We present a spectral theory for a class of operators satisfying a weak“Doeblin–Fortet" condition and apply it to a class of transition operators.This gives the convergence of the series ∑k≥0krPkƒ, $r \in \mathbb{N}$ ,under some regularity assumptions and implies the central limit theoremwith a rate in $n^{- \frac{1}{2} }$ for the corresponding Markov chain.An application to a non uniformly hyperbolic transformation on the interval is also given.