Delivering remarks at the 79th anniversary celebration of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic, Governor Héctor Valdez Albizu released official economic data that far outpaces many regional peers’ performance for the first nine months of 2026. Official metrics show that the national economy recorded a 5.6% year-on-year expansion in September 2026 alone, bringing the cumulative real gross domestic product growth for the January to September period to 4.6%.
This robust performance is driven by a mixed but largely positive landscape across the country’s core productive sectors, paired with record-breaking inflows of foreign revenue. Leading sector gains for the first three quarters are spearheaded by the construction industry, which notched an 8.2% year-to-date growth rate, followed closely by the financial services sector that expanded 7.8% over the same period. Other high-performing segments include the hotel, bar and restaurant industry, which grew 5.6%, mining and quarrying at 5.2%, local manufacturing at 3.4%, and free trade zone operations that posted a 2.8% expansion. Officials acknowledged that performance remains uneven across different productive activities, with capital-heavy construction and consumer-facing financial services outpacing more traditional industrial segments.
The Dominican Republic’s strong macroeconomic stability is further reinforced by surging foreign exchange earnings, per the Central Bank’s latest data. Between January and September 2026, total exports surpassed $13.2 billion USD, while tourism revenue hit $9.7 billion USD, a figure that signals a full sustained recovery for the country’s iconic travel and hospitality sector. Remittances sent home by Dominican citizens living abroad exceeded $9.4 billion USD over the nine-month period, and foreign direct investment inflows reached roughly $4.5 billion USD. The country’s international reserve buffer also climbed past $15.2 billion USD, a sum sufficient to cover 5.4 months of import costs, a key marker of macroeconomic resilience against global market volatility.
Supporting the broader positive growth trajectory, the country is seeing gradual cooling of inflation and steady improvements in labor market conditions. Year-on-year headline inflation has fallen steadily from a peak of 5.67% recorded in June 2026 to 5.12% by the end of September, and Central Bank analysts project the rate will fall back within the official target range of 4.0% plus or minus 1.0% during the final quarter of 2026. By the second quarter of the year, total national employment had reached 5,271,005 workers, representing a 2.9% year-on-year increase that translates to roughly 147,000 new jobs created over the preceding 12 months. The open unemployment rate now sits at 5.3%, while the national monetary poverty rate has fallen to 13.75%.
Looking ahead to the full 2026 calendar year, the Central Bank has revised its official growth projection to approximately 4.5% for the full 12 months, with total foreign exchange earnings forecast to hit roughly $50.7 billion USD. Analysts note that while the country’s economic trajectory remains strongly positive, cross-referencing these figures with updated regional economic forecasts will be necessary to benchmark the Dominican Republic’s performance relative to other Latin American and Caribbean economies. For additional Dominican economic updates, readers can access more coverage via DominicanScope.
GDP What is driving the growth of the Dominican economy in 2026?
