Planned full spending grows faster than revenue and grants.
Revenue and grants rise 7.1% against the FY2025/26 projected outturn. The FY2026/27 Estimates total rises 10.1%.
P1Return to priority 01 in the national agenda
Public-record review of Saint Lucia’s finances · 2026
Understanding Saint Lucia’s public finances.
Follow the money expected in, the money planned out, the gap to finance, the debt already carried and the public assets that cannot yet be reconciled from one current account.
Central findingPlanned spending rises. The planned deficit widens. The records reviewed do not provide a complete current public-sector balance sheet.
The evidence shows pressure building over several years, with the latest budget plan adding to it.
The one-minute review
Planned spending, the deficit and the missing public balance sheet.
The figures compare planned revenue and spending, the resulting financing gap, and what the available records do not yet disclose.
The planned overall deficit is wider.
The gap is 47.6% larger than the FY2025/26 projected deficit, before EC$140.0m of debt principal is repaid.
P1Debt is measurable. Current public net worth is not.
A detailed debt stock is public. SLPA did not locate a current consolidated statement of public assets, liabilities and net worth in the records reviewed.
P4 · P5 · P6Recent fiscal trend
The FY2026/27 budget plan shows faster spending growth and a larger deficit.
The chart compares a source-labelled actual, a projected year-end result and a future budget plan. These are different evidence types, so the sequence indicates direction rather than three audited outcomes.
FY2026/27 budget vs FY2025/26 projected outturn
FY2026/27 budget vs FY2025/26 projected outturn
wider than the FY2025/26 projected gap
calendar-year change reported by the Debt and Investment Unit
FY2024/25
Reported actualRevenue + grantsEC$1.606bn
Full spending envelopeEC$1.836bn
- Overall balance
- −EC$144.5m
- Primary balance
- EC$75.6m
- Principal repayment
- EC$77.7m
Source label, not a located current audited Public Accounts outturn
FY2025/26
Projected outturnRevenue + grantsEC$1.705bn
Full spending envelopeEC$1.988bn
- Overall balance
- −EC$143.9m
- Primary balance
- EC$90.1m
- Principal repayment
- EC$128.8m
Preliminary revenue plus year-end expenditure outlook
FY2026/27
Budget estimateRevenue + grantsEC$1.826bn
Full spending envelopeEC$2.189bn
- Overall balance
- −EC$212.4m
- Primary balance
- EC$38.6m
- Principal repayment
- EC$140.0m
Official plan, not money already collected or spent
Reconcile the headline
How EC$1.826bn of net revenue and grants becomes an EC$2.189bn Estimates total.
Several official totals can all be correct because they answer different accounting questions. The bridge prevents principal repayment, refunds and the fiscal deficit from being silently mixed.
Net revenue + grantsEC$1.826bnBudget plan · after refunds
+New gap to financeEC$212.4mOverall deficit
=Fiscal-balance spendingEC$2.039bnCost counted in the balance
+PrincipalEC$140.0m
RefundsEC$10.0m
Official Estimates totalEC$2.189bnFull planning envelope
Net revenue and grants do not cover fiscal-balance expenditure. That EC$212.4m gap requires financing.
EC$140.0m repays existing borrowing. It uses cash but is not counted as a fiscal expense in the overall balance.
The plan must finance the deficit and principal, about EC$352.4m before other financing adjustments.
Interest turns a primary surplus into a deficit.
Primary operations remain in surplus in the budget. Interest reverses the balance, and principal repayment raises the amount that must be financed. P1
Why the EC$2.189bn total is called an Estimates envelope
Money in
Consumption and trade taxes carry most of the revenue plan.
The composition matters because the durability and incidence of EC$1.826bn depend on where it comes from, not only on whether the headline total is reached.
Taxes on goods and services
Includes VAT, excises, travel taxes and levies.
Taxes on income and profits
International trade and transactions
Includes import duty and service charge on imports.
Non-tax revenue
External grants
Property tax
Sales of assets
Named lines
Thirteen large or policy-relevant inflows
Selected policy-relevant lines; full revenue total shown above.
Value Added Tax
Corporate income tax
Import duty
Personal income tax
Service charge on imports
National Economic Fund contribution
The Estimates line uses the label NEDF. This is a budgeted transfer into current revenue, not total CIP receipts.
