Panama

Economy & income

Currency

• Balboa (PAB, B/.)
• pegged 1:1 to the US dollar since 1904 — the USD is legal tender and the de facto paper currency (Panama mints only balboa COINS, no banknotes), so B/.1 = US$1 exactly and prices are quoted interchangeably in $/B/.. No FX risk for USD-priced offers (Jul 2026)

GDP per capita

• ~$19,800 nominal (2025, IMF WEO; total GDP ~$88B) — World Bank ~$19,100 (2024)
• ~$38,900 PPP (2025, IMF/World Economics)
• Highest GDP-per-capita in Central America
• services/logistics economy (Panama Canal, Colón Free Zone, banking, copper)
• Real GDP growth ~4.4% (2025, World Bank)

Average salary

• ~$1,100/mo gross official average (2026, wage.is/national)
• net ~$950-1,000/mo after CSS social security (9.75%) + income tax
• All figures in USD (balboa = USD 1:1)
• Numbeo cost data updated Jul 2026

Median salary

• ~$650-735/mo estimated median — roughly 60% of workers earn under $800/mo
• the ~$1,100 mean sits well above the median (right-skewed, large informal sector ~45%)

Minimum wage

• No single national figure — 50+ rates across 74 economic activities, 2 regions and by company size (Executive Decree 13, in force 16 Jan 2026 for two years)
• Simple average ~$636.80/mo (2026)
• range ~$326/mo (rural agriculture) up to ~$677/mo (urban Region 1, large firms)
• In USD (balboa 1:1)

Cost of living

• Medium-High for Latin America (the most expensive in Central America) — Numbeo (Jul 2026): single person ~$780/mo excl. rent, family of four ~$2,860/mo excl. rent
• ~34% cheaper than the US overall
• Panama City 1-bed centre rent ~$1,200/mo
• Dollarised prices, high in the capital

Digital landscape

Population

• 4.58 million (Oct 2025, DataReportal Digital 2026)
• 70.4% urban
• median age 30.3
• young, growing population (~45% under 30)

Internet users

• 78.4% (~3.60M users)
• ~989K offline (21.6%)
• +12.0% YoY (+386K users)

Social media users

• 69.3% (~3.18M social media user identities)
• = 88.3% of internet users
• 54.5% male / 45.5% female
• +17.6% YoY (+475K)

Mobile connections

• 4.85 million cellular connections = 106% of population
• 94.6% on broadband (3G/4G/5G)
• +3.3% YoY

Devices

desktop ~64.9% / mobile ~34.3% / tablet ~0.8% (StatCounter web-traffic pageviews, Jun 2026) — StatCounter reads unusually desktop-heavy, but DataReportal & e-commerce data show mobile is the primary shopping/social channel (~74% of e-com transactions are mobile)

Ad spend

• DataReportal published no ad-spend figure for PA
• Statista estimates digital ad spend ~$251M (2025), of which Search (~$98M) is the largest slice, then Social & Video
• Ad-reach proxies (Oct 2025): TikTok 3.18M, YouTube 2.73M, Instagram 2.70M, Facebook 2.00M

Top social platforms

TikTok ~3.18M ad-audience base, 98.1% of adults 18+ / 88.3% of internet users — dominant reach

YouTube ~2.73M, 59.5% of pop / 75.9% of internet users

Instagram ~2.70M, 58.9% — top Meta ad-reach

Facebook ~2.00M, 43.6%

LinkedIn ~1.60M, 34.9%

Messenger ~781K, 17.0%

X/Twitter ~512K, 11.2%

Messengers

• WhatsApp (dominant personal & business chat across LATAM)
• Facebook Messenger (~781K ad-reach)
• Instagram Direct (youth)
• Telegram (channels/news, growing niche)

Payments & behaviour

Payment methods

• Credit/debit cards — Visa & Mastercard (USD-denominated; dominant for online, esp. higher-value)
• Yappy (Banco General's mobile wallet — the dominant local P2P & online wallet, 1.3M+ users)
• Bank transfer / ACH & online banking
• Nequi (digital wallet, growing)
• Cash / cash-on-delivery (still used by unbanked & informal/marketplace buyers)
• BNPL (emerging among younger shoppers)

