What the Dominican economy actually does underneath a Cap Cana purchase

Buying a residence in the Dominican Republic means taking a position on a country as well as on a building. This page sets out what the Dominican economy is actually doing, using the outturn figures the Banco Central de la República Dominicana publishes rather than the adjectives that usually surround them — and it is equally plain about the parts that are risks. It also carries deliberately few numbers, each one dated and attributed where it is used, because a macroeconomic statistic is only true of the period it measures. Makai Residences sits in Cap Cana, so the national picture is not background here: tourism arrivals, construction activity and the peso all reach this address directly.

What the Dominican economy actually did in 2025 — the outturn, not the forecast

The national accounts are published by the Banco Central de la República Dominicana, and its report Resultados preliminares de la economía dominicana, enero-diciembre 2025, released in February 2026, is the document worth reading rather than the commentary about it. It records real GDP growth of 2.1% for 2025 — a clear moderation on the year before. The Banco Central attributes that to a global environment of high uncertainty, financial conditions tighter than expected through the first half of the year, and changes in tariff, migration, fiscal and regulatory policy abroad, which together pushed private investment towards postponing or slowing projects.

One figure in the same release matters more to a foreign owner than the headline. Consumer prices rose 4.95% over 2025, which the Banco Central records as inside its own target band — a band it notes prices had by then stayed within for more than two and a half years — and it had begun cutting its policy rate before the year ended. A slowdown with inflation on target and interest rates easing is a materially different situation from a slowdown with prices running away, and that is the first distinction to draw when a headline simply says the economy slowed.

Tourism is the part of the economy your rental demand actually sits in

For an owner in Cap Cana the visitor economy is not an abstraction — it is the demand behind every night a residence is occupied. The Banco Central counted 8,860,709 non-resident air passengers into the country during 2025, and its Informe del flujo turístico for the same year records that 71.9% of foreign arrivals entered through Punta Cana International Airport. That airport is about 15 minutes by car from Makai. Close to three in every four foreign visitors to the Dominican Republic land within a short drive of this development.

Output grew more slowly than arrivals. In the same annual results the Banco Central shows hotel, bar and restaurant output still growing but at a fraction of the previous year’s pace, and average hotel occupancy easing slightly even as the number of arrivals rose. The picture since has been firmer: reporting its monthly activity index for June 2026 on 23 July 2026, the bank put that same sector and cumulative first-half international arrivals both ahead of a year earlier. A prospective owner should read those two paragraphs together — arrivals and sector output do not move in lockstep, and occupancy can soften in a year when arrivals still grow.

Construction contracted in 2025 and rebounded in 2026 — and that is the line closest to your delivery date

The weakest line in the Banco Central’s 2025 accounts is also the one nearest to a pre-construction buyer: construction value added contracted 1.8% over the year. The report is specific about the cause — an uncertain external environment and real interest rates that stayed relatively high, which led private developers to postpone works or execute them more gradually. Local sales of steel reinforcing bar, an input the Banco Central tracks precisely because it moves with site activity, fell over the same year.

Two things underneath that headline point the other way. Credit channelled through the financial system for housing construction and purchase kept growing right through 2025, so the money kept moving even as measured output dipped. And reporting the June 2026 activity index on 23 July 2026, the Banco Central put construction expanding 14.9% year on year and attributed a large share of that month’s growth to it. This is the sector a buyer should actually follow, because it is the one that determines whether a delivery date holds. Makai is scheduled across two phases, in 2028 and 2029. A sector-wide slowdown is the environment any schedule has to survive; whether a particular schedule survives it is a question for the developer, in writing, and it is a fair one to ask.

The peso, the dollar, and which one your purchase is written in

The Dominican peso is the currency of daily life here; it is not the currency of this purchase. Residences at Makai are priced in United States dollars, from $329,000, so movement in the peso does not reprice what a buyer has agreed to pay. What it does affect is the cost of everything settled locally after handover, and the dollar value of anything received in pesos.

Both directions have appeared recently, which is the useful part. The Banco Central reports an average spot purchase rate of RD$61.52 per US dollar across 2025. Its published reference rate for 9 September 2026 was RD$58.63 to buy — a peso stronger against the dollar than its own 2025 average, not weaker. Those are two different measures, an annual average against a single day’s quote, and they should be read as such. A currency is not a one-way street, and any page telling you the peso only ever falls is selling you something. A daily rate is also a snapshot and nothing more: the Banco Central publishes its reference rate every business day, and that is the number to read on the day it matters to you rather than any figure quoted on a property page, this one included.

