Foreign Powers and Investors in Puerto Rico 2026

PUERTO RICO · FOREIGN POWERS

Puerto Rico foreign influence runs mostly through companies, a federal oversight board and Washington’s disaster agencies, not through the embassies and lenders that dominate foreign policy elsewhere. This guide names each main outsider as of October 2026, says what each brings and says what each wants in return.

• Law: Congress sets the island’s status, and the oversight board certifies its budgets.
• Money: bondholders, federal disaster grants and foreign companies.
• Power: LUMA Energy, Genera PR and Siemens Energy.
• Industry: drug and device makers, plus individual investors under Act 60.
• Security: the Army, the Navy and the Coast Guard.
• People: a diaspora larger than the island itself.

Puerto Rico Foreign Status in Plain Terms

Puerto Rico is a commonwealth and an unincorporated US territory, which the Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs defines as an area where Congress has decided that only selected parts of the Constitution apply. People born on the island since 13 January 1941 are US citizens at birth under federal law.

In 2016 the Supreme Court ruled that Puerto Rico is not a separate sovereign from the United States for double jeopardy purposes, because Congress is the ultimate source of its authority. In 2020 the Court noted that Congress created the oversight board under the Territory Clause, which lets it make all needful rules for a territory.

That legal frame explains why the IMF and the World Bank are not lenders here. The IMF says it has 191 member countries and the World Bank’s lending arm lists 189, and Puerto Rico appears on neither list.

The island does sit at one regional table, as an associate member of ECLAC, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The commission counts 14 non-independent Caribbean territories in that group.

The Census Bureau counts 2.7% of residents as foreign-born for 2020 to 2024, so the outsiders in this guide are mostly institutions and companies rather than migrants. The island’s population fell from 3,285,874 in the 2020 census to 3,184,835 in July 2025, and the World Bank puts its economy at about US$129.4 billion in 2025.

The Oversight Board and the Bondholders

Congress passed PROMESA, the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, on 30 June 2016. The law set up a board of seven members appointed by the President of the United States, plus one ex officio member designated by the governor.

• Power: the board decides in its sole discretion whether each proposed budget complies with the fiscal plan.
• End point: the board terminates when it certifies market access and four consecutive fiscal years of spending within revenue.
• Track record: 12 debt restructurings and more than US$55 billion in principal and interest payments eliminated, the board says.

The board says Puerto Rico faced more than US$70 billion in debt and more than US$55 billion in unfunded pension liabilities when the law passed. It says the Commonwealth emerged from bankruptcy in 2022.

Title III of PROMESA works roughly like US bankruptcy law, and a plan that the court confirms binds every creditor group, the board says. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, known as PREPA, entered bankruptcy in July 2017 with about US$8.5 billion due to bondholders, and the board has offered about 4% of that, Bond Buyer reported on 18 March 2026.

On 16 March 2026 Judge Laura Taylor Swain denied a bondholder motion that sought priority for at least US$3.7 billion in claims, and the board said its plan provides up to US$2.6 billion for all PREPA creditors. Board lawyer Martin Bienenstock told the court that mediation had made no progress, Bond Buyer reported, and some board members are due to leave in September 2027.

Control of the board is itself in court. President Donald Trump sent dismissal notices to five of its seven members on 1 August 2025, and on 3 October 2025 a federal judge in San Juan held that the three who sued had “never been properly removed from office”, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The San Juan Daily Star reported on 2 September 2026 that the Justice Department does not oppose making that order a permanent injunction, after the First Circuit sent the case back on 17 August. The board’s own website lists Arthur J. González as chair, with Andrew Biggs, John Nixon and Betty Rosa as members and Governor Jenniffer González-Colón as the ex officio member.

Energy: LUMA, Genera and Siemens Energy

Two private operators now run the island’s power system, and both are owned from outside Puerto Rico. LUMA Energy runs the poles and wires, and Genera PR runs the state-owned power plants.

