WILLEMSTAD – Curaçao's position as the country with the highest collective tax and premium burden in the Dutch Kingdom is driven to a significant extent by the cost of financing its social insurance system, rather than simply by substantially higher ordinary taxation.
The latest figures from the College for Financial Supervision (Cft) put Curaçao's total tax and social-premium burden at approximately 42% of gross domestic product in 2025. Of that amount, roughly 28 percentage points come from taxes and about 14 percentage points from mandatory social premiums.
The distinction becomes clear when Curaçao is compared with Aruba.
Aruba's ordinary tax burden is also around 28% of GDP, according to the Cft factsheet. However, mandatory social premiums account for approximately 10% of GDP, leaving Aruba with a combined burden of around 38%.
The roughly four-percentage-point difference between the two islands therefore comes primarily from social premiums rather than ordinary taxation.
Healthcare is one of the major pressures behind Curaçao's social financing challenge.
The Cft reported that Curaçao spent approximately 14.7% of GDP on healthcare in 2023. That compares with 8.7% in Aruba and approximately 6.5% in Sint Maarten. The financial supervisor explicitly warned that Curaçao's exceptionally high healthcare expenditure contributes to its high tax and premium burden and limits money available for other government priorities.
Curaçao's aging population is adding another layer of pressure. The Cft reported that people aged 65 and older accounted for 25.3% of Curaçao's population in 2025.
At the same time, the maximum AOV old-age pension was increased from XCG 862 to XCG 1,000 per month as of January 1, 2026. The Cft has warned that the structural financial consequences of that increase must be properly incorporated into Curaçao's public finances.
The government's latest multi-year projections show why the issue is becoming increasingly urgent. According to the 2027 budget projections, the Schommelfonds — the buffer used to absorb deficits among the social insurance funds — is expected to fall to approximately XCG 4.1 million by the end of 2028 without additional intervention. The government has budgeted more than XCG 64 million for 2029 and nearly XCG 151 million for 2030 to prevent the fund from falling into deficit.
This leaves Curaçao facing a difficult policy choice. Maintaining current and expanding social benefits requires sustainable financing, but increasing taxes or social premiums further would come on top of a collective burden that is already among the highest within the Kingdom.
The alternative is to contain expenditures, broaden the contribution base, finance a larger portion through other government revenue or reform expensive parts of the social insurance and healthcare systems.
The figures therefore suggest that Curaçao's debate over taxes cannot be separated from a broader question: how the island intends to finance healthcare, pensions and other social protections as its population ages.