Trinidad and Tobago.

Fiscal anchor

No binding fiscal rule or statutory debt ceiling. The authorities operate a non-binding soft debt target (65% of GDP in 2018, revised to 75% by the 2023 and 2024 consultations). The FY2026 budget targets an overall deficit of 2.2% of GDP. The 2026 Article IV Board urged adoption of a medium-term fiscal framework anchored by a well-designed fiscal rule and a credible debt anchor, which it would not do if a binding anchor were already in force.

IMF programme status

No active programme, surveillance only

Notes

ISSUE No. 05: checked, no figure moved. The Ministry of Finance has set National Budget Day for Monday 12 October 2026, four days after this issue, so the Review of the Economy 2026 and the first official FY2026 outturns fall to Issue No. 06. The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Economic DataPack of September 2026 repeats the Central Statistical Office 2025 outturn of minus 0.5% and carries no 2026 growth figure. Issue No. 04 context follows. ISSUE No. 04: checked, no figure moved. Nothing published between 8 August and 8 September 2026 revises this row. The next scheduled movement is the Review of the Economy, which the Ministry of Finance publishes alongside the budget in early October, and which will give the first official FY2026 outturns. Earlier context follows. All figures here are from the table to Press Release 26/159, issued when the IMF Executive Board concluded the 2026 Article IV consultation on 18 May 2026, and are on a fiscal-year, central-government basis. Central government debt is 64.5% of GDP in FY2024 and then flat at 67.8% across FY2025 and FY2026. Public sector debt, the wider measure, runs 81.8%, 84.2% and 84.1% over the same three years. The central government primary balance is -2.2%, -1.9% and -0.8%, and the overall balance -5.9%, -5.5% and -4.6%, so the deficit is narrowing but remains well outside the 2.2% target in the FY2026 budget. ISSUE No. 03 CORRECTION: this note previously stated that real GDP growth was 0.8% in both 2025 and 2026. The 2025 half of that is now refuted by the national statistics office. The Central Statistical Office published annual national accounts on 29 July 2026 showing a 2025 OUTTURN of minus 0.5% (constant 2012 prices, GDP at purchaser prices, TT$155,154.2m falling to TT$154,393.1m), against the 0.8% the IMF had projected. The headline growth field on this row deliberately stays on the 2026 projection of 0.8% so that it remains comparable with the other ten rows, all of which carry 2026. A reader wanting the outturn should take minus 0.5% for 2025 from the CSO. The non-energy primary deficit, the better gauge of the underlying position in an energy economy, is 14.2% of non-energy GDP in FY2024, widening to 15.0% in FY2025 before narrowing to 14.0% in FY2026. Where the February 2026 Staff Concluding Statement differs, the Board table supersedes it: the concluding statement had put the FY2025 non-energy primary deficit at 14.9% and the FY2026 central government primary balance at -1.4%.