E-wallets

• Yappy (Banco General — must-have local wallet)
• Nequi (digital-first wallet)
• PayPal (cross-border)
• Apple Pay / Google Pay (via banks, growing)
• Bank apps (Banco General, BAC, Banistmo, Global Bank)

Cash on delivery

• Moderate-to-low — cards and digital wallets lead in a dollarised, well-banked urban economy
• COD is used mainly by the unbanked/lower-income and for informal or classifieds (Encuentra24) orders

E-commerce

• Growing — market ~$2.6B (2025, Mordor Intelligence)
• digital-buyer penetration ~31-38%
• mobile ~74% of transactions
• among the highest e-commerce adoption in Central America. 'Casillero' (Miami mailbox freight-forwarding) drives heavy cross-border US shopping

Notes

• USD/dollarisation = zero FX friction for USD-priced offers and clean CPA settlement
• Yappy is the essential local wallet for checkout & P2P
• strong card & bank penetration in Panama City

Audience & culture

Languages

• Spanish (~93% first language, official)
• English (~14%, business/tourism; ex-Canal Zone influence + Afro-Antillean English creole 'Guari-Guari' on the Caribbean coast)
• Ngäbere (largest indigenous language, ~200K-250K speakers)
• Guna/Kuna (~57K, San Blas/Guna Yala)
• Emberá, Buglere & other indigenous tongues (indigenous ~12% of the population)

Religion

Predominantly Christian — Catholic majority ~65% (2022 INEC survey), evangelical/Protestant ~22% and rising fast (some 2023 polls put evangelicals near 40-52%), no religion ~6%, other ~4% (Jehovah's Witnesses ~1.4%, Adventists & LDS ~0.6% each; small Jewish, Muslim, Baha'i and Hindu communities)

Median age

30.3 years (DataReportal 2025) — young market, ~45% under 30

Key seasons

• Carnival / Carnaval (Feb-Mar, 4 days pre-Lent — the biggest festival, epic in Las Tablas; near-total business shutdown + heavy spend)
• Mother's Day (8 Dec, tied to Immaculate Conception — a national holiday and one of the single biggest retail/gifting/dining days)
• Christmas & New Year (Dec — main gift/retail peak, extended closures)
• Semana Santa / Holy Week (Mar-Apr — travel & family, many closures)
• Fiestas Patrias (Nov independence month — clustered national holidays, patriotic promos)
• Back-to-school (Feb-Mar, school year starts ~March) & imported Black Friday / Cyber (Nov, growing)

Cultural notes

• Dollarised, US-influenced, highly-banked consumer culture centred on cosmopolitan Panama City
• strong Christian family values
• Reggaeton/urbano has deep Panamanian roots (El General, Nando Boom → 'reggae en español')
• Baseball (national sport) and football are huge
• WhatsApp-first communication
• entrenched cross-border 'casillero' shopping from the US

Where to find creators

• Instagram
• TikTok
• YouTube
• HypeAuditor / Modash / StarNgage / Favikon rankings

Media landscape

Creators & public figures

Top creators

Celebrities

Rubén Blades ~1.0M Instagram

Salsa legend, songwriter & actor (Fear the Walking Dead); ex-Tourism Minister & presidential candidate — Panama's cultural icon

S

Sech (Carlos Morales Williams) ~6.9M Instagram

Reggaeton/Latin-trap superstar ('Otro Trago', 'Relación') — one of Panama's biggest global artists

Boza (Humberto Vargas) ~1.0M Instagram

Urban/reggaeton star ('Hecha Pa' Mí') — new-wave Panamanian hitmaker

Erika Ender ~341K Instagram

Latin-Grammy songwriter — co-wrote the global smash 'Despacito'; singer & TV personality

Roberto Durán ~395K Instagram

Boxing legend 'Manos de Piedra' — four-division world champion, one of the greatest ever

