NASSAU, Bahamas, Mar 31, CMC – The Bahamas economy maintained the pace of expansion during the month of February relative to the comparative period in 2025, with key economic indicators moving closer to their long-term potential, the Central Bank of the Bahamas (CBB) has said.
In its “Monthly Economic and Financial Developments (MEFD) February 2026,” the Central Bank said that tourism activity continued to expand, reflecting further robust expansion in cruise sector earnings, and strengthened stopover receipts, despite persistent capacity constraints.
On the fiscal front, preliminary data on the government’s budgetary operations for the second quarter of the financial year, 2025/26 showed that the deficit widened relative to the same quarter in 2024/25 financial year, as the reduction in total revenue exceeded the decline in aggregate expenditure.
Further, the CBB noted that monetary trends for February were marked by a reduction in the narrow measure of banking sector liquidity, despite an expansion in the deposit base and a contraction in domestic credit.
“However, external reserves increased, underpinned by net foreign currency inflows through the private sector,” it said.
According to the CBB, initial data suggests that the tourism sector registered healthy growth, although the high-value added stopover segment continued to experience capacity constraints.
It said while Ministry of Tourism data was not yet available for February, according to the most recent data provided by the Nassau Airport Development Company Limited (NAD), stopover indicators improved.
Total departures including domestic passengers, grew by 4.9 per cent to 133,336 in February, relative to the same period of 2025. In particular, non-US international departures expanded by 54 per cent to 30,721 vis-à-vis the same period of 2025, countering U.S departures decline of 4.3 per cent to 102,615.
On a year-to-date basis, total outbound traffic increased by 3.4 per cent to 300,000. Specifically, non-U.S. international departures rose by 43.7 per cent to 59,124 passengers, while U.S departures fell by four per cent to 200,000 passengers.
Likewise, in the short-term rental market, a subset of stopover activity, data from AirDNA revealed that total room nights sold increased by 10.1 per cent to 61,037 in February, relative to the comparative 2025 period.
The CBB said that underlying this outturn, occupancy rates for entire place and hotel comparable listings firmed to 63 and 61.4 per cent respectively, from 60.3 and 56.1 per cent in the previous year.
Further, the average daily room rate (ADR) for entire place listings moved higher by 9.9 per cent to US$658.96, relative to the same period last year. Likewise, the average daily room rate for hotel comparable listings grew by 6.5 per cent to US$177.13 vis-à-vis the comparative period in the year prior.
On a year-to-date basis, total room nights sold strengthened by 11 per cent, reflective of gains in both entire place listings and in hotel comparable bookings. Further, the average ADR for entire place listings grew by 8.7 per cent and for hotel comparable listings, by 5.7 per cent.
The CBB said that provisional data on the government’s budgetary operations for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2025/26 indicated that the deficit widened to US$201.3 million from US$190.2 million in the same period of the 2024/25 fiscal year.
Underpinning this development, total revenue declined by US$40.5 million to US$718 million, overshadowing the US$29.3 million falloff in aggregatUS$47.2 million decrease in tax receipts. In particular, collections from taxes on international trade and transactions reduced by US$33.9 million to US$191.2 million, vis-à-vis the previous year, on account of a US$17.3 million falloff in departure taxes, and a US$15.6 million reduction in export and excise duties.
Similarly, taxes on goods and services fell by US$10.8 million to US$396.1 million, reflecting a US$1.9 million decrease in value added tax (VAT) receipts to US$321.8 million, combined with a US$0.7 million retrenchment in stamp taxes on financial and realty transactions to US$27.1 million.
The CBB said specific taxes, mainly gaming, moved lower by US$6.3 million to US$11.4 million, and excise taxes, by US$0.7 million to $2.3 million. Taxes on the use of goods and services declined by US1.3 million to US$33.5 million, largely explained by a retrenchment in receipts from business license fees. Further, property taxes fell by four million dollars to US$39.3 million.
Non-tax revenue increased by US$5.9 million to US$88.9 million, supported by a US$5.4 million gain in proceeds from the sale of goods and services, to US$69.5 million, owing mainly to a US$5.5 million rise in customs fees receipts.
Further, revenue from fines, penalties and forfeitures more than doubled to US$3.9 million vis-à-vis the prior year, while proceeds from reimbursements and repayments and the sale of other non-financial assets and miscellaneous and unidentified revenue remained at negligible levels.
Conversely, collections from property income decreased by US$1.3 million to US$15.4 million, relative to the preceding year.
In terms of expenditure, the CBB said recurrent spending fell by US$22.4 million to US$854.5 million, while apital expenditure decreased by US$6.9 million to US$64.8 million, underpinned by a US$14.3 million reduction in the acquisition of non-financial assets to US$50.9 million, which outpaced the US$7.3 million growth in capital transfers to US$13.9 million.
CMC/kj/ir/2026