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Asokore Beckles
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Data product · Issue No. 01 · May 2026

The Caribbean Debt Tracker.

Eleven economies. Five metrics. One curated table on Caribbean public debt sustainability, refreshed against each new IMF World Economic Outlook release.Issue No. 01 draws on the April 2026 WEO and the most recent Article IV consultations.

11 of 11 economies populatedCC BY 4.0 · Free to read, free to cite

Public debt to GDP

Where each economy sits today.

Latest reported general government gross debt as a share of GDP, sorted highest to lowest. The dashed gold line marks the 60 per cent benchmark used by the ECCU and as a working anchor across most of the region. Bars in tide blue sit above the benchmark; bars in gold sit at or below.

60% BENCHMARK30%60%90%120%Saint Vincent and the Grenadines113.0%Dominica108.2%Barbados102.5%Grenada75.0%Saint Lucia74.5%The Bahamas74.0%Antigua and Barbuda68.3%Trinidad and Tobago67.8%Jamaica65.8%Saint Kitts and Nevis58.4%Guyana27.6%

Fiscal position quadrant

Where each economy sits in fiscal space.

A second reading of the data. Public debt to GDP on the vertical axis; primary balance on the horizontal axis. Upper-right is the adjusting zone: high debt, but running a surplus to reduce it. Five of the seven economies with reported primary balance sit there. Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago are the exceptions: Grenada's deficit reflects Hurricane Beryl (2024) reconstruction costs; Trinidad and Tobago is running a primary deficit. The remaining four economies will be mapped when their primary balance figures publish in the next Article IV cycle.

20%40%60%80%100%120%-4%-2%+0%+2%+4%+6%60% BENCHMARKBALANCEDHIGH DEBT · FISCAL DRAGHIGH DEBT · ADJUSTINGROOM TO ADJUSTFISCAL DISCIPLINEPRIMARY BALANCE (% OF GDP) →↑ PUBLIC DEBT TO GDP (%)BRBBarbadosJAMJamaicaTTOTrinidad and TobagoATGAntigua and BarbudaBHSThe BahamasGRDGrenada †LCASaint Lucia
Above 60% debt benchmarkPost-shock exception (recovering)Gold band = adjusting zone (high debt, running surpluses)

† Grenada: primary deficit reflects Hurricane Beryl (2024) reconstruction costs. IMF staff project a return to surplus over the medium term.

Primary balance pending next Article IV cycle: Guyana, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica.

Country detail

Eleven economies, in one table.

Each row carries source citations. Where a value is missing in this issue, the row says so explicitly and names the next refresh point. We do not impute figures we have not verified.

Regional aggregate

The Caribbean as a whole.

  • Central govt debt to GDP

    46.6%

    2025 outturn

  • Above 60% of GDP

    9 countries

    of the regional sample

  • Primary balance, ex-Guyana

    +1.3%

    of GDP, 2025

  • Primary balance, with Guyana

    +0.2%

    of GDP, 2025

Source: Caribbean Development Bank, Caribbean Economic Review and Outlook 2025-2026, published April 2026.

Methodology and cadence.

Public sources only. Primary inputs are the IMF World Economic Outlook database (refreshed April and October), IMF Article IV consultations and programme reviews where current, the Caribbean Development Bank Caribbean Economic Review and Outlook annual report, and the published statistics of national central banks and finance ministries.

Where definitions differ, the tracker uses the IMF series for cross-country comparability and footnotes the alternate national figure where it is materially different. Where a country has an announced medium-term fiscal anchor, proximity to that anchor is shown alongside the absolute level.

Cadence is quarterly, refreshed against the IMF WEO release calendar. Issue No. 02 follows the October 2026 (post the IMF WEO autumn release). Between issues, a weekly check sweeps the IMF country pages and central bank publications for newly released Article IV staff statements, Country Reports, and budget documents; any material change updates the row's last-verified date.

We do not impute. We do not estimate. Where a single-year metric is not yet published in the current Article IV cycle, the row says so explicitly and the next refresh point is named. Issue No. 01 covers all 11 economies on the headline debt-to-GDP measure; outstanding metrics will be filled as the next IMF Article IV reports publish. Each row carries the date it was last verified against its primary sources.

License and citation

The Caribbean Debt Tracker is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). Free to read, free to cite, free to reuse with attribution. Cite the dataset version, not just the page.

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