Cuba Lets Private Businesses Charge Customers in US Dollar Cash
CUBA · ECONOMY
Key Facts
- —The rule change Two resolutions published in Gaceta Oficial No. 76 of 10 September 2026 let private businesses in Cuba accept cash payments in foreign currency, including US dollars and euros, when the customer chooses to pay that way.
- —Who issued them Resolution 102/2026 comes from the Central Bank of Cuba; Resolution 103/2026 from the Ministry of Economy and Planning. They replace rules dating from December 2025.
- —The retention split Businesses without an approved retention coefficient keep 80 percent of eligible foreign-currency income; 20 percent goes to the state’s central fund, credited in Cuban pesos.
- —The exchange backdrop The central bank’s official rate stood at 651 pesos to the dollar on 10 September, close to the informal market’s roughly 680 pesos per dollar tracked by el Toque.
- —The parallel flow US fuel exports to Cuba reached US$61.1 million in July 2026, up about 28 percent from US$47.8 million in June, according to US Census Bureau data compiled by the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council.
Cuba has taken another deliberate step toward a cash dollar economy: private shops, restaurants and small firms may now legally bill their customers in US dollars and euros, and bank the takings themselves.
Private businesses in Cuba may now charge customers in foreign-currency cash under rules published on 10 September 2026 in the Gaceta Oficial, the government’s official gazette, Cuban and exile media reported the same day.
The change formalizes a practice that has spread across Havana’s private restaurants, cafés and small retail shops for more than a year, much of it in a legal grey zone. Now it is written into two binding norms: Resolution 102/2026 of the Banco Central de Cuba, which regulates foreign-currency bank accounts, and Resolution 103/2026 of the Ministry of Economy and Planning, which governs how foreign currency circulates in the domestic economy.
What the New Rules Actually Allow
Resolution 102/2026 lists the acceptable sources of income for foreign-currency accounts held by non-state economic actors — the Mipymes (small and medium private enterprises), cooperatives, self-employed workers, artists and agricultural producers. Among those sources, as reported by CiberCuba, is the “retail commercialization of goods and services, including cash.”
In plain terms, a private café or hardware store can accept payment in US dollars, euros or other currencies accepted by the central bank, at the customer’s discretion, and deposit the takings directly into its own foreign-currency account. Before this change, cash in hard currency was difficult to bank legally, pushing much of it into the informal market.
Resolution 103/2026 adds the management layer: non-state actors may keep those earnings in their foreign-currency accounts or convert them into Cuban pesos at the exchange rate applicable to their market segment. Both resolutions repeal rules issued only in December 2025 — Resolutions 125/2025 and 140/2025 — a sign of how quickly the framework is being rewritten.
The Retention Rule: 80 Percent for the Business
For private businesses, the resolutions remove the legal risk that hung over a practice already widespread. The state still takes a cut. Under the economy ministry’s resolution, private actors without an individually approved retention coefficient may hold on to 80 percent of eligible foreign-currency income. The remaining 20 percent flows into a central state fund and is credited to the business in national currency at the applicable rate.
Some categories are exempt from the haircut: income from foreign financing, donations, international cooperation funds and certain foreign-investment contributions can be retained at 100 percent. The design tells the story — the government wants hard currency circulating through the banking system, not under mattresses, and is willing to let private firms keep most of what they earn to get it there.
Partial Dollarisation, Now by Decree
For foreign readers, the significance is cumulative. Cuba began opening MLC stores in 2019 — shops selling food and appliances priced in freely convertible currency and payable only by card. From 2024 onward the state went further, opening retail outlets that accept only cash US dollars, even as wages and pensions continued to be paid in pesos. The new resolutions extend that logic to the private sector, the most dynamic part of the consumer economy.
Economists quoted in Cuban independent media describe the process as “partial dollarisation”: the peso remains the currency of salaries, but the dollar increasingly sets prices in the real economy. The exchange-rate backdrop explains why. The central bank’s official rate stood at 651 pesos to the dollar on 10 September, while the informal market tracked by el Toque put the rate at roughly 680 pesos per dollar — a gap that has narrowed sharply as the official rate has been allowed to slide toward street reality.
The convergence is deliberate. Cuba’s authorities have spent much of 2026 rebuilding a functioning foreign-exchange market after years of frozen official rates. Letting private businesses bank their cash takings pulls informal dollars into that system and gives the central bank a more honest picture of the currency circulating in the country.
The US Fuel Connection
The rules land as another dollar channel widens from the north. US exports of fuels and petroleum derivatives to Cuba totaled US$61.1 million in July 2026, up about 28 percent from US$47.8 million in June, according to US Census Bureau data compiled by the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. January-to-July fuel sales reached US$156.8 million.
Those shipments — diesel, gasoline and other products sold by US firms to Cuban private businesses under a licensing exemption — were inconceivable a few years ago. Reuters reported in August that American companies shipped about 900,000 barrels of fuel to Cuba’s private sector between February and May 2026 alone. Fuel importers, like shops and cafés, need legal ways to hold and spend hard currency; the new banking rules supply exactly that plumbing.
What It Means for Foreigners and Businesses
For visitors and expatriates, the practical effect is immediate: expect more private restaurants, guesthouses and shops to quote prices in dollars or euros and to prefer cash in those currencies. Card payments in MLC continue, but cash is king again in the private economy. Travelers should carry small US dollar bills in good condition, since change and acceptance policies vary by business.
For foreign suppliers and partners dealing with Cuban Mipymes, the resolutions matter even more. Private businesses such as importers can now lawfully receive foreign currency, deposit it and pay abroad from its own account — a mechanism that underpins the growing flow of US fuel, vehicles and food into the island’s private sector. The remaining frictions are real: the 20 percent retention skim, uneven enforcement and the ever-present risk of US policy shifts.
The deeper question is political. Each step of partial dollarisation acknowledges that the peso alone cannot carry the economy, and each step shifts more daily life into a currency the state does not print. Havana is betting it can capture enough of that flow to stabilize its finances without surrendering control. Whether the private sector’s dollars stay in the banks — rather than the informal market — will be the first real test of the new rules.
Sources: Gaceta Oficial de Cuba · CiberCuba · el Toque · US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council
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