“10 dollars in Cuba are worth nothing anymore,” warns Keyla González at the beginning of the video she posted on TikTok on June 4, where she documents in under a minute the journey she took to spend that amount on the island.
Keyla first went to a dollar store in search of detergent, a product that, according to her, is impossible to find on the street. "I can’t find it on the street; the norm is to buy it in the store, and it’s not resold. But I live in Cuba, and what more can you ask for?" she says in the video.
In that store, which she described as "better stocked than usual, but everything super expensive," she bought two bags of detergent for $2.60 each and a bottle of gel detergent for washing dishes at $1.90, spending a total of seven dollars.
With the three remaining dollars, which he exchanged for Cuban pesos, he completed the purchase: two sodas, two sponges for washing dishes, and a loaf of bread.
"This was it. Let me know in the comments what you think about the purchase. Is it good? For 10 dollars? I don't know," Keyla concluded, leaving the question open to her followers.
The video reflects a reality that is repeated on the island. In January 2026, Cuban TikToker @dieego_blogger showed that with 20 dollars he was only able to buy rice, sugar, sunflower oil, a tube of ham, sausages, and bath soap. In May 2026, another young man documented that with 10 dollars he barely managed to buy a cologne, a cream, and two soaps as a birthday gift for his mother.
The economic context explains the magnitude of the problem. The average state salary in Cuba is around 6,830 Cuban pesos per month, equivalent to just 12 or 14 dollars at the informal exchange rate, which in May 2026 reached a record of 560 pesos per dollar, compared to 400 pesos in August 2025.
This means that a month's salary is not even enough to cover the purchase Keyla made with 10 dollars.
The detergent, the main subject of the video, is also one of the most rationed products. In April 2026, the regime limited its purchase to one bottle per customer due to widespread shortages. In the store visited by Keyla, a simple small can of tuna cost eight dollars.
The basic basket in Cuba is estimated to be at least 14 times the average state salary, and covering monthly basic expenses requires more than 50,000 Cuban pesos, an amount unattainable for the vast majority of workers in the state sector.
Videos of Cubans documenting the meager purchasing power of their money have become a distinct genre on social media, serving as a social thermometer of a crisis that has been deepening for years under the dictatorship.
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