Tijuana is an export manufacturing center beside Otay Mesa, the third-largest truck port with Mexico by value in 2025 (BTS). Pick a lane in the directory to open its guide, and read how plant pickups, the Otay Mesa transfer and customs work here. Cargado is a marketplace where brokers post Mexico and Canada truck freight and vetted carriers bid on it.
Otay Mesa
9.1%
64
Dry van
Tijuana's industrial parks make medical devices, electronics, aerospace components, furniture and automotive parts; Tijuana EDC's August 2025 profile counts more than 44 medical device companies and 42,000 direct manufacturing jobs in the region, and attributes half of Mexico's medical device exports to Baja California. Otay Mesa across the line carried $58.6 billion of truck freight in 2025, 9.1 percent of U.S.-Mexico truck trade by value (BTS Transborder Freight Data Annual Report: 2025). Much of it is a short cross-border shuttle into San Diego followed by a linehaul to the Los Angeles basin, the Inland Empire or beyond. Northbound, expect finished plant goods; southbound, components, resins and packaging. Tijuana also connects with Mexicali, Hermosillo and the Pacific corridor to Guadalajara.
Mexico guides connect Tijuana with Hermosillo, Chihuahua, Ciudad Juárez, Monterrey, Saltillo, Guadalajara, the Bajío, Toluca, Mexico City and Cuernavaca, and inbound also with Mexicali, Nuevo Laredo, Puebla and León. U.S. guides run to San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Chicago, Detroit and the Northeast, and back from Texas, the Midwest, the Southeast and California. Canada guides run each way with Vancouver and from Toronto and London, Ontario. Tijuana's cross-border lane guides name Otay Mesa; the Mexico lanes are domestic moves with no crossing at all, so confirm which kind you are covering before you post.
Commercial trucks cross at Otay Mesa. Tecate, to the east, is a small alternate that only works when your carrier and customs broker are set up there. Name the crossing and the Tijuana park or yard on the posting; Tijuana traffic can add real time to a plant pickup.
A Mexican carrier or the plant's drayage brings the trailer to a Tijuana yard, a transfer tractor crosses it, and a U.S. carrier picks up in Otay Mesa or San Diego. A transload instead moves the cargo to a U.S. trailer at an Otay Mesa dock. Post the leg you need covered and check what each bid includes: the transfer, any transload, trailer use and detention.
Northbound, the Mexican export is handled in Tijuana and a U.S. customs broker usually files the U.S. entry; southbound, the importer's licensed Mexican customs broker, or an authorized representative, files the Mexican entry. Confirm the commercial invoice, packing list and who issues the CFDI, Mexico's electronic tax document, with Carta Porte details when required. Agree on free time, detention and storage before dispatch.
Commercial trucks cross at Otay Mesa into San Diego. Tecate, to the east, is a small alternate. Each cross-border lane guide on this hub names the crossing it uses; the lanes to Guadalajara, Monterrey or Mexico City stay inside Mexico and have no crossing.
For any Mexico leg, yes: it needs a carrier with Mexican operating authority. A lane from Tijuana to a U.S. city usually starts with a transfer at Otay Mesa and continues on a U.S. carrier. State the leg you need covered when you post on Cargado so the carriers authorized for it can bid.
Post the pickup and delivery, the date, the equipment and the leg you need covered. For a Mexico move, include the crossing and the handoff plan; for a Canada lane, the customs broker and the release arrangement. Vetted carriers that run the corridor bid, and you compare what each bid covers before you book. Where a corridor has enough bid history, Cargado Market Rates gives you a reference built from carrier bids before you quote.
Dry van leads, carrying plant freight in both directions. Reefer demand comes from food and pharma, and open deck from machinery. Post the trailer type with the weight, dimensions and loading requirements so carriers can price the load.
Post it to 2,300+ vetted Mexico and Canada carriers, or check market rates built from real carrier bids before you quote.