Twenty business days. That is how long a training provider in Mexico has to hand each worker a DC-3 certificate after the worker passes a course, under article 24 of the federal training agreement published in 2013. If you run a plant in San Luis Potosí for a parent company in the United States, Germany, Japan or Korea, the DC-3 is what auditors and inspectors from the STPS (Mexico's federal labor ministry) look for when they review training, and its rules have no direct counterpart back home.
The DC-3 certificate in Mexico, defined by law
Article 153-V of the Federal Labor Law (LFT) defines the "constancia de competencias o de habilidades laborales" as the document that proves a worker took and passed a training course. DC-3 is simply the name of the form. The same article requires companies to report the certificates they issue to the STPS and gives them full effect for promotions inside the company that provided the training.
It can be the official DC-3 form, a certificate generated in the STPS online system, or your own document with these minimum fields (training agreement, art. 24):
- Worker: full name, CURP (Mexico's national population ID) and job title from the STPS occupation catalog.
- Company: legal name and RFC (Mexican tax ID).
- Course: name, length in hours, dates and subject area from the STPS catalog.
- Provider: the external trainer's name, or your company's name for in-house instructors.
- Signatures: the instructor, plus the joint training committee or the employer.
The STPS gives no curricular or academic value to provider courses (art. 15), and nobody but the STPS may use images or text suggesting it endorses a course (art. 25). A DC-3 records that one worker passed one course, and it carries no government endorsement of the provider.
Who can issue and sign a DC-3?
Who issues it depends on who taught the course (art. 24, section I):
| Who delivered the training | Who issues the DC-3 |
|---|---|
| External training provider | The provider, which must be authorized and registered with the STPS (LFT art. 153-A) |
| In-house instructor | Your company |
| Staff of an equipment or service vendor | The vendor |
| Foreign instructor in Mexico, or training abroad | The foreign instructor or entity |
Authentication belongs to the employer. A company with more than 50 workers must have a joint training committee (Comisión Mixta de Capacitación, Adiestramiento y Productividad) with equal numbers of worker and management representatives (LFT art. 153-E), and that committee authenticates each certificate. With 50 workers or fewer, the employer or its legal representative signs. The committee may agree unanimously to use digitized signatures if it keeps those agreements on file.
San Luis Potosí has 448 manufacturing plants with 51 or more employees, according to the business directory of INEGI, Mexico's national statistics institute (May 2026). If your plant has more than 50 workers, a DC-3 without the joint committee's authentication is incomplete.
Does a US forklift card replace the DC-3?
On its own, no. Under OSHA's powered industrial truck rule (29 CFR 1910.178(l)(6)), a US employer certifies that each operator was trained and evaluated. That record shows competence, but Mexican rules ask for their own documents, and the Mexican forklift standard, NOM-006-STPS-2023, states in chapter 15 that it is not equivalent to any international standard.
The agreement does make room for training from abroad. Foreign instructors who train Mexican workers in Mexico, and courses taken outside Mexico, need no STPS registration (art. 21), and the foreign instructor can issue the certificate (art. 24). The same applies to staff of the company that sold you the equipment. Foreign trainers flown in from headquarters can issue DC-3s for courses they teach here, but the file still has to meet Mexican content rules.
In practice that means the Mexican data fields, the committee's authentication, the report to SIRCE (the STPS online training registry) and, for forklifts, the hands-on practice and skills evaluation described in our guide to what NOM-006-STPS-2023 requires from forklift operators.
Deadlines and reporting: 20 business days and SIRCE
Three rules drive the paperwork:
- Delivery: within 20 business days after the course ends, to each worker who passed the evaluation (art. 24).
- Reporting: since April 4, 2025, the paper DC-4 list is void. The obligation became an online compliance notice in SIRCE, filed within 60 business days after each year of the training plan closes (art. 26).
- Records: copies of the certificates issued during the last year, kept on paper or as image files.
According to the STPS guide to SIRCE, certificates from an external provider load only if its registration shows as "Active". On May 27, 2026, the STPS also dropped the DC-5 form as a requirement for registering external providers, so any checklist still asking for a DC-4 or DC-5 is out of date.
How often must DC-3 training be renewed?
A DC-3 has no general expiry date. Each NOM (Norma Oficial Mexicana, a mandatory federal standard) sets its own refresher period:
| Standard | Topic | Refresher period |
|---|---|---|
| NOM-006-STPS-2023 | Forklifts, cranes, hoists and conveyors | At least every 2 years (10.4) |
| NOM-017-STPS-2024 | Personal protective equipment | At least every 2 years |
| NOM-036-1-STPS-2018 | Manual handling of loads | Every 2 years |
| NOM-033-STPS-2015 | Confined spaces | At least once a year (11.6) |
| NOM-027-STPS-2008 | Welding and cutting | At least once a year |
Source: text of each standard in the DOF, Mexico's official gazette, reviewed in September 2026.
NOM-006-STPS-2023 also requires an earlier refresher when new machinery arrives or procedures or operating areas change. Plan renewals by standard and by worker, since each DC-3 covers only the course printed on it. A plant with forklifts and confined spaces runs two cycles: one every two years and one every year.
Vetting a DC-3 provider in San Luis Potosí
Before signing a provider, check:
- STPS registration. Search the provider or its instructor in the STPS directory of external training agents (agentes.stps.gob.mx) and match the registration number printed on the DC-3.
- REPSE, the STPS registry of specialized service providers. It covers companies that provide specialized services with staff at a client's site (LFT arts. 13 to 15). Hiring an unregistered provider exposes both companies to fines of 2,000 to 50,000 UMA under article 1004-C. The UMA is Mexico's daily unit of measure for fines, MXN 117.31 in 2026, so that range is MXN 234,620 to 5,865,500.
- Practice on equipment. An STPS logo on course materials, or a forklift DC-3 issued after an online test, are warning signs.
SIISA Consultores is registered in REPSE under folio 325941, valid through August 7, 2028, for industrial training. Its DC-3s are issued under its lead instructor's external training agent registration with the STPS, and its DC-3 safety training for plants in San Luis Potosí serves sites in the capital, Villa de Reyes, Soledad and the industrial zone.
Frequently asked questions
Who can sign a DC-3, and how fast must it be delivered?
The instructor signs it, and the joint training committee authenticates it in companies with more than 50 workers; in smaller companies the employer or its legal representative does. The external provider issues it, or your company does when the instructor is in-house. It must be delivered within 20 business days after the course ends (STPS training agreement, DOF June 14, 2013, art. 24).
How much does a DC-3 course cost for a company in San Luis Potosí?
SIISA Consultores runs open DC-3 courses from MXN 1,500 per person plus VAT, and quotes in-plant groups separately. Online-only DC-3 sites reviewed in September 2026 charge MXN 100 to 1,000 per course, without supervised practice on equipment.
How much is the STPS fine for not training workers?
The LFT fines employers that fail to train their workers 250 to 5,000 UMA (art. 994, section IV), and the fine applies per affected worker (art. 992). At the 2026 UMA of MXN 117.31, that is MXN 29,327.50 to 586,550 per worker. The authority sets the exact amount within that range.
