Cuba Again Not Included In Annual U.S. Department Of State Fiscal Transparency Report

Today, the Department of State released the 2026 Fiscal Transparency Report (FTR).  Fiscal transparency is a critical element of effective public financial management: it helps build market confidence, underpins global economic stability, and levels the playing field for U.S. firms.  It fosters greater government accountability by providing a window into government budgets and spending.  Congress mandated annual reviews of fiscal transparency to help ensure the appropriate use of U.S. taxpayer funds related to foreign assistance.

In this year’s report, Department officials found that 73 of 139 governments and one entity assessed met the minimum fiscal transparency requirements.  Sixty-seven did not meet the minimum fiscal transparency requirements, but of those 14 made significant progress toward meeting the minimum fiscal transparency requirements.  

The report describes the minimum fiscal transparency requirements and reviews the governments and entity assessed, most of which were identified as recipients of U.S. assistance in the 2014 Fiscal Transparency Report. The Department evaluated the public availability, completeness, and reliability of budget documents, as well as the transparency of processes for awarding government contracts and licenses and public procurement contracts.  The Fiscal Transparency Report helps create competitive business conditions for U.S. companies abroad by improving public financial management to reduce the risk of corruption and unfair practices in international markets, promoting stronger industry standards to improve market access, reducing the risk of financial crimes, and requiring debt data disclosure to counter predatory lending. 

You can find the Fiscal Transparency Report, as well as information about the Fiscal Transparency Innovation Fund, on our website.  For further information, please contact the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs’ Fiscal Transparency team at fiscaltransparency@state.gov.

Fiscal transparency informs citizens how government and tax revenues are spent and is a critical element of effective public financial management.  Transparency provides citizens a window into government budgets and those citizens, in turn, hold governments accountable.  It underpins market confidence and growth.  The Congressionally mandated Fiscal Transparency Report (FTR) is a tool to identify deficiencies and support needed changes.

As directed by Congress, EEB/OMA evaluates data on fiscal transparency collected at 140 of our posts around the world against minimum requirements and publishes the results on the Department’s website annually.  To meet minimum requirements, governments must make key budget documents publicly available within a reasonable period.  They must be substantially complete and generally reliable.  Governments must also follow a transparent process for awarding government contracts for natural resource extraction.  For questions, please contact EEB Fiscal Transparency at EEB-OMA-GFSU@groups.state.gov.