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Thousands of Cubans living abroad could be affected by one of the main gaps in the Draft Law on the Personal Identity and Residence System, published by the regime for public consultation on July 10th.
The regulation introduces new rules regarding the registration and update of one's address, but it does not define how these will be applied to those who emigrated years ago and still have their parents' or other relatives' homes in Cuba registered as their address.
Far from providing a clear answer, the project leaves fundamental questions open. It does not state whether those citizens will be able to keep their registered address on the island, whether they will need to register an address abroad, or how these cases will be resolved once the new legislation comes into effect.
This lack of definitions has raised concern among many emigrants, who fear the potential implications of the reform.
The article 8 defines the residence as «the place where the person habitually resides or intends to settle» and states that, in determining it, the authority will take into account elements such as «the physical presence at the location» and «the evidence of their intention to establish stable living conditions».
Although this definition has raised questions about how it will apply to those who reside permanently outside the country, the project does not state that emigrants automatically lose their registered residence in Cuba, nor does it specifically regulate their situation.
It also adds that Article 10 imposes on Cuban citizens the obligation to keep their address registration up to date. However, the text does not clarify what the procedure will be for those living abroad nor if they will be able to maintain a registered address in Cuba while residing permanently in another country.
Another article that has attracted attention is 13, which allows the owner or usufructuary of a property to request the cancellation of the registration of individuals authorized to reside in that dwelling when these individuals do not share rights of ownership or usufruct.
The provision could affect anyone registered in someone else's property, but the project does not establish a specific treatment for emigrants nor does it foresee that such cancellation would occur automatically simply due to residing outside of Cuba.
On the other hand, Article 12 clarifies that the registration of the residence "does not generate property rights" over the home, which means that the residential registration and the ownership of the property remain independent legal entities.
Overall, the project leaves one of the main concerns of the emigrant community unanswered: what will happen to the address of Cuban citizens who reside permanently abroad but maintain a registered address on the island.
Many of those responses could be left for the regulations that the Council of Ministers will need to approve following the eventual entry into force of the law. The project itself refers to this regulation for the development of various procedures within the new system, although for now there is no explicit reference to how the residences of emigrants will be handled.
In addition to the new regulations regarding residency, the project establishes a Personal Identity and Residence System managed by the Ministry of the Interior (MININT). Among its innovations is the introduction of a digital identity for conducting electronic procedures and an expanded biometric data registry that will include facial photographs, fingerprints, voice, iris, signature, skin color, eye color, and height.
The proposal also stipulates that Cuban consular offices process applications related to the Personal Identity and Address Registry for citizens living abroad. However, the text does not specify whether these mechanisms will include the registration or updating of the address for those who reside permanently outside the country.
The project coincides with the entry into force of the , approved in 2024 and published in the Official Gazette in May 2026, which introduces the concept of "effective migratory residence" and establishes new rules regarding the residence of Cuban citizens.
The human rights organization Cubalex warned at that time that this new legal framework expands the state's powers to control people's mobility and consolidates a migration system with broad margins of administrative discretion.
Although the Bill on the Personal and Address Identification System and Law 171 regulate matters related to the identification and status of citizens, the former does not establish an explicit connection between domicile and effective migratory residence.
However, the coexistence of both regulations fuels the doubts of many emigrants, who are eager to know how they will be interpreted and applied in practice once the law is approved and its regulations are published.
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