15 December 2025
Cuba’s Council of State has approved a Decree Law and several resolutions that establish a new “transitional” mechanism for the management, control, and allocation of foreign currency.
The measures seek to boost exports and productive enterprises, but are also likely also to reinforce the dollarisation of the Cuban economy.
The new regulations do not establish a new floating exchange rate, or seek to unify Cuba’s multiple official and unofficial exchange rates as originally envisaged when the country’s macro-economic reform process was first announced in December 2023.
Instead, the new law will allow the Minister of Economy and Planning and the President of the Central Bank to exercise greater control over foreign exchange availability; establish the requirements and procedures relating to foreign currency transactions in the national economy; and update the legal basis for foreign exchange transactions. The measures are intended, officials say, to “mark the first step towards changes to the country’s foreign exchange regime.”
The text of the documents makes clear that the overriding objective is to increase the country’s foreign exchange income by stimulating national production of goods and services. Although the Council of State indicated that the measures are meant only to continue “until economic conditions allow” and a Cuban Peso “controlled by State institutions” returns to being the only legal tender in the country”, the new arrangements have the effect of formalising the growing dollarisation of many aspects of the Cuban economy.
Central Bank President outlines the monetary objectives
The background and intention of the limited changes were explained by the Minister of Economy and Planning (MEP), Joaquín Alonso, and the President of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Juana Lilia Delgado, who were interviewed for the television and radio programme Mesa Redonda just after the measures were published.
Delgado said that the new law and regulations update previous, by allowing currencies other than the Cuban Peso (CUP) to be legal tender for economic transactions alongside the CUP for foreign exchange payments and transactions between Cuba-based economic actors. This will enable, she stated, Cuban, foreign, and mixed legal entities, as well as individuals engaged in productive activities or any type of economic transaction, to denominate a payment instrument in foreign currency. The changes also apply to international economic partnership agreements, local development projects, international cooperation projects, and international organisations, Delgado noted.
Such foreign currency transactions, she said, will be authorised by the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP) through new procedures that will prioritise export activities, production linked to the export sector, import substitution, and other operations that contribute to increasing foreign currency income.
The measure, she noted, will enable the BCC and MEP to regulate “which parts of the economy will operate using foreign currency transactions,” how each entity participates, and “how they will benefit.”
Alonso outlines operational aspects of the new policy
Providing more detail, the MEP Minister, Joaquín Alonso, said that the new measure will regulate foreign exchange transactions based on existing foreign exchange accounts, or through foreign exchange access capacity allocations. In doing so, he made clear that the regulation determines how foreign exchange is allocated by the State to beneficiaries, how to access it, how to request it, and the validity period of the allocation. The new law, he said, also specifies which transactions within the economy will operate in foreign currency, and will “define what constitutes legal access to foreign currency.”
Speaking about the latter aspect, Alonso said that the intention is to encourage “something that is closely linked to mechanisms for buying and selling foreign currency in a foreign exchange market that is also undergoing transformation.” In doing so, he noted that other activities that generate foreign currency income will be encouraged, including the establishment of e-commerce mechanisms taking payments from abroad.
Speaking about the retention of foreign currency earned, the Minister said that authorised entities will be able to retain a significant portion of the currency generated, ensuring their liquidity, and will be able to freely dispose of it, especially to develop their core business or activities that allow them to increase their income.
On the subject of economic actors such as state enterprises that do not generate foreign currency but require foreign exchange for priority activities, Alonso said that a second regulation allows the MEP to authorise specific amounts to beneficiaries to purchase foreign currency from the Central Exchange using Cuban Pesos at “the official exchange rate in effect.” This will allow the replacement of what were previously called liquidity capacity accounts on the basis that the authorisation to access foreign currencies is “not a means of payment.”
Exchange rate decision someway off, dollarisation said to be transitional
Alonso also made clear that government is working towards determining the rate of exchange for the Cuban Peso. ”As the Prime Minister has explained at other events, we are working on a restructuring of the foreign exchange market that takes into account all the peculiarities, problems, and distortions of the economy, as part of the Government Programme,” he said, without providing any further detail.
In other remarks, the Economy minister was quoted as saying, “We are not building capitalism with the partial dollarisation of the economy; we are building socialism with the characteristics of our country.”
For her part, Delgado was quoted as saying that the new measures are temporary, and that the transitional framework was created in response to the partial dollarisation of some sectors. “A time limit is set because we have not given up on the goal of recovering a monetary environment where the Cuban Peso is the centre of the monetary and financial system,” she said.
According to Cubadebate, the new measures are intended to contribute “to establishing the necessary macroeconomic and financial conditions to gradually shift foreign exchange transactions towards the restoration of the role of the Cuban Peso and its convertibility in a new, transformed exchange market, based on measures that must be implemented in parallel” with the provisions of the new Decree Law.
More detail available online
More detail on the operation of the new system can be found in Spanish in Cubadebate’s detailed question and answer session with the Minister of Economy and Planning and the President of the Central Bank.
The issues the two address in the interview include: the scope of the legislation; foreign exchange retention in relation to joint ventures, economic association contracts, and companies in the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM); the effect on international cooperation projects; the procedures for Cuban state-owned enterprises; the use of the Central Fund retention scheme by government to take 20% of foreign currency earnings from exports or productive chains to support Cuba’s social commitments; and when 100% of foreign exchange income can be retained by any economic actor. The lengthy article also outlines how the system will operate, and contains detail as to when and how payments can be made in allocated foreign currencies.
The extended interview in Cubadebate can be found in Spanish at: http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2025/12/11/cuba-implementara-un-nuevo-sistema-de-gestion-control-y-asignacion-de-divisas/
The full text of Decree law 113 and Resolutions 140 (General bases for the system of management, control and allocation of foreign currency in the national economy ), 125 (Rules for the operation of bank accounts denominated in foreign currency ) and 126 ( Rules for the allocation of access capacity to foreign currency ) can be found on the website of the Ministry of the Economy and Planning in Spanish at https://www.mep.gob.cu/sites/default/files/Documentos/Marco%20Regulatorio/goc-2025-o89.pdf
15 December 2025, Issue 1306
The Caribbean Council is able to provide further detail about all the stories in Cuba Briefing. If you would like a more detailed insight into any of the content of today’s issue, please get in touch