• LUMA Energy: grid operator, owned by Quanta Services and ATCO, under a 15-year agreement dated 17 June 2020.
• Genera PR: plant operator, a New Fortress Energy subsidiary, selected in January 2023 for a 10-year agreement covering about 3,600 megawatts.
• Siemens Energy: supplier of two SGT-800 gas turbines of about 100 megawatts at Costa Sur, with testing planned for the first quarter of 2027.

A Puerto Rico Senate resolution of January 2026 names LUMA’s parent companies as Quanta Services and ATCO. On 22 July 2025 the government served LUMA a formal dispute notice under Article 15 of the contract, signed by the executive director of the Public-Private Partnerships Authority.

Metro Puerto Rico reported that the letter said LUMA’s promises of world-class expertise and financial discipline had not been kept. The case is now before the Puerto Rico Supreme Court, where LUMA filed its opposition on 5 October 2026, El Nuevo Día reported.

The government told the court on 5 September 2026 that the Electric Power Authority could temporarily take back the grid until a new operator is chosen. LUMA told the court that cancelling the contract would cost the authority’s ratepayers at least US$1.3 billion and that the government would owe a US$143.3 million termination charge if the contract is cancelled this year.

Those are LUMA’s own figures, and the Public-Private Partnerships Authority had not replied to the newspaper’s request for comment. LUMA wants the contract to stand and warns that Puerto Rico could lose federal funds for grid repair, while the government says LUMA has repeatedly failed its responsibilities.

Genera PR is a subsidiary of New Fortress Energy, which is also its main fuel supplier, El Nuevo Día reports. Genera says units 7 and 9 of the San Juan plant were approved for conversion to natural gas on 21 March 2026, and the newspaper links such approvals to federal funds.

New Fortress is restructuring its own debt, and its March 2026 plan would cut debt by about 90% to roughly US$527 million and give creditors 65% of a new company called New NFE, Metro Puerto Rico reported. The San Juan Daily Star, citing the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, reported that the Genera contract allows termination if Genera or its parent files for bankruptcy.

Siemens Energy’s two turbines are for the Costa Sur plant in Guayanilla, with Genera as the customer, and the company’s June 2025 schedule had the first equipment arriving by the end of May 2026. Genera also picked Wärtsilä North America for eight reciprocating engines at four sites, subject at the time to board approval, the San Juan Daily Star reported in October 2024.

Genera says it also takes part in a FEMA-funded microgrid project for Vieques and Culebra announced on 5 June 2026, and that US Department of Energy money backs rehabilitation work at its plants. Federal money therefore sits behind parts of both private contracts.

Pharma, Medtech and Act 60 Investors

Drug and medical-device makers are the island’s best-known outside investors, and a statement from the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC) counts more than 50 FDA-approved pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. The department says the island makes 6 of the world’s top 10 biologics, has a bioscience workforce above 80,000 and offers faster permits, worker training and stronger tax incentives to win plants that companies bring back to US soil.

In March 2026 PharmaEssentia of Taiwan formalised a US$46 million investment in a biopharmaceutical plant in Toa Baja, with more than 90 specialised jobs in the first phase. Invest Puerto Rico, the island’s investment-promotion body, lists US$62.4 billion in exports across sectors for 2025 without breaking the figure down by industry.

Individual investors are the other outside-money story, through Act 60, the Puerto Rico Incentives Code of 2019, which merged the earlier Act 20 for export services and Act 22 for resident investors. Act 38-2026, signed into law by 12 March 2026, extends the resident-investor programme to 31 December 2055 and sets a 4% rate on dividends, interest and post-residency gains for applications filed after 31 December 2026, DLA Piper reported.

• Filed by 31 December 2026: full exemption on those items until 31 December 2035.
• Filed after 31 December 2026: 4% rate until 31 December 2055.
• Status in March 2026: still needed the oversight board’s final endorsement.

