Updated April 2026 · U.S. Census Bureau data
Puerto Rico City Spending Rankings
Puerto Rico has 7 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 945K in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 50/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Puerto Rico's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 50/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Puerto Rico cities are running clean books and adequately funded pensions; others are showing strain on debt service or pension contributions. The split is visible in the rankings below.
Puerto Rico Fiscal Profile
Healthiest and Most Stressed Cities
Top Fiscal Performers
All 7 Cities in Puerto Rico
San Juan zona urbana, PR
Pop. 323K
Bayamón zona urbana, PR
Pop. 169K
Carolina zona urbana, PR
Pop. 139K
Ponce zona urbana, PR
Pop. 111K
Caguas zona urbana, PR
Pop. 74K
Guaynabo zona urbana, PR
Pop. 70K
Mayagüez zona urbana, PR
Pop. 60K
How These Rankings Are Calculated
City Fiscal Health Scores combine budget balance and reserves (25%), debt burden per capita (20%), pension funded ratio (20%), spending efficiency (15%), revenue diversity (10%), and three-year trend direction (10%). All inputs come from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. For the largest cities, we cross-reference the Lincoln Institute's Fiscally Standardized Cities database to adjust for school-district and county overlap. Pension data comes from the Public Plans Database. Best-practice weighting follows guidance from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). Read the full methodology.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many cities in Puerto Rico are covered by CitySpend?
CitySpend covers 7 cities in Puerto Rico with 50,000 or more residents, totaling 945K in population. Smaller municipalities, towns, and unincorporated areas are excluded from the dataset.
What is Puerto Rico's average Fiscal Health Score?
Puerto Rico's 7 covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 50/100. The score combines budget balance and reserves, debt burden per capita, pension funding, spending efficiency, revenue diversity, and three-year trend direction. Each city is benchmarked against population peers, so a 200,000-resident city is compared to other mid-size cities, not against the largest cities in the country.
Where does Puerto Rico city spending data come from?
Every figure on this page is drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, with population estimates from the American Community Survey. For the largest cities, we cross-reference the Lincoln Institute's Fiscally Standardized Cities database to adjust for school-district overlap. Federal grant flows come from USASpending.gov; pension data, where available, comes from the Public Plans Database.
Which Puerto Rico cities have the strongest fiscal health?
San Juan zona urbana (C), Bayamón zona urbana (C), Carolina zona urbana (C) rank among the top fiscal performers in Puerto Rico. Strong scores typically pair balanced budgets with low debt-per-capita and well-funded pensions. See the rankings below for the full list.
Which Puerto Rico cities are most fiscally stressed?
Mayagüez zona urbana (C), Guaynabo zona urbana (C), Caguas zona urbana (C) rank toward the bottom of the Puerto Rico fiscal health distribution. Common stress signals include pension underfunding, elevated debt service, and revenue concentration in a single tax source. A low score is a screening signal, not a verdict, always read the city's audited Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (ACFR) before drawing conclusions.
Puerto Rico has 7 cities with 50,000 or more residents covered by CitySpend, totaling 945K in covered population. The average Fiscal Health Score across these cities is 50/100, sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. Puerto Rico's covered cities post an average Fiscal Health Score of 50/100 (grade C), squarely in the middle of the national distribution. Some Puerto Rico cities are running clean books and adequately funded pensions; others are showing strain on debt service or pension contributions. The split is visible in the rankings below.
For this entity, the underlying data on this page comes from the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances. The breakdown above is the federal record; the paragraphs below add the per-entity context that makes the headline numbers usable for a real decision rather than just a data lookup.
Every number on this page links back to the Census Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances; the methodology page describes the inputs, refresh cadence, and known limitations of the underlying data product.
Practical use of this page is in combination with the comparison and ranking pages elsewhere on the site, which surface the same data for this entity’s peers within U.S. cities, counties, and states. A single-entity reading without peer context can be misleading when an entity is an outlier on one axis but typical on another.