What actually underpins a resale: reserves, debt and the money coming in

Resale value in a small open economy ultimately rests on whether the country stays able to pay its way. The Banco Central’s annual results for 2025 put gross international reserves above the coverage thresholds it says the International Monetary Fund recommends, measured both as a share of national output and in months of imports, and record consolidated public external debt at roughly a third of national output with the central government closing the year in deficit. We deliberately do not reprint those levels here. They are revised and republished every year, they would be the first lines on this page to go stale, and the release they come from is named in the last section so a reader can take them from the source rather than from us.

Two inflows do a great deal of quiet work. Remittances and foreign direct investment both grew by double digits in 2025 on the Banco Central’s figures, and that is much of why the external accounts hold together. The International Monetary Fund’s 2025 Article IV consultation with the Dominican Republic, concluded by its Executive Board in November 2025, assessed public debt as sustainable and on a downward path and the financial sector as sound and highly capitalised, while flagging electricity-sector reform and the fiscal deficit as unfinished work. None of that is a promise about any individual residence. The concentration risk deserves naming plainly: an economy in which tourism is this large is an economy exposed to anything that stops people flying, and a property whose demand comes from visitors inherits that exposure directly.

What this page will not tell you, and where to read the numbers yourself

This page publishes no growth forecast. The projections for 2026 differed between the sources we checked, and we could not reconcile them against primary documents we were able to open, so rather than quote the most flattering one we quote none. That omission is the point rather than a gap: the 2025 outturn of 2.1% came in below projections that had been published during 2025 itself, which is a good illustration of why a purchase should not be planned around a forecast at all.

The same reasoning explains why there are so few numbers here. A property page reciting dozens of macro statistics is a page that will be quietly wrong within a year, because nobody re-reads it — so this one keeps the handful that carry the argument, each with its publisher and its period in the sentence, and sends you to the source for the rest. Both sources are free and published in full. The Banco Central de la República Dominicana publishes the Informe de la economía dominicana through the year, preliminary full-year results each February, a monthly economic activity index, tourism flow data and the daily exchange-rate reference. The International Monetary Fund publishes its Article IV country reports for the Dominican Republic on its own country page. Every figure quoted here comes from the Banco Central; the one thing we take from the Fund is an assessment, not a number.

Common questions

Is the Dominican economy growing?

Yes, though the pace changed sharply between the two most recent periods the Banco Central de la República Dominicana has reported. Real GDP grew 2.1% in 2025 on the bank’s preliminary full-year results, which it described as a moderation driven by global uncertainty and tighter-than-expected financial conditions. Its monthly activity index for June 2026, published on 23 July 2026, showed growth running well ahead of that annual outturn. Read the outturns rather than the projections, and check the date on any figure you are quoted — including the ones on this page.

Does the state of the economy affect the rental income from a residence at Makai?

Indirectly but genuinely, because short-term rental demand here is visitor demand. The Banco Central recorded 8,860,709 non-resident air arrivals in 2025, while hotel-sector output and average occupancy both moved less favourably than that arrivals number did — which is worth knowing before assuming more visitors automatically means a better year. Separately from demand, tax matters: short-term tourist accommodation is subject to 18% ITBIS, and a non-resident owner’s rental income is subject to a 27% withholding on gross income with no deductions. Rates change, the host rather than the booking platform is liable for the ITBIS, and both points should be confirmed with a Dominican attorney or accountant.

If the peso weakens, does my purchase price go up?

No. Residences at Makai are priced in United States dollars, from $329,000, so a move in the Dominican peso does not change the dollar figure a buyer has agreed. The peso affects local costs after handover and the dollar value of any peso income. It is also worth knowing that it moves both ways: the Banco Central’s average spot purchase rate for 2025 was RD$61.52 per US dollar, while its published reference rate on 9 September 2026 was RD$58.63 to buy — a stronger peso, not a weaker one.

Did the 2025 construction slowdown delay projects in Punta Cana?

The Banco Central reported that construction value added contracted 1.8% nationally in 2025 and said explicitly that private developers were postponing works or executing them more gradually. That is a statement about the sector, not about any single site, and we do not publish a claim about other developments. By June 2026 the same indicator had turned, with construction expanding 14.9% year on year. The right question for any specific project, including this one, is to ask the developer for its current schedule in writing.

Where can I check these Dominican economy figures myself?

Every figure on this page comes from the Banco Central de la República Dominicana, which publishes the national accounts, preliminary full-year results each February, a monthly economic activity index, tourism flow data and a daily exchange-rate reference. The International Monetary Fund publishes its Article IV country reports for the Dominican Republic, and we cite its assessment rather than any of its numbers. Both are free, both are published in full, and both date what they publish — which is why every figure here carries its period and its publisher, and why there are only a handful of them.