The Government Accountability Office, the audit arm of Congress, found in December 2025 that about 2,200 people held Act 22 benefits in 2021 and that almost 4,000 taxpayers received Act 20 incentives from 2012 to 2024. It estimated the federal revenue loss at hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and the IRS agreed with its three recommendations.

Investors want low tax, and Washington wants proof that they really live on the island. Holland & Knight, a law firm, wrote in June 2026 that the IRS campaign began in January 2021 and that Puerto Rico’s tax department has reportedly audited about 1,800 Act 20 and Act 22 decree holders.

Tourism and Visitor Money

The Puerto Rico Tourism Company estimates 1,348,245 cruise passengers in fiscal 2025 and 14,577,018 air passengers, counted in and out, at the San Juan, Ponce and Aguadilla airports. Fiscal 2025 covers July 2024 to June 2025.

Mexico’s ASUR airport group lists San Juan among its airports and says passenger traffic in Puerto Rico grew 3.1% year over year in September 2026. The San Juan airport is run by Aerostar Airport Holdings, a privately held company chosen on 24 July 2012 for a 40-year agreement with the Ports Authority.

Washington’s Money: FEMA and HUD

The largest outside source of money since 2017 is the federal government. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, records a major disaster declaration for Hurricane Maria on 20 September 2017, 475,317 approved applications for individual assistance and about US$1.34 billion approved under its household aid programme.

FEMA’s open project data, refreshed on 24 October 2026, list 11,372 Public Assistance projects for Maria with US$35.6 billion in obligated federal funds, including projects still in review, while the agency’s disaster page for Maria shows a lower tally of US$7.0 billion in Public Assistance grants obligated. Projects in the utilities damage category account for about US$15.0 billion of the larger sum.

HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, allocated US$9.73 billion in disaster recovery grants to Puerto Rico in two 2018 notices, as the Federal Register notice of 14 August 2018 shows. A notice of 22 June 2021 added US$1.93 billion for electrical power systems.

A notice of 27 January 2020 allocated US$8.29 billion for mitigation, which is spending meant to reduce losses from future storms. Together the three allocations come to about US$19.9 billion, but allocated money is not spent money, and the notices do not say how much has been paid out.

Federal programmes still treat the island differently from the states. In 2022 the Supreme Court held that the Constitution does not require Congress to extend Supplemental Security Income to Puerto Rico residents, who are typically exempt from most federal income taxes, and added that Congress may extend the benefit if it chooses.

Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández represents the island in Congress and was elected in 2024. His website says he won the highest number of votes of any official that year and that his focus is economic development, equity in federal programmes and infrastructure rebuilding.

The Military: Roosevelt Roads, Fort Buchanan and the Coast Guard

The Army, the Navy and the Coast Guard all have a footprint on the island, and it has grown since 2025. Fort Buchanan in the San Juan area hosts the headquarters of the Army Reserve’s 1st Mission Support Command and the Puerto Rico National Guard, and the Army calls it the only Army installation in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

The Navy closed Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Ceiba on 31 March 2004, after operating it from 1943, Metro Puerto Rico reported. Navy notices of 17 April and 21 August 2026 on environmental cleanup still call the site the former Naval Station Roosevelt Roads.

On 31 August 2025 the Ports Authority and the Puerto Rico National Guard signed a 120-day agreement with the Navy, and military aircraft were later parked on the runway, Metro Puerto Rico reported in October 2025. Pete Hegseth, then the Defense Secretary, visited on 8 September 2025 and said what the forces were doing was not training but a real exercise, the paper reported.

Governor Jenniffer González-Colón described the activity as logistics exercises that involve no use of munitions or weapons, Metro Puerto Rico reported. El Nuevo Día reported in June 2026 that before the capture of Venezuela‘s Nicolás Maduro on 3 January 2026 there were dozens of F-18 and F-35 fighter jets and Ospreys at the former base, and that fewer remain.

