Debt Briefing: Curaçao

Explanation of terms used: 

Term	Meaning
Sovereign debt(also called government debt, national debt, or public debt)	The amount of money a nation's government has borrowed from creditors which can be domestic or external
Domestic debt	All debt owed to domestic creditors, often issued in local currency or under local law
External debt	All debt owed to foreign creditors (= non-resident, both public and private, including commercial banks, governments, or international financial institutions), often issued in foreign currency or under foreign law
Debt-to-GDP ratio	Showing how much a country owes compared to the financial value of everything that is produced and sold in that country in a year (GDP)
Debt swaps	An agreement where a country restructures its debt by exchanging it for something else in order to reduce its debt burden or improve repayment terms
Public debt audits	A detailed review of how much a government has borrowed, owes, to whom, for what purpose, and whether the debt was acquired legally, transparently, and in the public interest.
Refinancing a loan	Replacing an existing loan with a new loan

Colonialism:

The Dutch West India Company seized Curaçao from Spain in 1634, drawn by its natural deepwater harbor and salt production. However, colonial rule was met with resistance: in 1795, the island’s largest slave uprising, led by Tula, saw hundreds of enslaved people demand freedom and better conditions, before being brutally suppressed (Geschiedenis Blog, 2025). Curaçao’s economy continues to bear the marks of this colonial past. While the Dutch Antilles (including Curaçao) gained limited autonomy in 1954, such as setting its own taxes, it lacked fiscal capacity. By the 2000s, debt reached 86% of GDP, with about 25% of tax revenue going to interest payments (IMF, 2006). During the 2010 dissolution of the Dutch Antilles ("10/10/10"), the Dutch state assumed all former debts (DSTA, n.d.; Clifford Chance, 2010). However, Curaçao (and Sint Maarten) were required to instantly repay 30% of these debts, mostly through loans from international capital markets, of which the Netherlands acquired the majority (Ministerie van Financiën, 2010). This deal cut Curaçao’s debt-to-GDP ratio from 90% to 34.5%, but also tied the island to new debt under Dutch oversight. Plus, the agreement came with strict conditions: Curaçao must balance its budget, cap interest payments at 5% of income, and accept Dutch supervision through the College Financieel Toezicht, a financial watchdog (College financieel toezicht., n.d.-a).

Current debt: 

As of end-2024, Curaçao's total public debt stood at ANG 4.126 billion, approximately 64.7% of GDP (IMF, 2025). On average, 79.2% of the debt was held by the Dutch State between 2017 and 2023, a share projected to rise to 84.4 % by the end of 2028 according to a forecast of the Central Bank of Curaçao and Sint Maarten (CBCS, 2025). All Dutch state loans are denominated in Netherlands Antillean guilders (replaced by the Caribbean guilder on 31 March 2025, at the same 1.79:1 USD peg). This debt burden shapes national budgets, restricts policy options, and fuels ongoing tensions over autonomy. Unlike many Caribbean nations, Curaçao does not borrow from the Caribbean Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), or World Bank. But still Dutch lending comes with strict austerity conditions. The COVID-19 liquidity loans, the largest single component of recent Dutch lending, triggered the island’s most significant unrest since 1969, with 80,000 people dependent on food aid and unemployment at 21% (NL Times, 2020). In 2025, the Netherlands lent Curaçao 80 million guilders to refinance an earlier loan (Curaçao.nu, 2026), initially pushing for full repayment in a single installment. Curaçao’s government successfully argued that: “Paying the full debt in one go would severely strain our liquidity and impact our ability to serve the people,” including healthcare, education, and social support (Curaçao Chronicle, 2025a). That same year, the Netherlands also provided a separate 30-year loan of 115.7 million guilders for renovations, infrastructure, and emergency services, such as a crisis center and coastal guards (Curaçao.nu, 2026).