Airport tax
Health and Citizen Security Levy
Withholding income tax
Stamp duty
Electricity fuel surcharge
NCB dividend
LUCELEC dividend
Money out
View planned spending by purpose and by department.
The economic lens shows what money buys. The department lens shows where authority and central costs sit. Use the switch to inspect every published headline department.
10 use-of-funds classes
This full-Estimates view separates operations, transfers, debt transactions and investment.
Showing all 10 use-of-funds classes.
Spending by purpose
Spending by department
Do not read EC$800.0m for Finance as EC$800.0m of Finance programmes.
The department contains debt service, retiring benefits, transfers, contingencies and other centralized items. Economic and department classifications are two views of the same envelope and must not be added together.
P1Plan versus delivery
Planned capital spending was revised down most sharply in FY2025/26.
The revised estimate shows how delivery differed from the approved budget. Of the four selected measures, capital spending excluding debt principal had the largest gap.
Approved budgetRevised estimate
Revenue + grants
0.4% below planFiscal-balance spending
3.4% below planCapital spending, excluding principal
17.7% below planOverall deficit
28.8% narrower than planNew SLPA working analysis · FY2014/15–FY2024/25
Recurrent execution stayed close to plan. Grants and capital did not.
Eleven fiscal years provide a stronger pattern than one budget. The source series are administrative Economic and Social Review outturns and are not assumed to be audited Public Accounts.
- Current revenue
- 100.72% mean execution · median 100.82%
- Operating spending
- 97.92% mean execution · relatively close to plan
- Grants
- 56.67% pooled execution · below plan in all 11 years
- Strict capital
- 71.68% pooled execution · below plan in 10 of 11 years
Original plan→Authorised changes→Latest forecast→Outturn→Variance reason
What this means: later official forecasts were much closer to outturn than original capital plans, so updating has value. It does not repair weak initial project readiness. A variance also does not establish unauthorised spending, project failure, physical completion, quality or value for money.
Economic and Social Review 2025. These figures use its preliminary and year-end outlook vintage.
- Revenue + grants
- EC$1.709bn Preliminary
- Total fiscal expenditure
- EC$1.849bn Year-end outlook
- Overall deficit
- EC$139.8m 1.9% of GDP
- Primary surplus
- EC$94.2m 1.3% of GDP
- Capital expenditure
- EC$267.9m Year-end outlook
- Domestic payables
- EC$20.4m Excluded from public debt
The Economic and Social Review and the later Estimates use different FY2025/26 vintages; both source labels are retained. P1 · P3
Public debt
EC$5.440bn of public debt, with refinancing pressure close at hand.
This is the latest detailed official stock located. Debt is a point-in-time liability measure, not annual expenditure and not a complete balance sheet.
Public debtEC$5.440bn31 Dec 2025
Central government
EC$5.132bn94.3% of public debtGovernment guarantees
EC$308.3m5.7% of public debtExternal
EC$3.327bn61.2% of public debtDomestic
EC$2.113bn38.8% of public debtBonds and notes
51.4%Loans
41.6%Treasury bills
7.0%Central-government debt
Central-government debt
Refinancing horizon
Refinancing exposure
Interest-rate horizon
Near-term rate exposure
Variable-rate share is 19%
Government-guaranteed debt
Which public entities account for EC$308.26m of guarantees
A guarantee is included in public debt here. It is not the same as annual spending or a forecast that the obligation will be called.
Saint Lucia Air and Sea Ports Authority
EC$141.3mSaint Lucia Development Bank
EC$53.1mNational Lotteries Authority
EC$34.4mSaint Lucia Housing Authority
EC$34.0mWASCO
EC$18.8mUniversity of the West Indies
EC$14.8mMillennium Heights Medical Complex
EC$9.8mOther entities
EC$2.1mPublic assets and liabilities
The records reviewed do not yet let the public reconcile what Saint Lucia owns against what it owes.
A complete balance sheet needs assets, liabilities and the same group of public bodies reported at one date. The published record provides detailed debt figures but only fragments of the asset picture.
visible
Current and measurable
- Central-government and guaranteed debt by instrument, residency and creditor
- Domestic payables reported in the Economic and Social Review
- Budget revenue, expenditure and financing plans
- Audited accounts for selected entities, including the CIU
partial
Visible in fragments
- Cash and deposits held by separate funds and public bodies
- Government equity and dividend-producing holdings
- Loans receivable, tax arrears and other financial assets
- State-entity liabilities beyond loans guaranteed by central government
missing
Not reconciled in one current surfaced account
- Land, buildings, roads, water systems and other infrastructure values
- Pension and other long-term employee obligations
- Consolidated assets and liabilities across the reporting perimeter
- A current opening-to-closing net-worth reconciliation
Current public net worthNot computable from the records reviewed
Debt is not net worth. CIU cash, NIC assets, public land, infrastructure, receivables, pensions and state-entity liabilities sit in different or incomplete reporting perimeters. Missing values must not be treated as zero.
