The Caribbean Michelin Keys 2026: 11 Gained, 0 Lost
The Caribbean & Central America gained 11 Michelin Keys in the 2026 selection and lost 0. Every hotel that lost a Key was verified against its own MICHELIN Guide page.
Across The Caribbean & Central America, eleven hotels gained a MICHELIN Key or moved up a tier in the 2026 selection and none lost ground. The region's nine markets ended the year with 33 Key hotels against 22. Worldwide, 114 hotels lost a Key or dropped a tier. That is growth of 50.0 percent, against 15.3 percent worldwide.
Puerto Rico accounted for two of the region's eleven moves.
Chart: hotels in The Caribbean & Central America whose MICHELIN Key standing changed between the 2025 and 2026 selections. Source: MICHELIN Guide 2026 Key selection, released 18 September 2026. Every loss shown was re-checked on that hotel's own MICHELIN Guide page.
The scoreboard
| Movement | Hotels |
|---|---|
| New Keys awarded | 11 |
| Upgraded a tier | 0 |
| Dropped a tier | 0 |
| Key removed | 0 |
| Key hotels, 2025 → 2026 | 22 → 33 (+11) |
Market by market
| Country or territory | Key hotels 2025 | Key hotels 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turks and Caicos Islands | 3 | 5 | +2 |
| Belize | 4 | 5 | +1 |
| Guatemala | 4 | 5 | +1 |
| Antigua and Barbuda | 3 | 4 | +1 |
| Panama | 3 | 4 | +1 |
| Cayman Islands | 2 | 3 | +1 |
| Saint Lucia | 2 | 3 | +1 |
| Puerto Rico | 0 | 2 | +2 |
| Honduras | 1 | 2 | +1 |
| The Caribbean & Central America | 22 | 33 | +11 |
Every hotel that gained
| Hotel | Where | Country | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carlisle Bay | St. Mary's | Antigua and Barbuda | no Key | One Key |
| Matachica Resort | Ambergris Caye | Belize | no Key | One Key |
| Kimpton Seafire Resort + Spa | Grand Cayman | Cayman Islands | no Key | One Key |
| Bolontiku Hotel Boutique & Spa | Flores | Guatemala | no Key | One Key |
| Kimpton Grand Roatan Resort & Spa | Roatán | Honduras | no Key | One Key |
| Hotel la Compañia Casco Antiguo | Panama City | Panama | no Key | One Key |
| Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve | Dorado | Puerto Rico | no Key | One Key |
| Four Seasons Resort and Residences Puerto Rico | Rio Grande | Puerto Rico | no Key | One Key |
| Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort | Soufriere | Saint Lucia | no Key | One Key |
| Rock House | Providenciales | Turks and Caicos Islands | no Key | One Key |
| Wymara Resort & Villas Turks and Caicos | Providenciales | Turks and Caicos Islands | no Key | One Key |
Every hotel that lost ground
No hotel in this region lost a Key or dropped a tier in the 2026 selection.
Notable results
The gains were led by Puerto Rico (2), Turks and Caicos Islands (2) and Antigua and Barbuda (1). Every gain in the region was at One Key; none reached Two or Three.
The shape of the region's Key list
| Tier | Hotels 2026 |
|---|---|
| Three Keys | 0 |
| Two Keys | 7 |
| One Key | 26 |
| All Key hotels | 33 |
The Caribbean & Central America holds no Three-Key hotel at all; worldwide there are 155, so the region's ceiling is Two Keys. The region holds about 1.2 percent of the world's Key hotels. Four of its 9 markets hold three or fewer Key hotels each — Puerto Rico, Cayman Islands, Honduras and Saint Lucia — so a single award or removal moves a national total noticeably.
| City or area | Key hotels 2026 |
|---|---|
| Providenciales | 4 |
| Soufriere | 3 |
| San Ignacio | 2 |
| St. Mary's | 2 |
| Roatán | 2 |
| Grand Cayman | 2 |
Neighbouring markets
The larger markets around this region are covered separately, each with its own full list of gains and losses: Mexico, Costa Rica and United States. Mexico is the closest comparison for most of the hotels above, and the worldwide summary sets all of them against the global totals.
How the region compares
MICHELIN's second Key selection named 2,832 hotels worldwide on 18 September 2026, against 2,457 a
year earlier. Growth was uneven by tier: One-Key hotels rose 16.0 percent and Two-Key hotels 14.9
percent, while Three-Key hotels rose only 8.4 percent, from 143 to 155.
| Worldwide | The Caribbean & Central America | |
|---|---|---|
| Gained or improved a Key | 568 | 11 |
| Lost a Key or dropped a tier | 114 | 0 |
| Key hotels, 2025 | 2,457 | 22 |
| Key hotels, 2026 | 2,832 | 33 |
The additions were announced. The 114 downward moves were not, which is why they are listed in
full above. The complete worldwide breakdown, including how every loss was verified, is set out in
our analysis of the 2026 selection.
About these figures
The 2025 and 2026 selections were read hotel by hotel from the MICHELIN Guide's own country
listings, and every downward move worldwide was then re-checked against that hotel's individual
page on the Guide before being published. A hotel missing from a country listing has not
necessarily lost anything — several that plainly still hold Keys never appear in those listings —
so only a hotel the Guide still lists, now without a Key, is counted as having lost one. Hotels
whose Guide page has been removed entirely are marked "Left the Guide" rather than counted as
downgrades.
MICHELIN introduced the Key in 2024 as the hotel counterpart to its restaurant Star, awarding One,
Two or Three Keys across a selection of more than 9,000 hotels in over 100 countries on
architecture, design, service, character, consistency and value. Price is not a criterion. The
criteria are set out in the Guide's explainer; the full 2026 list is published here.
Author
2026/09/19
