What to do when your electricity goes out in Mexico City

Losing power in your Mexico City apartment can be disorienting, especially if you're new to the city and don't know where to start. Here's a clear guide to figuring out what's wrong and what to do about it.

Step 1: check if it's a neighbourhood outage

Look out the window — do nearby buildings and street lights have power? If not, it's a CFE (the national electricity company) outage in your area. You can check outages on the CFE website or app, or wait it out. There's nothing to fix inside your apartment.

Step 2: check your circuit breaker panel

If your neighbours have power but you don't, the problem is inside your apartment. Find the electrical panel — usually a metal box in the hallway, kitchen or entrance. Open it and look for any switch that's in a middle position or pointing the wrong way. Push it fully to OFF, then back to ON. If it immediately trips again, there's a fault on that circuit — don't keep resetting it.

Step 3: unplug before resetting

If the breaker tripped due to an overloaded circuit (too many appliances running at once), unplug everything in that zone before resetting. Then reconnect appliances one at a time to identify which one is causing the overload.

A note on Mexican electrical systems

Older buildings in Mexico City — particularly pre-1980s constructions — often have electrical panels that weren't designed for modern appliance loads. Air conditioners, washing machines and multiple computers running simultaneously can overload circuits that were originally sized for much lighter use. If you're having repeated trips, the real solution is a panel upgrade or circuit redistribution, not just resetting the breaker. See our electrical service →