Cayman Islands Remittances: Where the Money Goes
Every quarter, CIMA publishes how much money leaves Cayman through licensed money-transfer counters, and where it goes. Nobody else tracks it. Here is the full picture back to 2012, and, just as important, what these numbers cannot say.
The headline numbers (2025)
Growth has nearly stopped: outflows rose just 0.4% from 2024 to 2025, after a decade in which they climbed almost every year. The money moves in small, steady amounts: roughly 787k transactions in 2025, averaging about US$406 each, week in, week out. In the latest quarter (2026Q1), US$81.6M went out.
Fourteen years of outflows
Annual MSB remittance outflows, US$ millions, 2012 to 2025. Source: CIMA quarterly MSB statistics.
The long climb from US$179M (2012) flattened decisively after 2023. Inflows, by contrast, have never been the story: money arriving into Cayman through the same counters has hovered in the single-digit millions for the entire series, a reminder that Cayman is a place wages are earned and sent from, not sent to.
Annual MSB remittance inflows, US$ millions, same period and source. Note the scale: peak inflows are about 3% of outflows.
The corridors: where it goes, and in what size
| Destination | 2025 value | Share | Transfers | Avg send |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jamaica | US$198.2M | 62.01% | 524k | US$378 |
| Philippines | US$46.4M | 14.52% | 87k | US$536 |
| Honduras | US$22.2M | 6.95% | 58k | US$383 |
| United States | US$12.5M | 3.92% | 28k | US$444 |
| Nicaragua | US$9.5M | 2.98% | 28k | US$342 |
| Dominican Republic | US$8.4M | 2.63% | 14k | US$610 |
| Colombia | US$3.1M | 0.98% | 8k | US$392 |
| Canada | US$1.9M | 0.6% | 4k | US$485 |
| Nepal | US$1.6M | 0.5% | 1k | US$1,405 |
| Zimbabwe | US$1.5M | 0.48% | 3k | US$585 |
The average send size tells its own story: Jamaica's US$378 average across 524k transfers is the profile of weekly family support, while the Philippines averages US$536, fewer and larger transfers. The full dataset covers 23 destination countries.
The workforce mismatch
Set the money against the work-permit register and a pattern appears. Jamaicans hold 36.56% of work permits (January 2026, 37.2% including government workers) but the Jamaica corridor carries 62.01% of MSB outflows. The Philippines runs the other way: 19.36% of permits, 14.52% of the money. The likeliest explanations sit in the caveats below: different pay levels across sectors, different use of banks versus counters, and different remitting habits. The data shows the mismatch; it does not explain it.
Almost no Christmas surge
Average share of each year's outflows by quarter, 3 complete years of quarterly data.
The intuition says money surges home in December. The data says barely: Q4 averages 26.16% of the year against a flat-line 25%. Remittances from Cayman are a steady weekly obligation, not a seasonal gift.
What this data doesn't tell us
- It only sees the counters. This is MSB (money services business) data: the Western Union, MoneyGram and JN Money style transfer counters. Bank wires are entirely invisible here, and that is where higher-paid expats mostly move money. The true total leaving Cayman is far larger than US$319.6M; this series measures one channel, skewed toward workers paid modest wages who need cash-to-cash transfers.
- Destination is not nationality. A transfer to Jamaica is usually, but not provably, a Jamaican worker supporting family. The data records where money went, not who sent it or why.
- No purpose attached. Family support, savings, a land purchase, a business payment: all look identical in the totals.
- Fees and exchange costs are not captured. What arrives on the other end is less than what is recorded leaving; nothing here measures the cost of sending.
- Counts come in two crude bands (over and under CI$500 per transaction), so averages are exactly that: averages, not distributions.
- Informal channels are invisible, from cash carried on flights to in-kind support (the barrels every forwarder ships before Christmas).
- Coverage has gaps. Several smaller corridors were not collected before 2017 ('n/a' in the source), 2014 excludes one reporting entity per CIMA's own footnote, and CIMA's 2025 Annual Report cited US$326.4M for 2025 outflows where the current workbook shows US$319.6M, an apparent downward revision; this page follows the workbook series.
Methodology and sources
Parsed from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority's quarterly MSB remittance statistics (cima.ky, "Survey Results": the remittance report and by-country transaction workbooks, currently through 2026Q1), with parsed totals verified against internal consistency checks and CIMA Annual Report anchors before publication. Work-permit shares are from WORC's Factor 8 nationality analysis (January 2026 snapshot). Figures are US$ as published by CIMA. Updated quarterly as CIMA releases new data (roughly one quarter behind). Spot an error? Email info@daily.ky. Last updated: 10 September 2026.