Trinidad and Tobago removed from EU tax list

Trinidad and To­ba­go has been of­fi­cial­ly re­moved from the Eu­ro­pean Union list of non-co­op­er­a­tive tax ju­ris­dic­tions fol­low­ing a de­ci­sion by the Eu­ro­pean Union’s Eco­nom­ic and Fi­nan­cial Af­fairs Coun­cil on 17 Feb­ru­ary 2026.

The Min­istry of Fi­nance said this mile­stone re­flects sev­er­al years of sus­tained com­mit­ment, con­struc­tive di­a­logue and close co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Eu­ro­pean Union au­thor­i­ties to align with in­ter­na­tion­al­ly agreed stan­dards for tax good gov­er­nance.

Cé­cile Tassin, EU Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, said: “The progress made by Trinidad and To­ba­go on the path to­wards meet­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly agreed stan­dards on tax good gov­er­nance is im­pres­sive. These ef­forts should be com­mend­ed. They are a pos­i­tive sign for the con­tin­ued strength­en­ing of our part­ner­ship.”

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said: “We warm­ly wel­come and cel­e­brate the sig­nif­i­cant progress that Trinidad and To­ba­go has achieved in its en­gage­ment with the Eu­ro­pean Union on mat­ters of in­ter­na­tion­al tax good gov­er­nance. This mile­stone re­flects my Gov­ern­ment’s sus­tained com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, fair­ness and ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al­ly ac­cept­ed stan­dards. This achieve­ment un­der­scores our ded­i­ca­tion to im­ple­ment­ing ro­bust glob­al tax stan­dards and strength­ens con­fi­dence in our eco­nom­ic and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works. We ex­press our ap­pre­ci­a­tion to our part­ners in the Eu­ro­pean Union for rec­og­niz­ing the re­forms we have un­der­tak­en, and we look for­ward to deep­en­ing our col­lab­o­ra­tion as we con­tin­ue build­ing a mod­ern, com­pet­i­tive, and glob­al­ly in­te­grat­ed econ­o­my.”

The EU tax list­ing process sup­ports glob­al ef­forts to com­bat tax eva­sion and avoid­ance risks, strength­en trans­paren­cy and pro­mote fair and re­spon­si­ble tax­a­tion world­wide. By meet­ing these stan­dards, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­in­forces its rep­u­ta­tion as a re­li­able and co­op­er­a­tive in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial part­ner and con­tributes to in­ter­na­tion­al ef­forts to re­duce il­lic­it fi­nan­cial flows and tax abuse.

To achieve this re­sult, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­placed its for­mer Free Trade Zone regime, which au­thor­i­ties found harm­ful, with a Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone regime that meets the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard.

Be­tween 2024 and 2025, the coun­try strength­ened its tax trans­paren­cy frame­work. In No­vem­ber 2024, Trinidad and To­ba­go signed the OECD Mul­ti­lat­er­al Con­ven­tion on Mu­tu­al Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­sis­tance in Tax Mat­ters. In Ju­ly 2025, the Glob­al Fo­rum on Trans­paren­cy and Ex­change of In­for­ma­tion for Tax Pur­pos­es gave the coun­try a “Large­ly Com­pli­ant” rat­ing on ex­change of in­for­ma­tion on re­quest. In De­cem­ber 2025, the Glob­al Fo­rum con­firmed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s laws met the stan­dards for the au­to­mat­ic ex­change of fi­nan­cial ac­count in­for­ma­tion.

Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so ad­dressed the BEPS In­clu­sive Frame­work’s gen­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions on Coun­try-by-Coun­try re­port­ing to pre­vent prof­it shift­ing by multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies.

The Min­istry said these re­forms com­plet­ed a com­pre­hen­sive re­form agen­da and en­abled the Eu­ro­pean Union to re­move Trinidad and To­ba­go from the EU tax list in Feb­ru­ary 2026. It said the de­ci­sion re­flects the coun­try’s re­form tra­jec­to­ry and demon­strates the ben­e­fits of in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion in pro­mot­ing trans­paren­cy, fair­ness and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth.