The Cuban informal market registered a new historic high this Tuesday: 600 Cuban pesos (CUP) per US dollar, according to the Representative Rate of the Informal Market (TRMI) compiled by elTOQUE, which documented the surge in real time.
The new threshold is the result of a sustained escalation that began in mid-May and consumed 65 pesos of the value of the Cuban peso in just 12 days.
The journey from the 535 CUP with which April closed to this new maximum represents a depreciation of the peso of 12.1% in just over a month, a pace that even exceeded the most pessimistic projections from the Observatory of Currencies and Finance of Cuba (OMFi).
Exchange Rate Evolution
In its May bulletin, the OMFi had estimated a central value of 562 CUP for the end of that month, with a ceiling of up to 590 CUP. However, reality surpassed that range and continued to rise.
The ascent had moments of remarkable acceleration.
On Wednesday, May 28, the dollar rose by eight CUP in a single day, reaching 570 CUP, the largest daily increase since November 2025. June started on Monday with the dollar at 585 CUP, marking seven consecutive days of increases, before hitting 600 CUP the following day.
This milestone did not come about in isolation. In February 2026, the dollar had surpassed 500 pesos for the first time, another historical record that at the time seemed like a difficult ceiling to overcome. Just four months later, the currency broke the limit of 600 CUP.
The chronology of symbolic thresholds illustrates the acceleration of deterioration: the dollar crossed 200 CUP in October 2022, took a year and four months to reach 300 CUP (February 2024), reached 400 CUP in August 2025, 500 CUP in February 2026, and now has reached 600 CUP just four months later.
The structural backdrop has not changed.
The energy crisis persists without a short-term solution, tourism continues to fall —in March 2026, only 35,561 international visitors arrived, an 82% decrease compared to the same month in 2025— and the State's ability to compete for foreign currency in the official market remains limited due to the absence of accessible liquid reserves.
The official exchange rate of the Central Bank (Segment III), which stood at 514 CUP per dollar on Tuesday, remains well below the informal value, perpetuating a gap of 86 pesos that fuels demand in unofficial channels.
The effects on daily life are direct. With the dollar at 600 CUP, imported products—a substantial portion of what is consumed in Cuba—become more expensive accordingly.
For those who rely solely on income in Cuban pesos, the gap between their salaries and the cost of the basic basket continues to widen without pause.
The Cuban peso has lost more value in the first four months of 2026 than during the entire year of 2025, and the data does not indicate an imminent reversal.
As elTOQUE warned at the end of its analysis: "This new threshold, like the previous ones, is not a ceiling."
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