Saint Martin

Economy & income

Currency

• Euro (EUR, €)
• ~€0.88 per USD (1 EUR ≈ $1.14, Jul 2026)
• US dollar also circulates and is widely accepted alongside the euro

GDP per capita

• ~€16,572 (~$22,000) nominal per capita (2014 CEROM estimate — last official figure)
• no recent official GDP (Saint-Martin lacks full economic accounts)
• 2021 GDP still ~17% below 2016 pre-Irma level
• PPP n/a (not computed for the territory)

Average salary

• No territory-specific published average
• SMIC (min wage) anchors most pay: net ~€1,426/mo (~$1,625) and gross €1,801.80/mo (~$2,055) in 2025 (INSEE/service-public)
• large tourism/informal workforce earns at or near SMIC

Median salary

• n/a — Saint-Martin has fiscal autonomy (income tax levied locally), so INSEE Filosofi income data does not cover the collectivity
• NOTE: the ~€24,710/yr figure that surfaces under 'Saint-Martin' in INSEE belongs to a homonymous mainland commune (Hautes-Pyrénées, code 65392), NOT this Caribbean territory (code 97801)

Minimum wage

• French SMIC applies: €11.88/hr = €1,801.80/mo gross (~$2,055) in 2025
• rises to €12.02/hr in 2026 (INSEE, service-public.fr)

Cost of living

• High — an island that imports nearly everything, at eurozone/EU price levels
• Numbeo has no dedicated Saint-Martin (French) dataset (thin/absent) and Sint Maarten data was rate-limited
• costs run at or above the French Antilles

Digital landscape

Population

• 25.5 thousand (DataReportal, Jan 2025, UN estimate)
• INSEE census counts higher — 31,477 (2021) and 32,489 (2019)
• population declining ~2–5%/yr since Hurricane Irma (2017)

Internet users

60.0% (~15.3K users, Jan 2025); +14.3% YoY

Social media users

• 47.5% (~12.1K identities, Jan 2025)
• 79.1% of internet users are on social

Mobile connections

• 21.9K cellular connections = 86.0% of population (Jan 2025)
• 93.8% broadband (3G–5G)

Devices

mobile ~51.5% / desktop ~47.2% / tablet ~1.4% (StatCounter, Jun 2026) — unusually high desktop share for a Tier-3 label, reflecting the affluent EU-territory reality

Ad spend

• n/a — DataReportal does not break out ad spend for this micro-market
• digital budgets flow via Meta, Google and French/EU networks
• digital ~n/a

Top social platforms

• Facebook — ~75% of social web-referrals, StatCounter Jun 2026; clearly the #1 platform
• Instagram — ~7% referrals; strong with youth & tourism
• TikTok — very popular with Caribbean youth; app-only so under-counted in web referrals
• YouTube — ~8% referrals
• X/Twitter — ~5% referrals
• Snapchat / Pinterest — smaller

Messengers

• WhatsApp (dominant messenger across the French Caribbean)
• Facebook Messenger
• Instagram DM
• iMessage / SMS (notable given ~31% iOS share and US ties)
• Telegram (minor). NOTE: no mobile-money wallets (M-Pesa-style) — this is a euro/card economy, not a mobile-money market

Payments & behaviour

Payment methods

• Visa & Mastercard (dominant; French 'Carte Bancaire' cards)
• Cash — both euros and US dollars widely accepted
• American Express (tourism & hospitality)
• Bank transfer / SEPA
• Apple Pay & Google Pay (contactless, growing)

E-wallets

• PayPal
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay

Cash on delivery

• Low — card- and cash-based economy, not a cash-on-delivery market like typical Tier-3
• most e-commerce is cross-border (France/US) and paid by card

E-commerce

• Modest/local — tiny population
• much retail is in-person duty-free/tourism
• Residents shop online mainly via French sites (Amazon.fr, Cdiscount) and US retailers, with shipping/customs friction

Notes

• Eurozone & EU territory but with local customs/tax autonomy
• USD circulates alongside EUR because of tourism and the shared island with Dutch Sint Maarten
• banking via Caribbean/French branches (e.g. Republic Bank, BDAF)

Audience & culture

Languages

• French (official; administration & schooling)
• English (lingua franca; the island is 'essentially anglophone')
• Spanish (large Dominican/Hispanic community)
• Haitian Creole
• Guadeloupean / Virgin Islands Creole
• Papiamento & Dutch (minor, cross-border)

Religion

Christian majority — Roman Catholic the largest (Wikipedia 2020 est. ~92%), with sizeable Protestant/evangelical communities (Methodist, Adventist, Pentecostal) and small Hindu, Muslim, Rastafari and Baha'i minorities

