The Council of Ministers of Cuba removed the maximum retail price of rice that had been in effect since March 2025, through the on Thursday, July 16, 2026.
The measure, signed by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz on June 29, revoked the cap of 155 Cuban pesos per pound that was established by Agreement 10093 on March 5, 2025.
The decree did not eliminate price control as such, but rather changed who has the authority to set them: from now on, it will be the Minister of Finance and Prices —or their delegate— who will establish rice prices through a resolution, without the need for the Council of Ministers to convene for approval.
The text of the decree justified the change by stating that "it is necessary to define that the prices and tariffs of the products and services mentioned in the referred Decree 24 of 2020, once approved by the Council of Ministers, will be established by a resolution from the Minister of Finance and Prices."
The pattern of this reform has already been applied to gas in the same Gazette No. 59: the regime repealed the agreements from 2020 that established the price of gas and immediately published ministerial resolutions with much higher rates.
The price of liquefied gas bottles increased by 55%, from 225 to 350 Cuban pesos, according to Resolution 155/2026 signed on July 1st.
As for rice, the ministerial resolution with the new official prices has not yet been published.
The limit of 155 CUP per pound was, in practice, a fallacy: in the informal market, the bag of 25 kilograms reached 31,800 Cuban pesos around July 9, which is equivalent to about 1,272 pesos per pound, more than eight times the repealed official price.
In unregulated fairs and markets, rice was priced between 250 and 400 pesos per pound in June and July 2026, according to data from the research dossier.
With an average state salary of 7,000 pesos per month, a single pound of rice in the informal market can account for between 3.5% and 5.7% of a worker's monthly income.
The context exacerbates the impact of the measure. The Cuban peso has rapidly depreciated: it went from 435 per dollar in December 2025 to between 655 and 670 per dollar in July 2026.
The energy crisis has led many Cubans to cook with firewood or charcoal, which in Sancti Spíritus reached 4,000 pesos in June.
The regime had repeatedly tried to contain inflation with price caps.
The Agreement 10093 of March 2025 was the last significant attempt: it set the price of rice at 155 CUP per pound and beans between 196 and 285 CUP.
In September 2025, the government attempted once again to set price caps on other basic goods, in a recurring cycle of regulation and noncompliance that Decree 156 seems to acknowledge as a failure.
The new legal framework allows the Ministry of Finance and Prices to adjust prices more swiftly, without the need for a meeting of the Council of Ministers.
The question that remains open for Cubans is at what level the minister Vladimir Regueiro Ale will set the new official price of rice, and whether that number will bear any relation to what is actually paid in the markets on the island.
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