Remittances 2025: the record that holds up Central America
The region received USD 174.4 billion, an all-time high. The average hides two opposite movements: Central America grew 20% and Mexico fell.
Executive summary
Latin America and the Caribbean received USD 174.4 billion in remittances during 2025, up 7.2% on the previous year and the highest figure recorded so far by the Inter-American Development Bank.
The regional average hides opposite trajectories. Central America grew 20.4% to USD 55.4 billion, while Mexico fell 4.5% to USD 61.8 billion, its first contraction in more than a decade.
South America grew 10.9% and the Caribbean 9.2%. Colombia took in USD 13.4 billion, up 12.9%, and Ecuador USD 7.9 billion, up 21% — the sharpest increase in the region.
In Honduras remittances are equivalent to 30.4% of gross domestic product. At that scale they stop being household income and start behaving as a first-order macroeconomic variable.
Context
Remittances are the region's most stable external flow. They do not depend on a commodity price or on the appetite of financial markets, but on the jobs migrants hold in the destination country.
That is why they describe, better than almost any other available indicator, what is happening in the destination labour market and, with a short lag, what will happen to household consumption back home.
Figure 1 · Distribution of remittances received in 2025
% of the regional totalTable 1 · Remittances by subregion and selected country, 2025
USD millions| Destination | Amount | Annual change |
|---|---|---|
| Latin America and the Caribbean | 174,400 | +7.2% |
| Mexico | 61,810 | −4.5% |
| Central America | 55,395 | +20.4% |
| South America | 36,339 | +10.9% |
| Caribbean | 20,883 | +9.2% |
| Colombia | 13,379 | +12.9% |
Business implications
If you sell to households, track remittances by country, not by region. Disposable income in Central America and in Mexico moved in opposite directions in the same year.
Expect the consumption effect one quarter behind. The flow reaches the account first and the shop later. The lag is short, but it exists and it can be used.
Treat concentration as risk, not as strength. Where remittances are a third of output, a migration policy change in the destination country is a macroeconomic shock.
Methodology & data
Single source: the Inter-American Development Bank's 2025 report on remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean, published on 18 November 2025. The share of each subregion in the total is our own calculation on the amounts published in that document.
Figures cover remittances recorded through formal channels; they do not include estimates of informal transfers.
References
Inter-American Development Bank (18 November 2025). Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025.