Country profile · Issue No. 05 · October 2026
Saint Lucia.
LCASaint Lucia'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
- 77.5%
- Primary balance
- +0.8%
- Real GDP growth
- 2.0%
as of 2026
Total public sector debt including guaranteed debt, overdrafts, ECCB advances and other outstanding payables, an IMF projection for 2026. For Saint Lucia the WEO series tracks this wider public sector measure rather than central government, which is projected at 73.2% for FY2026. The ECCB publishes its own total public sector debt series on a further different basis, and it has REVISED that series since Issue No. 03: its Economic and Financial Review June 2026, published 4 September 2026, prints 76.7% for 2025 and 80.3% estimated for 2026, where its Annual Economic and Financial Review 2025 had printed 78.0% and 78.4% for the same two years. This note carried the 78.0% and 78.4% pair through Issue No. 03 and they are now superseded by the ECCB's own newer figures. Note the direction: the ECCB has revised 2025 DOWN by 1.3 points and 2026 UP by 1.9, so where its old series had Saint Lucia roughly flat it now has the ratio climbing. An earlier version of this note cited an ECCB figure of 75.9% at December 2025 which could not be reproduced in any ECCB document on re-verification, and it has been removed.
% 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.
Primary balance
0.8%
This tracker's headline figure.
0.5%
Central government primary balance on the GOSL budget presentation, FY2026/27 Budget Estimates (April 2026 to March 2027). Published Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure 2026/27, page v, posted 28 July 2026.
A genuine disagreement in the unusual direction: the Fund projects a stronger primary surplus, 0.8, than the Government has budgeted, 0.5. Both use the same nominal GDP of EC$7.55 billion, and the Fund variant used is the one excluding natural disaster costs, matching a budget that contains no disaster provision.
Second reading: Government of Saint Lucia, Estimates 2026-2027, Budget Summary
Real GDP growth
2.0%
This tracker's headline figure.
1.2%
Real GDP growth, calendar 2026, estimate. Published 4 September 2026 (ECCB Economic and Financial Review June 2026, Table 5).
Updated at Issue No. 04: the ECCB has cut its own 2026 figure from the 1.4 it printed in February to 1.2, and revised 2025 from a contraction of 0.5 to a contraction of 0.6. The two authors still disagree about the base year as well as the year: the Fund prints growth of 1.7 for 2025 where the ECCB prints a contraction, so part of the gap to the 2.0 headline is a different starting point rather than different 2026 dynamics. Worth noting which way the weight of evidence sits on that base year. The World Bank also prints minus 0.6 for Saint Lucia in 2025, matching the ECCB to the decimal, so on the 2025 outturn the Fund is the outlier among the three.
Second reading: ECCB, Economic and Financial Review June 2026, Saint Lucia
Debt to GDP
77.5%
This tracker's headline figure.
80.3%
Total public sector debt on the ECCB compilation, calendar 2026, estimate. Published 4 September 2026 (ECCB Economic and Financial Review June 2026, Table 5).
Not a like-for-like gap: the two readings differ in measure: the ECCB compiles its own total public sector debt series, which prints 76.7 for 2025 where the WEO series prints 77.1. No bar is drawn, because the distance between them is not a disagreement.
The two authors now point in opposite directions. The Fund has the ratio roughly flat, 77.1 in 2025 and 77.5 in 2026. The ECCB has it rising, 76.7 to 80.3. The ECCB attributes part of the 2025 improvement to the Government settling about $40.0m of outstanding land acquisition obligations.
Second reading: ECCB, Economic and Financial Review June 2026, Saint Lucia
Fiscal anchor
ECCU regional benchmark: public debt to 60% of GDP by 2035.
IMF programme status
No active programme, surveillance only
Notes
ISSUE No. 05: checked, no figure moved. No IMF, Eastern Caribbean Central Bank or Ministry of Finance publication on Saint Lucia dated between 8 September and 8 October 2026 was found. ISSUE No. 04 CORRECTION. Growth for 2026 moves from 2.3% to 2.0%. The 2.3% came from the Article IV press release of 14 January 2026 and was superseded on 14 April 2026 by the World Economic Outlook, which prints 2.0% for Saint Lucia in 2026. This file defines growth as the latest WEO vintage unless a MORE RECENT authoritative publication supersedes it. A January Article IV figure is older than the April WEO, not newer, so the row should have moved at the Issue No. 02 refresh and did not. Nothing about the Saint Lucian economy changed here, only the vintage this tracker was reading. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank went lower again on 4 September 2026, to 1.2%, and that is carried as a second reading. Earlier context follows. Public debt is projected to stabilise around 77% of GDP in the medium term and, on current policies, will fall short of the regional 60% target for 2035. Public finances are improving nonetheless, with primary surpluses in three consecutive years. The primary balance shown, 0.8% of GDP, is the FY2026 projection from the IMF Staff Concluding Statement (Selected Social and Economic Indicators, 4 December 2025), on an April to March fiscal year and excluding natural disaster costs. The FY2024 actual was 1.5% and the FY2025 estimate 0.3%, so this row is on a falling, not a rising, primary balance. Growth was 4.7% in 2024 and fell to 1.7% in 2025 on temporary hotel closures and reduced airlift, with 2.3% expected in 2026 as tourism picks up and convergence to a 1.5% potential rate thereafter.
Sources
Last verified · 2026-10-08
- IMF Press Release 26/03, Saint Lucia Article IV, 14 January 2026
- IMF Staff Concluding Statement, Saint Lucia Article IV, 4 December 2025
- IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2026, real GDP growth series (source of the 2.0% 2026 headline that supersedes the 2.3% carried through Issue No. 03)
- Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Economic and Financial Review June 2026, Saint Lucia, published 4 September 2026 (Table 5: 2026 growth 1.2%, primary balance -0.5%, total public sector debt 80.3%)
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