Havana (EFE).- The Cuban government published several regulations in the Official Gazette on Thursday, formalizing the use of foreign currencies as part of the government’s efforts to promote dollarization amid the country’s severe economic crisis.
The regulations include legal and natural persons, but apparently exclude self-employed or independent workers, and repeatedly refer to the exchange rate but do not establish a new one, despite the government’s promise to do so in the second half of 2025.
The regulations emphasize that the measures are “temporary” until “existing macroeconomic imbalances are resolved” and “the Cuban peso can resume its role as the sole legal tender in the country under state control.” However, no specific deadlines are included.
According to the official newspaper, Granma, President and Minister of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) Juana Lilia Delgado assured that “now, the possibility is introduced for other legal tender currencies to circulate alongside the Cuban peso, allowing them to be used for collections and payments in foreign currencies among economic actors residing in Cuba.”
The use of foreign currencies began to expand in 2024, when the government announced several measures to partially dollarize the economy to manage its own lack of resources.
These measures included the creation of state stores that accepted only dollars and the implementation of dollar-based fees for some administrative procedures.
The United States dollar and the euro played an increasingly important role in cash transactions on the island for years due to high inflation, the peso’s significant depreciation, and the economy’s dependence on imports (which account for 80% of consumption).
Control and allocation of foreign currency
Decree-Law 113 and Resolutions 140/2025 of the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP), and Resolutions 125/2025 and 126/2025 of the BCC establish a new mechanism for managing, controlling, and allocating foreign currency, as well as an Allocation of Foreign Currency Access Capacity for each economic entity.
According to Granma, the MEP will authorize foreign currency transactions within the country in accordance with rules that prioritize export activities, production linked to the export sector, import substitution, and other activities that contribute to the primary objective of increasing foreign currency income.
The norms also stipulate that the state will retain 20% of foreign currency from certain entities and transactions, including income from sales through international cards and sales to foreign investment modalities, among others.
It is in addition to the foreign currency financing schemes that some state, mixed, and private (international) economic actors already have in place in several sectors.
In statements to official media, Minister of Economy and Planning, Alonso Vázquez, affirmed that this legal package “facilitates foreign currency transactions” in Cuba, which was not possible under the failed 2021 monetary reform known as task ordering (Tarea Ordenamiento in Spanish).
However, this legal change exacerbated some of the Cuban economy’s structural problems, hindering the resolution of issues that plague the country. Its Gross Domestic Product has fallen by 11% in the last five years.
Specifically, the change increased the public deficit and inflation, which has more than tripled official prices since then, and has decapitalized state banks and companies, creating the context for an informal exchange market with a rate far from the official one. EFE
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