P4 · P5 · P6 · P7 · P10 · P11One published asset account
CIU audited accounts, FY2024/25
This is one separately audited entity. Its cash cannot be netted against central-government debt without a legal and accounting consolidation.
Year flows · FY2024/25
Closing position · 31 March 2025
CIU revenue belongs to a separate entity. Reconcile Consolidated Fund distributions, NEDF remittances and the FY2026/27 transfer through an inter-entity ledger before combining them.
P7Fiscal-risk register
Known fiscal risks and missing information
Evidence confidence is shown instead of invented probabilities.
| Risk | Evidence status | What is visible | What is still missing | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Refinancing and rates | Current measure | 21.44% of central-government debt matures within one year; 39.72% refixes within one year. | A transaction-level forward financing plan linked to each maturity. | P4 |
| Government guarantees | Current stock | EC$308.26m at December 2025, with the entity distribution published. | Probability of call, recovery value and nonguaranteed liabilities for each entity. | P4 |
| Domestic payables | Preliminary | EC$20.4m at end-2025, reported outside public debt. | Creditor ageing, disputed claims, payment dates and consolidated cash. | P3 · P10 |
| Public-service pensions | Cash only | EC$119.99m in FY2026/27 retiring benefits is budgeted as annual cash expenditure. | The accrued pension and gratuity liability. | P1 |
| National Insurance Corporation | Audited but stale | The latest posted FY2020/21 report records EC$2.468bn in group assets and EC$28.6m in liabilities. | A current audited balance sheet and enacted-parameter actuarial path. | P10 · P11 |
| State entities and contracts | Fragmented | Guaranteed loans and selected official project announcements are public. | Current consolidated accounts, nonguaranteed debt and full contract exposure. | P4 · P8 |
| CIU and National Economic Fund | Partial accounts | The CIU publishes audited accounts; the central budget reports a National Economic Fund contribution using the label NEDF. | One opening-to-closing reconciliation across CIU, the National Economic Fund and Consolidated Fund. | P1 · P7 |
| Disaster and climate exposure | Not valued | Project finance and contingent facilities can be traced in debt documents. | A public-asset-at-risk register, insurance schedule and uninsured fiscal exposure. | P8 · P10 |
Evidence findings
Six conclusions the published record can support.
Each finding stays inside the evidence boundary. Where the record cannot answer the question, the missing account becomes the recommendation.
The FY2026/27 plan raises spending faster than revenue and widens the deficit.
Planned full spending rises 10.1% against a 7.1% rise in revenue and grants. The planned deficit widens 47.6% from the FY2025/26 projected gap, while public debt rose 5.5% in calendar 2025.
The credible framing is recent years, with the latest budget intensifying the pressure.Current debt totals are public; a current consolidated asset account was not located.
The debt bulletin provides a detailed December 2025 stock. A current consolidated asset statement was not surfaced in the official audit archive reviewed.
Do not call public debt the national balance sheet or invent net worth from disconnected fragments.The budget publishes several valid totals for different questions.
The EC$2.189bn Estimates total, EC$2.039bn fiscal-balance spending, EC$212.4m deficit and EC$352.4m borrowing requirement are connected but not interchangeable.
Every claim needs its accounting basis and whether it includes principal, refunds or refinancing.The largest department is partly a central financing container.
Finance receives EC$800.0m in the headline department summary and contains debt service, retiring benefits, transfers and other shared costs.
A ministry ranking alone overstates the amount available for Finance-led programmes.Capital execution remains the sharpest plan-to-outturn variance.
The FY2025/26 revised estimate for capital spending excluding principal was EC$267.9m, 17.7% below the approved plan.
Track projects through award, construction, payment, commissioning and service.Publish a current consolidated account of public assets, liabilities and net worth.
Section 75 requires a broad Public Accounts package. The surfaced official audit archive displayed Government financial statements only through FY2009/10.