Resident Commissioner Hernández wrote to then Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in November 2025 that any new operations in Vieques need a clear and immediate explanation. He added that residents have a right to know whether the operations threaten the federally mandated cleanup.

The Coast Guard’s Sector San Juan had more than 500 active-duty and reserve personnel in 13 subordinate units in June 2024. Its Air Station Borinquen, at Rafael Hernández Airport near Aguadilla, flies four HH-65 helicopters and lists search and rescue as its primary mission.

Aid Groups and the Diaspora

The Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico, a philanthropic group founded in 1985, connects donors with causes and funds scholarships, nonprofit grants and emergency aid. The Hispanic Federation says it runs hundreds of programmes across 43 states and territories, including Puerto Rico.

The largest diaspora communities live in Florida and New York, with 1,302,970 and 1,001,051 Puerto Ricans in 2024, according to the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College. Pennsylvania ranks third with 492,463 and New Jersey fourth with 484,119.

Those four states together hold about 3.3 million Puerto Ricans, more than the island’s 3.18 million residents. Citizenship by statute lets them move between the island and the mainland without a visa.

For more on the island, see our guides to Puerto Rico politics, who runs the Puerto Rico economy and Puerto Rico geopolitics, and our hub for Puerto Rico news. Readers new to the island can start with Puerto Rico explained for Americans.

What It Means for US Readers

Travellers should plan around the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from 1 June to 30 November with a peak on 10 September, the National Hurricane Center says. Hurricane Maria in September 2017 is the reference point for what a major storm does to the island’s power grid.

Investors in Quanta Services, ATCO, New Fortress Energy and Siemens Energy carry Puerto Rico contract risk in their results. Holders of PREPA bonds face a board offer of about 4% of their claims.

Policy questions sit with Congress, which under the Territory Clause holds the power to set the island’s status and created the oversight board. Visa rules for a trip or a move to the mainland do not apply to people born in Puerto Rico, who are citizens by statute.

Tax planners should note that the IRS and the Government Accountability Office have flagged Act 60 compliance. Act 38-2026 changes the rules for new applicants from 2027.

What Is Not Known

How the fight over the oversight board ends is not known. The district court order of October 2025 blocks the removal of three members, and the Justice Department said in September 2026 that it does not oppose a permanent injunction, but no final ruling has been reported.

The fate of the LUMA contract and of the PREPA debt plan is open. No ruling on the cancellation case has been reported since LUMA’s filing of 5 October 2026, and no confirmation of the PREPA plan has been reported.

The completion of the New Fortress restructuring is not confirmed, and neither is the board’s final endorsement of Act 38-2026. Both were pending in the March 2026 reports cited above.

The size and cost of the military presence are undocumented, because the statements by the governor, the then Defense Secretary and the Resident Commissioner give no troop count, cost or end date. How much of the roughly US$19.9 billion in HUD grants has been paid out is not stated in the Federal Register notices either.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Puerto Rico a foreign country?

No, Puerto Rico is a commonwealth and an unincorporated US territory, and people born there are US citizens. Congress holds the final word on its status under the Territory Clause.

Who are the biggest foreign investors in Puerto Rico?

The main outside money comes from drug and device makers, energy operators and Act 60 individual investors. Examples are Taiwan’s PharmaEssentia with US$46 million and LUMA Energy, owned by Quanta Services and ATCO.

Does the IMF lend to Puerto Rico?

No, because Puerto Rico is not among the IMF’s 191 member countries or the World Bank’s 189. Its debt was restructured in a US federal court under PROMESA instead.

Who runs the electricity in Puerto Rico?

LUMA Energy runs the grid under a 15-year contract dated June 2020, and Genera PR, owned by New Fortress Energy, runs the state plants. The government is asking the Puerto Rico Supreme Court to cancel the LUMA contract.

How much US money has gone to Hurricane Maria recovery?

FEMA project data show a federal share of US$35.6 billion across 11,372 Public Assistance projects, and HUD has allocated about US$19.9 billion in disaster grants. Allocated money is not the same as money spent.

