The US dollar (USD) surged this Tuesday to 470 Cuban pesos (CUP) in the informal market, while the euro (EUR) reached 505 CUP, according to the independent observatory elTOQUE.
The figures confirm a trend that the Cuban government has not been able to reverse: the national currency continues to lose value, and the gap between the official rate of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) and the real market is widening more each day.
The BCC today maintains its official rate at 413 CUP per dollar and 482.22 CUP per euro, a difference of 57 pesos and 23 pesos compared to the informal exchange rate.
That gap, which in mid-December was just 30 pesos per dollar, has grown almost 90% in less than a month, demonstrating that the so-called “floating rate” implemented in December does not float: it is sinking.
A motionless "floating"
The Cuban regime presented its new exchange system as a mechanism for economic modernization.
The model —divided into three segments: state, mixed, and "floating"— aimed to gradually adjust the value of the peso according to supply and demand. However, in practice, the BCC publishes minimal variations, of just one or two pesos daily, completely disconnected from the actual market behavior.
While the state institution "adjusts" its rate in official reports, Cubans buy and sell foreign currency on the street at values 15% to 20% higher.
There is no transparency, liquidity, or possibility of accessing dollars or euros at the price published by the government.
The result: a symbolic official rate, with no practical impact on the economy or credibility with the citizens.
A policy without support or oversight
The measure is not failing due to bad intent, but by design. The BCC is trying to regulate a market that it does not control or supply.
Without a stable flow of foreign currency, without solid international reserves, and without confidence in the national currency, no floating system can function.
The supposed "floating" depends on state intervention, not on the behavior of supply and demand.
For independent economists, the current scheme is not a reform: it is a bureaucratic reanimation of centralized control.
The Cuban peso remains overvalued in state sectors (1x24 for essential operations) and is artificially sustained in official rates (1x413 for the public).
Meanwhile, the informal market continues to be the only reliable measure of the value of money.
Two cups, two Cubas
The existence of two rates—one official and the other informal—reflects a deeper fracture: the disconnection between the state economy and real life.
The government operates with statistics and controls; citizens, with improvisation and survival. The Central Bank may publish a "current rate for daily transactions" every day, but the reality is that those transactions do not exist.
While the BCC pretends that the peso is floating, the informal market dictates the uncomfortable truth: the CUP is no longer worth what the government claims, but rather what Cubans are willing to pay for a dollar.
And that difference —57 pesos today— is not just a monetary gap: it is the distance between power and reality.
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