Honduras

Economy & income

Currency

• Honduran lempira (HNL, L)
• ~26.8 HNL per USD (Jul 2026; ~26.77 spot) — crawling-peg/managed float, weakened ~2.3% over the past year
• USD widely accepted in tourism (Bay Islands/Roatán) and big-ticket deals

GDP per capita

• ~$3,426 nominal (2024, World Bank) → IMF WEO ~$3,607 (2025 est)
• ~$6,586 PPP (2024, World Bank) / ~$6,954 PPP (2025, IMF) — lower-middle-income and one of the poorest economies in Central America
• ~64% still in poverty by national measures

Average salary

• ~$680–690/mo gross (formal-sector avg, wage.is/RemotePeople 2026 ≈ L18,265)
• net typically ~$450–600/mo for urban formal workers
• a large informal sector (~70–80% of the workforce) earns far less
• Numbeo's thin Honduras sample shows only ~$241 net (few contributors — unreliable, flagged)

Median salary

• n/a as an official headline — the national statistics office (INE) reports household income via the EPHPM survey rather than a single published median wage, and the informal-heavy labor market makes any median unreliable
• rough estimate ~$300–450/mo

Minimum wage

• No single rate — tiered by economic sector AND company size (dozens of rates). 2026 average L14,917.20/mo (~$557)
• micro/small firms roughly L9,000–13,000/mo (~$335–485), large firms up to ~L22,000+/mo (~$820)
• Set by the Secretaría de Trabajo, effective Jan 2026, +6–7.5% (paid retroactively)

Cost of living

• Low — single person ~$650/mo excl. rent
• family of four ~$2,315/mo excl. rent
• ~47% cheaper than the US (Numbeo, Jun 2026)
• Numbeo's Honduras dataset is thin (few contributors) — treat as indicative
• A genuinely cheap-CPM Tier-3 market

Digital landscape

Population

• 11.1 million (Oct 2025, DataReportal) — 61.6% urban
• median age 24.2 (very young)
• 49.7% female / 50.3% male
• +1.7% YoY

Internet users

72.4% (~8.00M users; +843K / +11.8% YoY) — 3.05M (27.6%) still offline

Social media users

47.6% (~5.26M identities; 65.8% of internet users; 54.3% male, 45.7% female; +13.9% YoY)

Mobile connections

• 7.48M cellular connections = 67.7% of population (−2.9% YoY)
• 97.4% of connections on mobile broadband (3G/4G/5G)

Devices

• desktop ~59.5% / mobile ~39.3% / tablet ~1.2% (StatCounter page-view share, Jun 2026) — StatCounter skews desktop-heavy in measurement
• real consumption is mobile-first

Ad spend

• Digital ad market ~$84.4M (2024, Statista Outlook) → ~$113.8M by 2028 (+7.76% CAGR)
• Search is the largest slice (~$34.9M, 2024), Social Media ~$28.65M (2025), Video ~$20.1M (2024)
• Note: DataReportal Digital 2026 HN publishes no ad-spend figure

Top social platforms

TikTok ~5.26M ad reach, 74.5% of adults 18+

YouTube ~5.11M, 46.2% of pop

Facebook ~4.60M, 41.6%

Messenger ~2.40M, 21.7%

Instagram ~2.20M, 19.9%

LinkedIn ~1.10M, 10.0%

X/Twitter ~450K, 4.1%

Messengers

• WhatsApp (dominant — de facto standard for personal & business chat and social selling)
• Facebook Messenger (~2.40M reach)
• Instagram Direct
• Telegram (niche/growing)
• Tigo Money (mobile-money wallet — ~1.22M accounts, the key M-Pesa-style rail for P2P, bills & remittances; not a chat app)

Payments & behaviour

Payment methods

• Cash / cash-on-delivery (COD) — the preferred method for most online shoppers, esp. first-time & unbanked buyers
• Credit/debit cards — Visa/Mastercard (~45% of online payments; BAC Credomatic, Ficohsa, Atlántida)
• Tigo Money (mobile-money wallet — remittances, bills, top-ups, in-store & P2P)
• Bank transfer / ACH & online banking (Banco Atlántida, Ficohsa, BAC, Banco de Occidente)
• Remittance rails (Western Union / MoneyGram — remittances ~25%+ of GDP)

