Qatar −15.6%, Guyana +22.3%: What Splits the Oil Producers in 2026 Is the Strait of Hormuz

Among the 53 countries on this site, Qatar has the sixth-highest GDP per person — $72,525 in 2025, about four-fifths of the United States' $90,027. Yet in the IMF's October World Economic Outlook, Qatar's real growth for 2026 is −15.6%, the lowest of the 52 countries with a forecast. That is close to a sixth of the economy gone in one year.

On October 22 in Dubai, the IMF followed up with its regional outlook for the Middle East and Central Asia, and the picture held. Al Jazeera and the UAE daily The National both reported that this is the only region of the world expected to contract this year, and both pointed to the same cause: prolonged disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

This isn't a world record, though. Kuwait (−16.7%) and Iraq (−16.0%) are forecast to fall further than Qatar, but neither is in this site's 53-country dataset. Every ranking below is within our 52 countries (the IMF publishes no forecast for North Korea), and every 2026 figure is a projection for a year that hasn't ended yet.

Only six of the 52 countries are forecast to shrink in 2026: Qatar (−15.6%), Bahrain (−11.3%), Iran (−7.6%), the United Arab Emirates (−3.9%), Saudi Arabia (−3.3%) and Ireland (−1.0%). The bottom five places are taken, without exception, by countries with a Persian Gulf coastline — and those five are every Gulf state in our dataset.

Ireland is a different kind of outlier. Its GDP swings sharply with the accounting moves of multinational companies, which is why earlier reports on this site flagged it separately. We don't claim to know what drives this particular dip, but it isn't a Hormuz story.

Meanwhile, the six countries the IMF groups into the same Middle East and Central Asia region but that sit outside the Gulf are all positive: Uzbekistan (7.8%) and Georgia (7.2%) lead, followed by Egypt (5.1%), Morocco (4.5%), Jordan (2.7%) and Tunisia (2.4%). Within a single regional grouping, the line between shrinking and growing falls almost exactly at the strait. For comparison, the US forecast for 2026 is 2.3%.

"Oil economies are in trouble" is only half right. In this site's dataset, 12 countries list oil and gas among their main industries. Only the five Gulf states among them go negative; the other seven all grow. Guyana (+22.3%) is first of all 52 countries, and Uzbekistan (7.8%), Egypt (5.1%), Tunisia (2.4%), Brazil (2.2%), Colombia (2.2%) and Canada (1.1%) are all positive too.

Selling the same crude and gas, what decided the outcome was which sea the tankers sail out on. Guyana's offshore fields face the Atlantic; Colombia and Brazil export through the Caribbean and the Atlantic. When the strait chokes supply, prices rise — and producers outside it can come out ahead. The IMF noted that higher energy prices partly offset the fiscal and trade hit to Gulf exporters, but a double-digit contraction says the barrels that couldn't leave cost more than the higher price earned.

Even among the five Gulf states, the drop ranges from −3.3% to −15.6% — nearly a fivefold spread. That gap isn't in the GDP tables; it's on the map. Saudi Arabia has the East-West pipeline running across the desert from its eastern fields to Yanbu on the Red Sea. Al Jazeera reported that the kingdom offset part of its energy losses by pushing more exports through it, and The National reported that the IMF credited Saudi Arabia's "diversified export routes" for its smaller decline. According to the energy data firm Kpler, the pipe itself can carry up to 7 million barrels a day, though the Yanbu terminals can sustain roughly 4.5–5 million.

The UAE has its own bypass: a pipeline from Habshan, inland in Abu Dhabi, to the port of Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, outside the strait, with a design capacity of about 1.5 million barrels a day. Qatar's liquefied natural gas, by contrast, has no way out except by ship from Ras Laffan inside the Gulf, and Bahrain is an island in the middle of it. The two steepest declines belong to the two countries with no way around.

Oman, which isn't in our dataset, confirms the pattern from the other side. It is the only one of the six Gulf Cooperation Council members with positive growth forecast for 2026 (4.1%) — and most of its coastline faces the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, beyond the strait.

The IMF expects a V-shaped recovery for the Gulf exporters in 2027. Qatar's +18.8% for 2027 is the highest of all 52 countries, and Bahrain's is +13.9%. Those look spectacular — until you chain the two years together. Set each economy's 2025 size to 100: Qatar falls to 84.4 in 2026 and climbs back to 100.3 in 2027. Two years, 0.3% of growth.

Run the same calculation for 2025→2027 and Bahrain grows 1.0%, the UAE 3.5% and Saudi Arabia 4.3%, while Iran, with only a +3.6% rebound, ends at −4.3%, still below where it started. Over the same two years the United States grows 4.7%, Uzbekistan 14.8% and Guyana 42.8%. Most of a big rebound rate is spent getting back what was lost — and even that assumes, as the IMF does, that conditions ease from early 2027.

Growth rates aren't part of this site's dataset, so every 2025–2027 growth figure here comes straight from the IMF World Economic Outlook (October 2026) DataMapper. The two-year cumulative figures multiply those rates together and are rounded to one decimal place. GDP per person and industry lists come from the site dataset (based on the World Bank and the CIA World Factbook); the UAE's GDP per person is the 2024 figure.

Regional totals depend on how the region is drawn. The October 13 World Economic Outlook put the whole Middle East and Central Asia at −0.3%; coverage of the October 22 regional outlook cited −1.3% for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both are correct, so check which grouping a headline is using. Each country's income, population and industries can be compared side by side on its country page.