The Third Quarter Economic Report 2025, released by Cayman’s Economics and Statistics Office on 8 May, showed a drop in work permits despite a growing economy.
There were 36,425 work permits active as of 30 Sept. 2025, down from the 37,418 that were active on 30 June 2025 and also down from the 36,602 work permits recorded at the end of 2024.
The latest data indicates that 2025 would be the first year to see a decline in work permits since 2020, when the pandemic saw a dramatic exodus of international workers. It may also be an early sign that the immigration rhetoric of the National Coalition for Caymanians government, which assumed control in May 2025, is being implemented.
However, some discrepancy remains between different statistics publicly available, with Workforce Opportunities & Residency Cayman showing a higher number. “There has always been a disparity between the ESO data and the WORC data,” said immigration expert Nick Joseph.
Joseph, who founded relocation advisory consultancy Reside Cayman, cautions against reading too much into one statistic.
“Part of the problem is ‘what constitutes a work permit?’,” said Joseph. “If it is a formal permission or exemption to allow a resident of the Cayman Islands to engage in gainful occupation, then the numbers are much higher.
“For example, the Department of WORC statistics do not appear to include hundreds of persons with work permits in the Special Economic Zone, nor the thousands of non-Caymanians working under an Employment Rights Certificate, whether as a spouse of a Caymanian or Permanent Resident.”
Joseph points out that any fall or stagnation in work permit numbers could simply reflect that international workers are switching categories.
“More than 500 expatriates dropped off the work permit numbers over the last year, not because they left or retired, but because they gained PR. The number appears likely to exceed 1,000 this year. Accordingly, work permit numbers flatlining at 37,000 likely indicates that 20 plus new expatriate workers are joining our community every week.”
Economic causes and impacts
The downturn in work permit applications could be attributed to recent economic factors. For example, the value of building permits fell by 6.1% over the first three quarters of the year. In theory, less construction work could mean a reduced demand for work permits.
Yet Cayman’s overall economy is expanding, with the ESO report estimating Cayman’s economic growth at 2.8% over the first three quarters of 2025. But that growth is largely being driven by growth in the jurisdiction’s financial services sector, which has a smaller employment footprint than construction.
The report shows the total number of funds registered in the Cayman Islands increased by 2.6% to 30,860 over the period, including 13,119 mutual funds and 17,741 private funds. New company registrations increased by 10.9% to 10,013, while new partnership registrations grew by 18.2% to 2,493 and insurance licences rose by 3.1% to 742.
One of the first sectors to show the impact of a reduction in work permits would be the property rental market. In a Q1 2026 report published in April – so more recent than the ESO’s third-quarter 2025 report – Cayman real estate brokerage Provenance Properties stated that: “The slowing trend of rental increases may be correlated with the moderation of work permits and the resulting deceleration of population growth.”