Country profile · Issue No. 05 · October 2026
The Bahamas.
BHSThe Bahamas's row in the Caribbean Debt Tracker. Five metrics, the stated fiscal anchor, current IMF engagement, and the primary sources behind every figure. Last verified 2026-10-08.
- Debt to GDP
- 70.2%
- Primary balance
- +3.6%
- Real GDP growth
- 2.1%
as of 2026
Central government debt on a fiscal year running July to June, carried here for FY2026/27 (July 2026 to June 2027), a projection. The IMF WEO files this series under a general government label and dates each fiscal year by the year it ends, so FY2026/27 appears there as 2027, and the 71.9% the WEO shows for 2026 is FY2025/26. Both points were established by comparing the WEO series with Table 1 of IMF Country Report 2026/031, whose central government debt row agrees with it to the decimal for 2020 to 2024 and is footnoted as fiscal years ending 30 June. An automated cross-check against the WEO 2026 value will therefore show a gap of 1.7 points that is a difference of year.
% of GDP
2026 projection
Two readings
The official figure and the IMF figure, side by side.
Where a second reading of a headline figure exists in print, it is shown here. What the government publishes is the official record. The IMF is an independent view of the same economy. A gap bar is drawn only where the two are measuring the same thing over the same period, so that the distance between the dots is a genuine difference of judgement. Where the measure or the period differs, the figures sit side by side without a bar, and the difference is named instead.
Debt to GDP
70.2%
This tracker's headline figure.
70.7%
Central government debt outstanding and disbursed, the Direct Charge on the Government, which excludes guaranteed debt of public corporations, end-June 2026, the close of FY2025/26. Published 20 August 2026 (Public Debt Statistical Bulletin, FY2025/26 Quarter 4).
Not a like-for-like gap: the two readings differ in measure (the Direct Charge excludes guarantees) and period (end-June 2026 closes FY2025/26, one year before the FY2026/27 headline). No bar is drawn, because the distance between them is not a disagreement.
Updated at Issue No. 04: this is the same series one quarter on from the 71.5% at end-March 2026 that this row carried through Issue No. 03, and it now closes a full fiscal year where the earlier reading covered nine months. The Bulletin puts the stock at $12,466.1m, a rise of $696.9m or 5.9% on the year, with the ratio easing from 70.9% at end-June 2025 because nominal GDP grew faster than net new borrowing. It measures a different stock at a different date from the 70.2% headline, so the two figures cannot corroborate each other. Public sector debt on the wider measure, which the headline does not use either, was $14,696.5m.
Second reading: Ministry of Finance, Public Debt Statistical Bulletin FY2025/26 Q4
Real GDP growth
2.1%
This tracker's headline figure.
3.8%
Real GDP growth, calendar 2025, outturn. Published 31 July 2026 (BNSI Annual GDP 2025).
Not a like-for-like gap: the two readings differ in period (a 2025 outturn against the 2026 projection in the headline). No bar is drawn, because the distance between them is not a disagreement.
The official 2025 outturn of 3.8 per cent came in a full point above the 2.8 per cent the Fund had estimated for that year.
Second reading: Bahamas National Statistical Institute, Annual Gross Domestic Product 2025
Fiscal anchor
Central government debt to no more than 50% of GDP by FY2030/31 (Public Finance Management Act 2023, First Schedule). The target year is set in the Fiscal Strategy Report. The Fiscal Responsibility Act 2018 was repealed by PFMA s.149(2).
IMF programme status
No active programme, Article IV surveillance
Notes
ISSUE No. 05: checked, no figure moved. The Ministry of Finance debt page still lists the FY2025/26 Quarter 4 Public Debt Statistical Bulletin of August 2026 as its newest, and the Quarter 1 FY2026/27 edition covering end-September is not yet out. No IMF 2026 Article IV statement was found. The 2025 one was issued on 12 December 2025. CORRECTION, 24 September 2026. This row now carries The Bahamas on FY2026/27, the fiscal year running July 2026 to June 2027. Debt moves from 71.9% to 70.2% of GDP and the primary surplus stays at 3.6%. Both figures had referred to FY2025/26. The IMF dates the Bahamas debt series by the year each fiscal year ends, so the 71.9% it shows under 2026 is the year that closed in June 2026, and the 70.2% under 2027 is the year that began in July. A July to June year splits calendar 2026 six months and six, so neither year covers most of it, and this tracker takes the year that begins in 2026. Dominica, on the same fiscal calendar, already carried FY2026/27, and Barbados and Jamaica carry the FY2026/27 year that began in April. Growth stays on calendar 2026. ISSUE No. 04 UPDATE, 8 September 2026. The Debt Management Office published the FY2025/26 Quarter 4 Public Debt Statistical Bulletin on 20 August 2026, closing the fiscal year: the Direct Charge on the Government stood at $12,466.1m, or 70.7% of nominal GDP at end-June 2026, against 70.9% a year earlier, and outstanding public sector debt at $14,696.5m. The quarterly path through FY2025/26 ran 70.9%, 71.8%, 71.5% and 70.7%, so the ratio rose through the middle of the year before falling back. That second reading was advanced at Issue No. 04 from the end-March figure carried at Issue No. 03. Earlier context follows. Table 1 of IMF Country Report 2026/031 (6 February 2026) reports its central government figures on fiscal years ending 30 June. The primary balance there is 2.7% of GDP in FY2023/24, 3.7% estimated for FY2024/25, and a projected 3.6% in both FY2025/26 and FY2026/27. Counting the 0.3% of FY2022/23, FY2026/27 would be a fifth consecutive year of primary surplus. The overall balance is -1.2% in FY2023/24, -0.5% in FY2024/25 and FY2025/26, and -0.4% in FY2026/27. Central government debt on the same table is 73.8%, 74.1%, 72.7% and 71.4% across those four years. The headline debt comes from the April 2026 WEO, two months after that table, and prints 70.2% for FY2026/27 against the table's 71.4%. The FY2025/26 budget targets an overall fiscal surplus, supported by the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax on large multinationals. Real GDP growth, which sits outside the table's fiscal-year footnote, eases from 2.8% in 2025 to 2.2% in 2026. Reaching the 50%-of-GDP anchor by FY2030/31 would require further measures: the staff baseline has debt at 65.8% in FY2029/30.
Sources
Last verified · 2026-10-08
- IMF Country Report 2026/031, The Bahamas 2025 Article IV Consultation Press Release and Staff Report, 6 February 2026
- IMF Staff Concluding Statement, The Bahamas Article IV, 12 December 2025
- IMF Country Report, The Bahamas 2024 Article IV, January 2025
- Ministry of Finance, Commonwealth of The Bahamas, Fiscal Strategy Report, May 2026 (sets the FY2030/31 target year for the 50% debt anchor)
- Ministry of Finance, Debt Management Office, Public Debt Statistical Bulletin FY2025/26 Quarter 4, published 20 August 2026 (source of the 70.7% Direct Charge at end-June 2026)
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