogo de las Cédulas para la Valuación de las Enfermedades de Trabajo, which refers to the World Health Organization’s eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). According to the source article, the initiative aims to speed up the updating of the tables so that they keep pace with developments in science and occupational medicine.
The source article does stress that a shorter review period does not automatically lead to more recognized occupational diseases: for each condition, its work-related nature must still be demonstrated according to the applicable criteria. The challenge, the article notes, lies not only in how often the tables are updated but above all in whether their content accurately reflects which conditions are actually linked to work.
The initiative is still going through the legislative process. Until it is adopted, nothing changes in employers’ existing legal obligations, and the current five-year cycle remains in force.
Source: México plantea actualizar cada dos años las tablas de enfermedades de trabajo, October 25, 2026
Additional research: Nueva tabla de enfermedades contenida en la Ley Federal del Trabajo (Holland & Knight)