E-wallets

• Tigo Money (leading mobile-money wallet — ~1.22M accounts; ~L6B / ~$256M annual transaction volume, +71% over two years)
• Bank apps (BAC, Atlántida, Ficohsa)
• Apple Pay & Google Pay (growing but minority — low card/iOS base)

Cash on delivery

• High — COD is the default for e-commerce due to low banking/card penetration and buyer trust factors
• cash still dominates outside Tegucigalpa & San Pedro Sula

E-commerce

• Low but growing — e-commerce revenue est. ~$2.2B by 2025 (~16% growth)
• heavy cross-border shopping (Shein, Amazon, Temu, eBay, AliExpress) via freight-forwarders
• Instagram/WhatsApp/Facebook social selling is common

Notes

• Best checkout stack: COD + cards + Tigo Money, mobile-optimized and Spanish-language
• Remittances (~$9B+/yr, among the world's highest as a share of GDP) heavily shape disposable income
• Tigo Money is the closest thing to an M-Pesa-scale local rail

Audience & culture

Languages

• Spanish (official, ~97% first language — distinctive Honduran/Central American Spanish)
• Bay Islands Creole English (Roatán, Utila, Guanaja — tourism/expat)
• Garifuna (~100K, Caribbean coast)
• Miskito (~29K, La Mosquitia region)
• Other indigenous — Pech, Tolupán, Tawahka/Sumo, Chortí (small)

Religion

• Evangelical/Protestant ~43% (now the plurality — Evangelical 37.6%, Pentecostal 2.6%, Baptist 1.9%, others)
• Roman Catholic ~36–38% (declining)
• unaffiliated/none ~17% (Latinobarómetro 2024)
• One of the few Latin American countries where Protestants outnumber Catholics

Median age

24.2 years (DataReportal, Oct 2025) — a very young, youthful consumer base

Key seasons

• Christmas & Año Nuevo (Dec — biggest spend; the 13th-month 'aguinaldo' bonus lands mid-December)
• 14th-month salary bonus (paid in June — a mid-year spending bump unique to Honduras)
• Semana Santa / Holy Week (Mar–Apr — major domestic travel & beach exodus)
• Día de la Madre / Mother's Day (May — huge gifting occasion in LatAm)
• Feria Isidra / Carnaval de La Ceiba (May)
• Back-to-school (Feb school-year start; also Aug)
• Black Friday & Cyber (Nov — imported, growing); Independence Day (15 Sep)

Cultural notes

• Football (soccer) is the national obsession — Liga Nacional and the national team drive engagement
• Punta/Garifuna music and reggaeton are popular
• Strong US-diaspora ties and remittances shape tastes and income
• audience is family-oriented, increasingly evangelical, price-sensitive and mobile-first, living on WhatsApp/Facebook with COD-driven trust dynamics

Where to find creators

• TikTok
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Instagram

Media landscape

Creators & public figures

Top creators

Celebrities

Salvador Nasralla ~302K Instagram

TV host/sportscaster turned politician — 2026 presidential candidate, ex-VP; one of Honduras' most recognizable public figures

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Angie Flores ~400K Instagram

Pop singer — runner-up on 'La Academia' (TV Azteca); breakout Honduran music/lifestyle star

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Antony 'Choco' Lozano ~320K Instagram

National-team striker (footballer) — one of Honduras' best-known current players

Luis Palma ~280K Instagram

Winger for Lech Poznań (ex-Celtic) & national-team star — Honduras' most prominent active footballer in Europe

Xiomara Castro ~170K Instagram

President of Honduras (since 2022) — the country's first female president

David Suazo ~124K Instagram

Retired footballer — 'El Rey', Inter Milan/Cagliari legend and one of the greatest Honduran players ever

Carlos Pavón ~100K Instagram

Retired footballer — Honduras' all-time leading goalscorer; national icon & pundit