Median age

• 42.5 years (DataReportal, Jan 2025) — note the census profile was younger (39.4% under 25 in 2015)
• reflects youth out-migration

Key seasons

• Winter high season Dec–Apr (dry; peak tourism & spending)
• Christmas / New Year peak
• Carnival (French side Feb–Mar; Sint Maarten Carnival Apr–May)
• SXM Festival — electronic music, Mar (French side)
• Hurricane season Jun–Nov (low season, storm risk)
• Bastille Day (Jul 14) & Schoelcher/abolition commemorations

Cultural notes

• Bilingual FR/EN with heavy Creole
• USD used alongside EUR
• the open border with Dutch Sint Maarten drives cross-side shopping
• tourism/hospitality-driven with seasonal cash flow
• Facebook-first with a notable desktop share
• card payments (no mobile-money)
• large informal economy and high unemployment (~33%)

Where to find creators

• Instagram
• Facebook
• TikTok
• YouTube
• StarNgage rankings

Media landscape

Creators & public figures

Top creators

Celebrities

Louis Mussington n/a (public figure, minimal IG)

President of the Collectivity of Saint-Martin (2022–); politician

Daniel Gibbs n/a (public figure)

Former President of Saint-Martin (2017–2022) and ex-MP; politician

Louis-Constant Fleming n/a

First President of the Territorial Council of Saint-Martin (2007)

Sarah Wescot-Williams n/a

First Prime Minister of Sint Maarten (Dutch side of the shared island); veteran politician

Claude Wathey n/a

Historic Sint Maarten political leader who drove the island's tourism boom (d. 1998)

Eugene Holiday n/a

First Governor of Sint Maarten (2010–2022)

Affiliate & traffic

Hot verticals

• Travel & tourism — villa/hotel/flight booking (core)
• Real estate (luxury villa sales & rentals)
• iGaming — sports betting & poker (ANJ-licensed)
• Crypto / trading
• Dating
• E-commerce & duty-free retail
• Insurance / consumer finance

Active networks

• French/EU networks: Kwanko, Awin, TimeOne, Rakuten Advertising
• Global: CJ (Commission Junction), Impact, Tradedoubler
• iGaming/CPA networks serving the FR geo (ANJ-licensed betting/poker brands)
• Amazon Associates (Amazon.fr)

Payouts

• Payouts follow the French/EU tier (EUR — higher than a classic Tier-3): travel/real-estate CPA can be high-ticket
• iGaming CPA/CPL mid-to-high
• but reachable audience is minuscule, so think quality/niche, not scale

Competition

• Very low volume (tiny ~25–32K population) but high-value tourism & real-estate niches
• you compete with mainland-France and US advertisers rather than local players

Seasonality

• Strongly seasonal — Dec–Apr winter-tourism peak
• weak-to-dead in hurricane season (Jun–Nov)

Traffic sources

• Facebook/Meta ads
• Google Search & YouTube
• Instagram & TikTok influencers
• Travel/booking SEO
• Email

Good to know

Capital

Marigot

Major cities

• Marigot (capital)
• Grand-Case
• Quartier d'Orléans
• Sandy Ground
• Concordia
• French Cul-de-Sac

Time zones

Single zone — Atlantic Standard Time (AST), UTC-4, no daylight saving

Android vs iOS

69% 31%

Android 69% iOS 31%

Phone brands

• Apple (~31%, = iOS share)
• Samsung (leading Android brand)
• Xiaomi
• Google/Others (approx., derived from OS split)

Top e-commerce

• Amazon.fr
• Cdiscount
• Local duty-free retailers
• US retailers (cross-border shipping)
• Facebook Marketplace

Peak activity

Evenings ~19:00–23:00 AST and weekend mornings; plan for split FR/EN/US-facing audiences

Creative taboos

• Hurricane Irma (2017) trauma and still-incomplete reconstruction
• French-vs-Dutch side tensions
• immigration and informal/illegal housing
• high unemployment & poverty — avoid tone-deaf luxury framing that ignores local hardship

Also worth knowing

• Tiny audience (~25–32K) but affluent tourism & real-estate niches — a quality-over-volume EU/eurozone micro-market, NOT a classic cheap-CPM Tier-3 despite the label
• Open border with Dutch Sint Maarten (separate ISO 'SX', US-dollar, largely unregulated gambling) — plan island-wide creative but split by currency and ad rules
• Card/euro economy with heavy Facebook + WhatsApp use and ~33% unemployment; no mobile-money, and USD is accepted everywhere