Does the US military have bases in Puerto Rico?

Yes, Fort Buchanan is the only Army installation on the island, and the Coast Guard runs Sector San Juan and Air Station Borinquen. The Navy closed Roosevelt Roads in 2004 and has used it again since August 2025.

How many Puerto Ricans live in Florida and New York?

The Center for Puerto Rican Studies counts 1,302,970 in Florida and 1,001,051 in New York in 2024. The island itself had 3,184,835 people in July 2025.

Sources: US Congress, PROMESA (Public Law 114-187), 2016-06-30; Oversight Board for Puerto Rico, About Us, 2026-10; Oversight Board for Puerto Rico, annual report page, 2026-10; Oversight Board, ruling denying PREPA bondholder claims, 2026-03-16; Congressional Research Service, IN12598, board dismissals, 2026-01-22; San Juan Daily Star, DOJ and the removal case, 2026-09-02; Bond Buyer, PREPA parties discuss path forward, 2026-03-18; US Supreme Court, Financial Oversight and Management Board v. Aurelius, 2020-06-01; US Supreme Court, Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, 2016-06-09; US Supreme Court, United States v. Vaello Madero, 2022-04-21; US Interior Department, Office of Insular Affairs, political types, 2026-10; US Code, 8 U.S.C. 1402, 2026-10; IMF, at a glance, 2026-10; World Bank, member countries, 2026-10; UN ECLAC, member states and associate members, 2026-10; US Census Bureau, QuickFacts Puerto Rico, 2026-10; World Bank, data for Puerto Rico (US), 2026-10; Puerto Rico Senate, R. C. del S. 116, 2026-01-12; Metro Puerto Rico, LUMA dispute notice, 2025-07-22; El Nuevo Día, cost of cancelling the LUMA contract, 2026-10-05; New Fortress Energy, Genera PR contract, 2023-01-25; Metro Puerto Rico, New Fortress restructuring, 2026-03-18; San Juan Daily Star, New Fortress and Genera, 2026-03-24; El Nuevo Día, Genera gas conversions, 2026-04-06; Genera PR, news, 2026-10; Siemens Energy, Genera PR project, 2026-10; San Juan Daily Star, Genera peaking units, 2024-10-16; DDEC, statement from the Secretary on pharmaceutical manufacturing, 2026; Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, PharmaEssentia investment, 2026-03-26; Invest Puerto Rico, 2026-08; DLA Piper, Act 38-2026, 2026-03-12; US Government Accountability Office, GAO-26-107225, 2025-12; Holland & Knight, Act 60 tax compliance, 2026-06-29; Puerto Rico Tourism Company, statistics, 2026-10; ASUR, traffic release for September 2026, 2026-10; Aerostar Airport Holdings, 2026-10; FEMA, Hurricane Maria disaster page (DR-4339), 2026-10; FEMA, OpenFEMA Public Assistance Funded Projects Details, DR-4339, 2026-10-24; Federal Register, HUD notice, 83 FR 40314, 2018-08-14; Federal Register, HUD notice, 85 FR 4676, 2020-01-27; Federal Register, HUD notice, 86 FR 32681, 2021-06-22; Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández, 2026-10; Resident Commissioner Hernández, letter on military activity, 2025-11-24; US Army, Fort Buchanan, 2026-10; US Navy BRAC office, Roosevelt Roads announcements, 2026-08-21; Metro Puerto Rico, Ceiba airport and Roosevelt Roads, 2025-10-26; El Nuevo Día, Roosevelt Roads, 2026-06-05; US Coast Guard, Air Station Borinquen, 2026-10; US Coast Guard, Sector San Juan change of command, 2024-06-13; Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico, 2026-10; Hispanic Federation, 2026-10; Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College, Puerto Ricans in New Jersey, 2024, 2024; NOAA National Hurricane Center, climatology, 2026-10.