Affiliate & traffic

Hot verticals

• Nutra / health & beauty (COD + cards)
• Sweepstakes / mobile content & pin-submits
• iGaming / sports betting (grey/offshore — strong football culture)
• Dating
• E-commerce & cross-border (Shein/Temu/Amazon)
• Finance / microloans & remittance-fintech
• Crypto / trading (grey)

Active networks

• Global LatAm CPA networks — AdCombo, Shakes.pro (nutra COD), Dr.Cash (nutra marketplace), Alfaleads, Mobidea, CPAgetti
• Hotmart (info-products/courses — big across LatAm)
• Amazon Associates
• Shein / Temu affiliate programs (cross-border)
• iGaming affiliate programs (offshore operators — grey/unregulated)

Payouts

• Tier-3 Central America ranges (lower than US/EU/Mexico): nutra COD ~$10–20
• iGaming ~$15–80 CPA/FTD (offshore, hybrid common)
• dating ~$1–3 CPL
• finance ~$2–6 CPL
• sweeps ~$0.5–3

Competition

• Low–moderate — a small (~11M), young, mobile, price-sensitive market with cheap CPMs
• less saturated than Mexico/Colombia, and Spanish creatives reuse across Central America (GT/SV/NI). iGaming is grey/offshore
• nutra COD is the workhorse

Seasonality

• Q4 peak (Dec aguinaldo/13th-month + Christmas)
• a distinctive June bump from the 14th-month bonus
• Semana Santa (Mar/Apr)
• betting spikes around Liga Nacional, national-team qualifiers & major football tournaments
• Black Friday (Nov)

Traffic sources

• Meta (Facebook / Instagram) Ads
• TikTok Ads
• Google Search & YouTube
• Push & native (RichAds, PropellerAds, MGID)
• Influencer / creator collabs
• WhatsApp & Facebook groups

Good to know

Capital

Tegucigalpa

Major cities

• Tegucigalpa (capital, ~1.4M metro)
• San Pedro Sula (industrial capital, ~800K–1M metro)
• Choloma
• La Ceiba (Caribbean coast)
• El Progreso
• Choluteca
• Comayagua
• Danlí
• Puerto Cortés (main port)
• Roatán / Bay Islands (tourism)

Time zones

Single zone — Central Standard Time (CST), UTC−6, no daylight saving (DST dropped after 2006)

Android vs iOS

69% 31%

Android 69% iOS 31%

Phone brands

• Samsung (~32.9%)
• Apple (~31.0%)
• Motorola (~5.1%)
• Honor (~4.5%)
• Google Pixel (~3.8%)
• (~11% unclassified/'unknown'; Huawei/Xiaomi minor)

Top e-commerce

• Shein (#1 by usage — clothing/beauty)
• Amazon (cross-border via freight-forwarders)
• Temu (top shopping app; surging)
• eBay & AliExpress (cross-border)
• Elektra / La Curacao / Diunsa (local retail & appliance credit)
• Facebook Marketplace + Instagram/WhatsApp social selling

Peak activity

Weekday evenings ~19:00–22:00 CST (prime), with a lunch ~12:00–14:00 bump; heavy weekend browsing

Creative taboos

• Gang/mara violence & crime and insecurity (historically among the world's highest homicide rates — highly sensitive)
• US migration & caravans
• politics/corruption (ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted on US drug-trafficking charges in 2024)
• poverty
• be respectful of the strong evangelical/Catholic religiosity

Also worth knowing

1. Remittances (~$9B+/yr, ~25%+ of GDP — among the world's highest) drive disposable income; spending tracks family transfers from the US.
2. COD + Tigo Money + WhatsApp/Facebook commerce are the backbone — low card penetration means COD nutra/e-com funnels convert best.
3. TikTok dominates youth (74.5% of adults) — creator-led campaigns beat cold ads; football and faith shape messaging.
4. Very young (median 24.2) and price-sensitive: cheap CPMs but low payouts, with Spanish creatives reusable across Central America (GT/SV/NI).