Jamaica's sugary drinks tax: 22 cents a gram against diabetes

A health tax on sugary drinks, Jamaica's first

Jamaica now taxes sugar in drinks. The special consumption tax (SCT) on non-alcoholic sweetened beverages, announced by Finance Minister Fayval Williams in the 2026/27 budget, took effect on 1 May 2026, the country's first health tax on sugary drinks³. It was projected to raise about J$10.1 billion in its first year¹². The Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton, framed it as a health measure from the start: "a decrease in the consumption of sugary drinks will lead to healthier families and a healthier nation", he said, adding that it would "also lead to a decrease in diabetes and obesity"¹.

The numbers behind that argument are familiar to every Jamaican physician. According to Health Ministry figures reported by the Jamaica Observer, Jamaica ranks 10th in the world for sugary drink consumption; 70 to 86 % of children and 77 % of adults drink one or more sugary drinks a day; and in the 2016/2017 Jamaica Health and Lifestyle Survey one in eight Jamaicans aged 15 and older had diabetes, of whom only 27.5 % had it controlled¹. Dr Tufton has said the National Health Fund spent almost J$7 billion in 2025 treating conditions linked to obesity⁶.

From 2 cents per millilitre to 22 cents per gram

The tax changed shape within weeks. The February proposal was a flat J$0.02 per millilitre, at least J$12 on a 600 ml bottle, regardless of how much sugar a drink contained⁷. Beverage makers objected. Wisynco Group Chairman William Mahfood told the Observer "you're taxing the very poorest in the country" and said "there is no science behind it as far as going to have an impact on the reduction in consumption"; Opposition finance spokesman Julian Robinson said "I do not believe the price increases will change the world"⁸.

Closing the budget debate on 24 March, the Finance Minister replaced the volume levy with a charge of 22 cents per gram of added sugar, moved the start date from 1 April to 1 May, and said the Government would keep monitoring prices, consumption and reformulation²⁴. A working group of the health and finance ministries and manufacturers is to keep meeting on the tiered system the industry asked for².

Her message to manufacturers was direct: "The lower the sugar, the lower the tax"².

Health groups had welcomed the tax. In an open letter on 26 February, the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, the Heart Foundation of Jamaica and the Jamaica Youth Advocacy Network congratulated the Government, noted that Barbados, Bermuda, Dominica and Grenada already tax such drinks, and said the revenue could be channelled into health promotion and disease prevention¹⁰. The Observer's editorial page called it "an important tax" but warned that "taxation won't be enough"⁷, and argued that its benefits depend on public education, healthier products and more physical activity, especially school sport; it also noted that a similar tax was considered in 2018 but never implemented¹¹.

The J$3 billion shortfall

The first quarter did not go to plan. Local SCT collections for April to June 2026 were J$5.52 billion against a budget of J$8.57 billion, a gap of J$3.04 billion or 35.5 %, according to the Independent Fiscal Commission. The Ministry of Finance cited some firms not remitting SCT for May after the beverage tax took effect, businesses and consumers changing behaviour ahead of scheduled tax increases, and weaker performance in several sectors. The Independent Fiscal Commission said the information provided was not enough to judge whether that explanation was reasonable⁵.

What the evidence says

Sugar taxes are among the better-studied public health measures. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis in JAMA Network Open, pooling 62 studies, found that on average 82 % of the tax was passed on to prices and that taxed beverage sales fell by 15 %⁹. In Mexico, household purchases of taxed beverages fell about 6 % below the expected trend in the first year of its 2014 tax, reaching 12 % by December, with a 9 % average fall in low-income households; purchases of untaxed drinks, mainly bottled water, rose about 4 %¹². Neither study measured diabetes outcomes directly, which is why Jamaican physicians will be watching the Government's promised monitoring of consumption and reformulation⁴⁹¹².

Why it matters in the clinic

For physicians, the tax is a population-level complement to what happens in the consulting room. Jamaica's diabetes control rate is low¹, and treating obesity-linked disease already costs the NHF billions a year⁶. A tax that nudges reformulation and consumption, and whose revenue health groups say could fund prevention¹⁰, acts upstream of both. Patients will ask whether "zero sugar" drinks are the answer: under the final design, drinks with no added sugar pay no SCT at all².