The euro reached a new all-time high this Friday in the informal currency market in Cuba: 620 Cuban pesos (CUP) per unit, according to the monitoring by elTOQUE published this morning. The dollar is priced at 540 CUP and the MLC at 405 CUP.
The milestone today is the last link in a climb that has not stopped since the euro first broke the barrier of 600 pesos on April 19, a threshold that had not been crossed until then.
Since that day, the European currency has risen continuously: 605 CUP on May 3, 610 on the 4th, 615 on the 5th, 618 on the 6th, 619 on the 7th, and 620 this Friday. In just three weeks, it has gained an additional 20 pesos above that psychological barrier.
Informal exchange rate in Cuba Friday, May 8, 2026 - 10:00
Exchange rate of the dollar (USD) to Cuban pesos CUP: 540 CUP
Exchange rate of the euro (EUR) to Cuban pesos CUP: 620 CUP
Exchange rate from (MLC) to Cuban pesos CUP: 405 CUP
The underlying trend is even more alarming. In the last 12 months, the euro has appreciated by approximately 74%: it was around 418 CUP in June 2025, reaching 485 in September, 515 in October, 565 in February 2026, and 580 in March.
Exchange Rate Evolution
The new surge of currencies recorded in early May only served to confirm that no official projection has managed to predict the actual pace of devaluation: the Observatory of Currencies and Finance of Cuba (OMFi) had estimated a cap of 604 CUP for the end of April, a figure that the market exceeded comfortably.
The gap with the official rate of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) remains at shocking levels. This Friday, the state entity quotes the euro at 585.03 CUP, over 35 pesos below the actual price at which Cubans must purchase the currency.
But the real drama is measured in what those 620 pesos mean for someone who earns in national currency. The minimum pension of 4,000 CUP, in effect since September 2025 after an increase that the regime presented as a social achievement, is worth only 6.45 euros today.
The official average salary of 6,930 CUP —according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information for 2025— amounts to just over 11 euros at the informal exchange rate.
In other words: a retiree would need more than a year and three months of full pension to gather 100 euros; a worker earning the average salary would need
These numbers become stark when contrasted with real prices. A carton of eggs now exceeds 3,000 CUP, which is 75% of the minimum pension.
The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit estimated in July 2025 that a family needs at least 30,000 CUP per month just for food, seven times what a retiree earns. Around that time, the US dollar was fluctuating in the informal market between 370-390 CUP.
Today, the dollar is trading on the street at 540 CUP. It is not surprising that 99% of Cuban retirees claim that their pension does not cover their basic needs.
The landscape of salary injustices in Cuba worsens in a macroeconomic context that international organizations describe as the worst since the Special Period, and possibly even worse.
The CEPAL projects a decline of -6.5% in Cuba's GDP for 2026, while the Economist Intelligence Unit estimates it at -7.2%. The Cuban peso has lost 95% of its value against the dollar since 2020, and the crisis of the Cuban economy continues to worsen week after week.
The cause of this collapse is not the U.S. embargo but 67 years of communist dictatorship that have destroyed the productive base of the country, created a structural dependence on foreign currency, and turned the salary in the national currency into something that barely lasts for survival for a few days.
With the euro at 620 pesos, inflation and the soaring dollar further undermine the pensions of those with the least, while the regime continues to provide no real solutions.
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