Jamaica Remittances Hold Firm in February as US Share Climbs to 72%

• Jamaica received US$238.0 million in remittances in February 2025.
• Inflows rose 2.1% year-on-year, easing from January’s 4.0% growth.
• US share of remittances climbed to 72.1%, up from 69.4% a year earlier.
• January–February combined total reached US$514.9 million, up 3.1%.
• Jamaica’s growth outpaced Mexico but lagged El Salvador and Guatemala.
• UK, Canada, and Cayman Islands account for remaining top-source markets.

Remittance flows into Jamaica maintained positive momentum in February 2025, reaching US$238.0 million as growth moderated slightly from January’s pace — yet the month’s defining story is structural: the United States now accounts for nearly three-quarters of all inflows, a concentration that amplifies both the opportunity and the risk embedded in Jamaica’s dependence on diaspora transfers.

Jamaica received US$238.0 million in net remittance inflows during February 2025, a 2.1% increase on the US$233.2 million recorded in February 2024, according to the Bank of Jamaica’s Remittance Bulletin for February 2025. The result extended Jamaica’s run of year-on-year gains into a second consecutive month, following January 2025’s US$276.9 million — which had grown 4.0% on the prior year — and brought the cumulative January-February 2025 total to US$514.9 million, up 3.1% compared with the same period in 2024. While February’s slower growth rate reflects in part the natural seasonal rhythm of remittance flows, in which January typically captures post-holiday catch-up transfers and February settles into a quieter pattern, the underlying structural shift in the source-country mix is the data point that demands closer attention.

America’s Grip on Jamaica’s Remittance Pipeline Tightens

The United States accounted for 72.1% of all remittance inflows to Jamaica in February 2025, up sharply from 69.4% in February 2024 — an increase of 2.7 percentage points in twelve months. This is not a marginal shift. The US share rising by nearly three percentage points in a single year means that flows from Jamaica’s three other major source markets — the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Cayman Islands — either grew more slowly than US-originated transfers or contracted in absolute terms, ceding ground in the aggregate mix.

The United Kingdom accounted for 11.6% of February’s inflows, Canada for 8.3%, and the Cayman Islands for 7.1% — the three together representing just under 27% of the total against the US’s 72.1%. The Cayman Islands’ 7.1% share is disproportionately large relative to its population, reflecting the concentration of Jamaican migrant workers in Cayman’s hospitality, construction, and domestic services sectors, where remittance transfer rates tend to be high relative to earnings. Canada’s 8.3% share similarly reflects a significant Jamaican diaspora community concentrated in Toronto and surrounding communities, while the UK’s 11.6% speaks to one of the oldest and most established Jamaican overseas communities, rooted in the Windrush-era migration of the 1950s and 1960s.

What Is Driving the US Share Increase?

The expansion of the US share from 69.4% to 72.1% in a single year likely reflects a combination of factors. First, the US labour market remained exceptionally strong through late 2024 and into early 2025, with unemployment near multi-decade lows and wage growth in service sectors — hospitality, healthcare, and domestic work — where Jamaican diaspora workers are concentrated. Higher wages translate directly to larger per-transfer amounts and more frequent transfer behaviour. Second, the relative performance of the US dollar against the pound sterling and the Canadian dollar during the period may have made US-sourced transfers more valuable in Jamaican dollar terms, incentivising senders to accelerate transfers while exchange conditions were favourable.

A third factor may be demographic and technological: the Jamaican-American community is younger on average than the Jamaican-British community, reflecting more recent migration waves, and tends to use mobile and digital remittance platforms at higher rates. Platforms such as Remitly, Wise, and Western Digital have aggressively expanded their US-to-Caribbean corridors, lowering transfer costs and reducing friction — which empirical research consistently shows stimulates transfer frequency among diaspora communities. If US-based senders are shifting toward lower-cost digital channels faster than their UK and Canadian counterparts, this could contribute mechanically to a larger observed share of total Jamaican inflows originating from the United States.

Jamaica in Regional Context: Outperforming Mexico, Trailing Leaders

The BOJ’s February bulletin places Jamaica’s performance in regional perspective, comparing the island’s January-February 2025 growth rate of 3.1% against Latin American and Caribbean peers. The comparison reveals a mixed picture. El Salvador led the group with remittance growth of 14.6% in the same period, reflecting both a strong US Salvadoran community and the country’s continued adoption of Bitcoin-based transfer mechanisms, which the BOJ notes have expanded corridor options for senders. Guatemala recorded growth of 8.2%, reflecting robust flows from its large US-based migrant workforce, particularly in agricultural and construction sectors.

Mexico — the world’s largest remittance recipient by absolute value and a benchmark for the region — grew at just 0.6% in the same period, suggesting that Jamaica’s 3.1% outperformance of Mexico is meaningful context for assessing the health of Jamaican flows. Jamaica’s relatively diversified source-country base — drawing from the US, UK, Canada, and Cayman Islands simultaneously — provides a degree of resilience that more US-concentrated recipient countries like El Salvador lack when US economic conditions turn. Yet this diversification is narrowing, and the rising US concentration seen in February’s data warrants attention from policymakers tracking remittance sector risk.

The Macroeconomic Weight of US$238 Million

Remittances remain among the most consequential flows in Jamaica’s external accounts, consistently exceeding foreign direct investment and approaching tourism receipts in scale during slower visitor months. February is traditionally among the softer months for tourism spending — it falls between the Christmas peak and the Easter surge — which means remittance income plays an outsized stabilising role in household purchasing power during this period. The US$238.0 million received in February 2025 flows principally into personal consumption: grocery bills, school fees, utility payments, and mortgage and rent obligations that would otherwise go unmet for a significant portion of Jamaican households.

Estimates by the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank consistently find that between 55% and 65% of remittance income in Caribbean economies is spent on basic consumption, with the remainder split between savings, housing investment, and small business capitalisation. For Jamaica’s real estate and mortgage market, the housing investment component is particularly significant: remittance recipients in Jamaica are disproportionately likely to be saving toward, or already repaying loans on, residential property — making the monthly remittance inflow data a leading indicator of housing demand in middle and lower-income communities across all fourteen parishes.

Concentration Risk and the Road Ahead

The steady rise in the US share of Jamaica’s remittance inflows — from 69.4% to 72.1% in a single year — brings into sharper focus the concentration risk embedded in Jamaica’s dependence on diaspora transfers. A labour market shock in the United States, a tightening of immigration enforcement affecting Jamaican workers, or a significant depreciation in the Jamaican dollar making transfers feel less urgent from senders’ perspective could all translate rapidly into lower inflow volumes if the US share continues to rise toward three-quarters or beyond.

February’s data provides no cause for immediate alarm: flows are up, trends are positive, and the two-month total of US$514.9 million represents a solid start to 2025. But the structural story — a narrowing source base, a rising dependence on a single corridor, and a growth rate that, while positive, is running below some regional peers — is one the Bank of Jamaica and the Ministry of Finance will need to monitor carefully as the year progresses. March’s bulletin, covering what is typically one of the stronger months in the remittance calendar ahead of the Easter school holiday, will provide an early test of whether February’s moderation was seasonal or something more durable.

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