Mariano Rivera ~289K Instagram

MLB Hall of Fame closer (NY Yankees) — the only player ever elected unanimously to Cooperstown

Adalberto 'Coco' Carrasquilla ~291K Instagram

Footballer — Panama national-team midfielder, key to the 2026 World Cup qualification

Affiliate & traffic

Hot verticals

• iGaming / sports betting (hot, but facing the 2026 ad-ban risk)
• Nutra / COD (weight-loss, beauty, supplements)
• Finance / crypto / trading
• Dating
• Sweepstakes / prize & e-commerce (dropshipping)
• Travel & tourism

Active networks

• Admitad / Mitgo
• AdCombo (COD nutra)
• Adsterra (native/push/pop)
• PropellerAds / RichAds (push & pop for LATAM)
• iGaming partner programs (Betcris, 1xBet, local sportsbooks)
• LATAM CPA networks (Shakes.pro, CPAgetti, iMonetizeIt); Hotmart for infoproducts

Payouts

• Betting CPA ~$25-100/FTD
• nutra COD ~$8-20/order
• finance/crypto CPL/CPA higher
• dating CPL low single digits
• payouts in USD (no FX conversion)

Competition

• Low-to-medium — a small (~4.6M) but affluent, dollarised, highly-banked Tier-2 market, usually bundled into Central America / LATAM campaigns
• USD settlement simplifies offers and payouts
• CPMs cheaper than the US

Seasonality

• Carnival (Feb/Mar) and Christmas + Mother's-Day (Dec) are the spend peaks
• betting spikes around football (Panama qualified for the 2026 World Cup) and MLB baseball
• back-to-school Feb-Mar

Traffic sources

• Meta (Facebook / Instagram) Ads
• TikTok Ads
• Google Search & YouTube
• Push & native (Adsterra / PropellerAds)
• WhatsApp & Telegram
• Influencer / UGC collabs

Good to know

Capital

Panama City (Ciudad de Panamá)

Major cities

• Panama City
• San Miguelito
• Tocumen
• David (Chiriquí)
• Arraiján
• La Chorrera
• Colón
• Las Cumbres
• Santiago de Veraguas
• Chitré

Time zones

• Single zone — Eastern Standard Time (EST, UTC-5) year-round, NO daylight saving
• matches US Eastern in winter and is one hour behind US Eastern in (northern) summer

Android vs iOS

67% 33%

Android 67% iOS 33%

Phone brands

• Apple (~32.6%)
• Samsung (~29.4%)
• Xiaomi (~9.8%)
• Honor (~8.3%)
• Google Pixel (~3.7%)

Top e-commerce

• Amazon (US, via 'casillero'/Miami freight-forwarding)
• AliExpress / Temu / Shein (cross-border)
• PriceSmart (membership warehouse club)
• Panafoto & Multimax (electronics)
• Do it Center / Novey (home & hardware)
• Encuentra24 (leading classifieds/marketplace)

Peak activity

Weekday evenings ~19:00-23:00 local (EST/UTC-5) with a lunch bump ~12:00-14:00; heavier late-morning & evening browsing on weekends

Creative taboos

• US relations & sovereignty over the Panama Canal (Trump's 2025-26 'take back the Canal' rhetoric is a raw national-pride issue)
• the 1989 US invasion & Noriega era
• Darién Gap migration
• corruption
• indigenous (comarca) land rights
• Christian family values → tread carefully with adult, LGBTQ+ and irreverent-religious creative

Also worth knowing

1. Full dollarisation (USD legal tender, balboa 1:1) = zero FX friction for USD offers and clean CPA settlement — a real operational edge over other LATAM GEOs.
2. The 2026 gambling advertising ban (Bill 403, awaiting signature) threatens the betting/casino affiliate channel INCLUDING influencer promos — pivot betting spend early; nutra, finance/crypto, e-commerce and dating are safer bets.
3. Panama qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup — football is a major engagement & betting driver through mid-2026, alongside MLB baseball.
4. Wealthy, English-friendly logistics/banking hub (Canal + Colón Free Zone) with entrenched cross-border 'casillero' shopping from the US