The invention provides a process for producing monoalkyltin trihalide or a mixture of monoalkyltin trihalide and dialkyltin dihalide by: (a) contacting dialkyltin dihalide with an alkylation agent and, optionally, tin tetrahalide, to form a tetraalkyltin mixture comprising tetraalkyltin, trialkyltin halide, and dialkyltin dihalide; (b) reacting the tetraalkyltin mixture with tin tetrahalide to form a monoalkyltin trihalide mixture comprising monoalkyltin trihalide, dialkyltin dihalide and optionally triaklyltin halide; (c) processing the monoalkyltin trihalide mixture to separately recover the monoalkyltin trihalide and a dialkyltin dihalide stream optionally containing trialkyltin halide; and (d) recycling at least a portion of the dialkyltin dihalide stream recovered in step (c) to the contacting step (a).