Curaçao’s Economy:

A legacy of Oil

In the early 20th century, oil transformed Curaçao’s economy. Shell built the Isla refinery in 1915 to process Venezuelan crude, making it the island’s economic backbone: employing up to one in four people at its peak (Geschiedenis Blog, 2025). However, this dependence left Curaçao vulnerable to oil price swings and severe environmental damage, including the infamous "Asphalt Lake," a 55-hectare toxic waste site created by Shell in the 1940s. The refinery’s operations placed Curaçao among the world’s top 10 most polluted sites (EJAtlas, 2021). The 1974–75 oil crisis and Venezuela’s 1975 oil nationalization slashed Shell’s profits, and in 1985, Shell announced the refinery’s closure (Stichting SMOC, 2015). Facing mass unemployment, Curaçao’s government struck a desperate deal: buying the facility for one symbolic guilder while absolving Shell of all potential environmental and health liabilities (EJAtlas, 2021). Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA took over, preserving jobs but continuing unchecked pollution. For decades, PDVSA operated tax-free and without environmental oversight. Toxic emissions, severe enough to trigger evacuations on neighbouring islands, went unaddressed, causing an estimated 16 premature deaths annually from refinery contaminants (Stichting SMOC, 2015). They ceased operations in 2019, but the government keeps trying to restart it, still awaiting a US permit to reopen the refinery and process Venezuelan crude (DutchNews.nl, 2026). This persistence underscores Curaçao’s ongoing reliance on fossil fuels, despite clear environmental and health risks.

Tourism Growth & Deepening Divides

Curaçao’s shift from oil to tourism has not reduced inequality. In 2023, 30.4% of households lived below the poverty line, up from 25% in 2011 (Dossier Koninkrijksrelaties, 2025). Despite tourism growth, social assistance and pensions remain below subsistence levels, making Curaçao one of the Caribbean’s most unequal societies (Economisch Bureau Amsterdam, 2025). Tourism’s resource demands (water, energy for resorts, desalination, excess waste) contrast sharply with local realities: water scarcity, salinization, and unaffordable desalinated supplies (Yuditera, 2026). Spatial inequality is stark: overcrowded urban areas, gated resorts, and privatized coastlines displace communities and inflate housing costs, mirroring colonial-era segregation (Curaçao Chronicle, 2025b). Resistance in Lagun, Zakito, and Oostpunt over habitat destruction and land dispossession, highlights tensions between profit-driven development and demands for equitable resource distribution (Curaçao Chronicle, 2025c; Curaçao Chronicle, 2025d).

Climate Crisis Compounded by History:

During the Isla oil refinery function, the island’s carbon emissions reached an extraordinary 45 metric tonnes per capita, among the top five emitters globally, driven almost entirely by the refinery’s output (Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research [EDGAR], 2024). Even after the refinery’s closure, per capita emissions remained exceptionally high at 14.66 tonnes in 2023 (EDGAR, 2024). The island carries a carbon legacy far larger than its size would suggest. This is a clear example of how much environmental debt is owed to places like Curaçao, it became one of the biggest emitters, yet all of this pollution was done for a demand that did not come from the island. During the time Shell owned the refinery, the Dutch Antilles only kept 8 to 10 percent of the oil refined (CIA, 1975). When it was managed by the Venezuelan company, only 50 percent of the refined oil stayed in Central America and the Caribbean, with the rest going to the USA, Cuba, Venezuela and Asian countries.

The legacy of this kind of extractive and fossil colonialism and imperialism has brought us globally to the current state of the planetary crisis. Sadly, Curaçao is no stranger to its effects. Temperatures have been rising at a rate of 0.13°C per decade, while sea levels are increasing by approximately 3.4 mm per year (KNMI, 2025). Marine heatwaves have triggered widespread coral bleaching and mortality, undermining the natural coastal defences upon which the island depends and degrading the biodiversity that sustains both the tourism and fishing industries (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2022). Most alarmingly, climate projections indicate a severe risk of increasing aridity, with annual rainfall potentially decreasing by as much as 50% by the end of the century (KNMI, 2025).

Download the full briefing for references.

Debt Briefing_ Curaçao_EN.pdf

Download PDF • 573KB