Who pays for the roads? Belize's foreign loans and grants

Big road and bridge jobs in Belize usually come with a sign thanking a foreign bank or government. So does most infrastructure money come from abroad? We checked the Central Bank of Belize’s and the Ministry of Finance’s own figures. Amounts are in US dollars unless marked BZ$ (BZ$2 = US$1).

The short answer: less than the signs suggest

What Belize owes abroad. At the end of 2025 the public sector owed US$1.49 billion (BZ$2,984.1 million) to foreign creditors, 44.8% of GDP and about 64% of all public debt. Of that:

• 41.2% is owed to multilateral lenders, such as development banks;
• 34.4% to other governments and their agencies (bilateral);
• 24.4% to one commercial lender: the 2021 “Blue Loan”.

So about three-quarters is owed to official lenders. The Blue Loan is the odd one out. In November 2021 The Nature Conservancy arranged a US$364 million loan that let Belize buy back its US$553 million “Superbond” at 55 cents on the dollar, in return for commitments to protect its ocean, including 30% of it by 2026.

What pays for the building. Here the premise mostly doesn’t hold. The budget splits capital spending into Capital II (local sources) and Capital III (foreign loans and grants). In calendar 2025 the government spent BZ$339.2 million from local sources and BZ$76.7 million from foreign ones: foreign money was 18.4% of capital spending, which the Central Bank calls “markedly lower” than before. The 2026/27 budget plans a record BZ$488.6 million of Capital II against BZ$117.4 million of Capital III, so about 19% foreign.

Two caveats. Some of the “local” money is itself borrowed, including foreign loans for general budget support. And the biggest single projects, the highways and bridges, are exactly the ones with foreign lenders behind them. Grants that reach the government’s books are small: BZ$46.5 million in 2025, 2.7% of revenue and grants.

Who Belize owes

Public-sector external debt outstanding at 31 December 2025, all borrowers combined (central government, BEL, the Development Finance Corporation and others).

Central Bank of Belize, Annual Report 2025, Table A.24 (provisional). The Bank reports BZ$; we halve. ¹ Owed to Belize Blue Investment Company, a subsidiary of The Nature Conservancy. ² Counting the Taiwanese government, TaiwanICDF and Mega International Commercial Bank together, Taiwan-linked debt is US$269.2 million (18.0%). The Central Bank classes Mega as bilateral. ³ For oil imports. Payments have been suspended since September 2017 because of US sanctions on Venezuela's state oil company; unpaid principal and interest had reached BZ$179.8 million by end-2025. ⁴ Special Drawing Rights the IMF allocated to member countries, which the Central Bank counts as debt. ⁵ IFAD 3.4, CARICOM Development Fund 2.2, Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre 1.5, European Economic Community 1.3, Saudi Fund for Development 0.5, European Investment Bank 0.2.

Saudi Arabia looks small here because its money has barely started to flow: the Saudi Fund for Development signed a US$77 million loan in August 2023 for a 60 MW solar plant, but only BZ$0.9 million had been drawn by end-2025. The table lists no debt to Mexico, the UK or the US.

Grants: money that isn’t debt

• United States. The Millennium Challenge Corporation signed a US$125 million grant compact with Belize on 5 September 2024 for education and energy. Paused in January 2025 during the US aid review, it was confirmed at full value in August 2025, with US$20 million moved from education to energy (now US$53.8 million and US$41.7 million). The education project was due to start in July 2026. Total US aid obligated to Belize in FY2024 was US$20.9 million, US$11 million of it from the MCC. USAID’s 2025 shutdown hit health (including HIV/AIDS), education and climate-resilience programmes here; we found no dollar figure.
• Taiwan. Beyond its loans, Taiwan is paying for the San Pedro hospital (below) and gave BZ$11.0 million in grants in 2025 for the school feeding programme and school Wi-Fi.
• United Kingdom. Through the UK Caribbean Infrastructure Fund, run by the Caribbean Development Bank: £26 million towards the Coastal Highway and £16 million towards the northern Philip Goldson Highway.
• Japan. A JICA grant of about BZ$28 million to replace Belize City’s Swing Bridge.
• Climate and others. A US$38.8 million Green Climate Fund and partner grant for northern sugar-cane farmers, as announced in the 2026/27 budget speech; US$3.76 million from the Global Environment Facility and US$0.96 million from the EU inside the Blue Cities project; BZ$6.9 million of CDB Basic Needs Trust Fund grants in 2025.

Amounts are commitments unless we say they were received.

What it built

⁶ CDB gave the cost as US$59.9 million when work began in 2022 and US$46 million on completion in 2024. ⁷ Belmopan–La Democracia loan: US$12.5 million in the October 2025 government release, US$13 million in the March 2026 budget speech. The Belize City–Hattieville section has a US$34.5 million CDB loan; the middle section has no confirmed funding, and talks with the OPEC Fund were due to finish by June 2026.

The San Pedro angle. The island’s biggest foreign-funded project is the San Pedro General Hospital, a Taiwan grant. The design-build contract, signed in February 2024, is US$16.7 million (reported locally as BZ$33 million), and the 2026/27 budget sets aside BZ$19.1 million for it this year. In May 2026 local media reported rising costs, talks with Taiwan about more money and completion slipping to early 2027. The World Bank’s Blue Cities and Beyond project (US$32.2 million, mostly a US$23.5 million low-interest loan) includes expanding the water supply in South San Pedro and a waste-management pilot.

Why these lenders matter

For a small country the terms matter as much as the money. The Kuwait Fund’s Caracol loan was 2% a year over 20 years with five years’ grace. World Bank IDA credits, which Belize became eligible for in 2024, run to 40 years at roughly 1–2%. The average rate on all of Belize’s external debt was 3.9% in 2025. When the Blue Loan was arranged in 2021, The Nature Conservancy notes, Belize could not borrow in the markets to buy back its Superbond on its own.

Diplomacy and geography play a part too. Belize is one of 12 countries that formally recognise the Republic of China (Taiwan), now its largest government lender. The Kuwait Fund has lent here since the 1990s, for the Southern and Hummingbird highways and the Caracol Road. The regional banks are the Caribbean Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and CABEI, the Central American Bank for Economic Integration.

For the rest of the government’s budget, see The economy.