Cayman’s revenue rises with its population, with no plan for how big

A population that doubled in 22 years

Marla Dukharan is a Caribbean economist who has served as economic advisor to Cayman’s Premier. She wrote this report independently; she says no one commissioned or paid for it.

Her starting point is the headcount. The Economics and Statistics Office estimated Cayman’s population at 90,577 in December 2025, double what it was 22 years ago. At 1.78% a year, it is the fastest-growing population in the Caribbean. The UN projects 107,000 people in 30 years and a peak of 118,000 in 2098. Yet the 2021 Census found one child per woman, against a replacement rate of about 2.1. Without people moving here, the population would be shrinking.

Why revenue follows the population

Most governments raise money from workers through income tax. In Cayman, where most of the workforce is foreign, work-permit fees do much of that job. They are paid upfront, and they are higher for better-paid jobs. Revenue from those fees rose from CI$58.5 million in 2011 to CI$138.9 million in 2024, about 2.4 times as much.

The Minister of Finance said in the 2026-2027 Budget Address that government revenue and GDP have a 99.9% correlation, and that forecasting revenue starts with forecasting GDP. Dukharan’s own calculation gives 98.9%. She concludes that the government has a strong incentive to keep the economy, and so the population, growing. She also stresses that correlation is not causation.

Construction multiplies the most

Government spending does little to grow the average Caribbean economy, because so much of it leaks out through imports. Dukharan cites fiscal multipliers of 0.14 for Barbados and 0.11 for Jamaica. Construction is different. The ESO found that every $1 of extra construction output raises total output by $2.56, and every $1 million adds demand for 16 more workers. In her reading, that gives the government every reason to favour building, and building needs more people.

She also asks how many people Grand Cayman can sustain, and finds no study that answers it. On ecological limits, she writes, “we have no clue.” The one number she can point to is about the cargo port. She quotes the Cayman Compass describing a 2022 consultants’ report that put the port’s limit at about 100,000 people. That document was in fact the Port Authority’s own planning paper, and it found only that the ships now calling could meet Cayman’s cargo needs for about ten years, “or at least up until its population reaches 100,000.” It is a trigger for expanding the port, not a measure of how many people the islands can hold.

The squeeze is housing

Cayman has the second-highest cost of living in the Caribbean, after Bermuda. But inflation was just 1.3% in 2025, the ninth-lowest in the region, and a healthy diet costs less here than anywhere in the Caribbean except the Turks and Caicos.

Housing is where prices jumped. Between December 2016 and December 2024 the consumer price index rose 33% overall, while its “Housing and Utilities” category rose 47%, the most of any of its twelve categories. Apartment and studio rents in the index rose between 43% and 75%, depending on size and district. Dukharan puts much of the blame on a long lack of planning, not on population growth alone.

Her answer starts with campaign finance

Dukharan argues that immigration is not the root problem. 75% of employed Caymanians earn CI$7,199 a month or less, and only 27% of students in government primary schools and 37.5% in government secondary schools meet expected standards. No skills-gap analysis has been done. Inequality has improved only slightly since 2007: the Gini coefficient was 0.3995 then and 0.388 in 2024.

Her first recommendation is campaign finance reform, to limit how far the wealthy can shape policy. Her second is a national vision built on consensus, with an independent body holding the government to account for delivering it. Immigration reforms took effect on 1 May 2026, and their effects are not yet known. Her conclusion: “in the absence of a plan,” the people of Cayman are heading towards “an unknown population size, by default.”