Publish current financial position, cash flows, budget comparison, arrears, contingencies, investments and net financial assets together.One opening balance, one year of flows, one closing balance.
- 01Reporting perimeter
Central government, funds, guaranteed and nonguaranteed public entities, NIC boundary and controlled bodies.
- 02Opening financial position
Cash, investments, receivables, assets, debt, payables, pensions, guarantees and contingencies.
- 03Budget-to-outturn bridge
Approved, revised and actual revenue and spending, with project-level capital delivery.
- 04Cash and financing bridge
Deficit, borrowing, principal, arrears, deposits and the opening-to-closing cash movement.
- 05Public asset register
Land, buildings, roads, water systems, equity, condition, insurance and valuation basis.
- 06Risk and next-decision register
Maturities, guarantees, contracts, climate exposure, pension stress and named disclosure dates.
This is the practical endpoint of an annual report: not one dramatic number, but a reconciled system that lets citizens see how decisions change the country’s financial position.
Fiscal operating envelope
See the companion policy brief on rebuilding fiscal room while protecting delivery.
Evidence register
Inspect the record behind every major claim.
Sources were reviewed through 9 August 2026. Figures preserve the period, perimeter and evidence status used by the originating source.
Method and limits
This is an independent review of public records. It is not an audit opinion, does not test transactions and does not replace the Director of Audit, Accountant General or Parliament.
- Budget estimates are kept separate from projected outturns and source-labelled actuals.
- Annual fiscal flows are kept separate from point-in-time debt stocks.
- Separate entities are not consolidated or netted without an official accounting bridge.
- Arithmetic derived by SLPA is labelled, and missing disclosure is never treated as a zero balance.
- P1PrimaryFY2026/27 budget estimates
Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure 2026/27
Government of Saint Lucia, Department of Finance
The 1,208-page budget book. It records plans and estimates, not final spending outturn.
Open primary record - P2Primary24 March 2026
Standing Finance and Estimates motion notice
Parliament of Saint Lucia
Lists a motion to adopt EC$2,188,765,900 in Estimates. It is not evidence by itself that an Appropriation Act was enacted.
Open primary record - P3PrimaryFY2025/26 preliminary and year-end outlook
Economic and Social Review 2025
Government of Saint Lucia, Department of Finance
The latest execution view reviewed. Revenue is preliminary and expenditure includes a year-end outlook.
Open primary record - P4PrimaryDebt stock at 31 December 2025
Quarterly Debt Bulletin, October to December 2025
Government of Saint Lucia, Debt and Investment Unit
Latest official instrument, residency, maturity, refixing and guaranteed-debt detail located.
Open primary record - P5Official lawCurrent revised law
Public Finance Management Act, section 75
Attorney General's Chambers of Saint Lucia
Defines the Public Accounts package, including assets, liabilities, cash flows, debt, contingencies, investments and arrears.
Open primary record - P6Official archiveArchive reviewed 9 August 2026
Document categories and public reports
Office of the Director of Audit, Saint Lucia
The surfaced archive displayed Government financial statements only through the year ended 31 March 2010.
Open primary record - P7PrimaryYear ended 31 March 2025
Citizenship by Investment Programme Annual Report 2024/25
Citizenship by Investment Unit, Saint Lucia
Audited entity accounts. These are not a consolidated central-government balance sheet.
Open primary record - P8PrimaryDebt portfolio at 31 December 2024
Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy 2025
Government of Saint Lucia, Department of Finance
Used for funding context. The December 2025 debt bulletin governs current stock figures.
Open primary record - P9Official archiveIndex reviewed 9 August 2026
Acts of 2026 index
National Printing Corporation, Saint Lucia
The reviewed index did not surface a downloadable FY2026/27 Appropriation Act, so this dossier says official Budget Estimates.
Open primary record - P10PrimaryStaff report published 14 January 2026
Saint Lucia: 2025 Article IV Consultation
International Monetary Fund
Used for public-sector perimeter, payables, social-security projections and fiscal-risk context.
Open primary record - P11PrimaryYear ended 30 June 2021
National Insurance Corporation Annual Report 2020/21
National Insurance Corporation, Saint Lucia
Latest posted audited NIC annual report located. Its age is itself a disclosure limit.
Open primary record
Corrections and source leads
If you hold a newer audited account, appropriation record, asset register or public-entity financial statement, send it for review. The page will preserve the prior vintage and identify the revision.
Send a source lead