Related videos:
The National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) of Cuba released official construction data for last year this Wednesday, and the figures confirm the collapse of the sector: in all of 2025, only 5,493 homes were completed nationwide, with the Isle of Youth as the poorest performing territory, having finished just 39 units in twelve months.
The report "Construction in Cuba. Selected Indicators, 2025" reveals that this national figure represents a 26% decline compared to the 7,427 completed homes in 2024, and an 83% drop from the recent peak of 32,874 units recorded in 2021.
Holguín was the province with the best results, with 891 completed homes, followed by Havana with 677, and Pinar del Río and Santiago de Cuba, each with 403.
At the opposite end, following the Isle of Youth with its 39 units, are Guantánamo with 176, Ciego de Ávila with 243, and Mayabeque with 244.
ONEI highlighted as a "curious fact" that "the only province where the number of completed homes increased was Havana, with 223 more in 2025" compared to the previous year. The rest of the country reported declines or stagnation.
The breakdown by category worsens the outlook: state construction fell by 35%, from 2,756 homes in 2024 to just 1,791 in 2025. Self-construction or personal efforts also declined by 21%, from 4,671 to 3,702 units.
An additional fact illustrates the paralysis of the sector: out of the 110,647 homes that were under construction in 2025, 40,191 were halted, all under the self-effort modality.
The state plan for 2025 aimed to complete 10,795 homes. With 5,493 units finished, the country barely reached 51% of its own goal, repeating the trend of previous years: in 2024, only 55% of the annual objective was met.
This systematic failure occurs amid a housing deficit that the Ministry of Construction (MICONS) itself acknowledged before the National Assembly in July 2025: 805,583 missing homes, including those that need to be built from scratch and those that require urgent rehabilitation.
Out of approximately 4.1 million homes in Cuba, 35% are in fair or poor condition, which amounts to nearly 1.4 million deteriorated properties, a number that continues to rise as construction plummets.
The structural causes include a critical shortage of materials—cement production operated at 10% of installed capacity in 2024—power outages that halt construction projects, and the general economic crisis caused by six decades of dictatorship.
At the current construction pace of 2025, it would take more than 74 years to address only the component of new housing in the official deficit, not accounting for the ongoing deterioration of the existing stock.
Filed under: