The Central Bank of Cuba published this Friday in Official Gazette No. 81 Extraordinary the , which indefinitely suspends the maximum limit of 5,000 Cuban pesos set for cash transactions between economic actors.
The regulation, signed on July 10 by Juana Lilia Delgado Portal, president minister of the Central Bank, effectively repeals Articles 4 and 5 of the , which mandated that any transaction exceeding that amount be processed electronically.
The official text justifies the change by referring to "the approved economic and social transformations" and the need to "utilize available cash more efficiently," while clarifying that the suspension will remain in place "until the country's conditions allow for it."
Instead of a fixed ceiling, the new scheme delegates to commercial banks the case-by-case negotiation with each economic actor to determine the petty cash fund allocated for minor payments.
The criteria that will guide this negotiation include the income received in the current account, the cash deposits made, the volume of transactions for Online Payment, the use of the extra cash service, the characteristics of the economic activity, the conditions of the territory, and the availability of cash in each bank.
The measure encompasses a wide spectrum of subjects: state-owned enterprises, agricultural and non-agricultural cooperatives, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), self-employed workers, artists, agricultural producers, commercial fishermen, local development projects, foreign investment modalities, and natural or legal persons engaged in legally authorized commercial activities.
The resolution will come into effect three days after its publication in the Official Gazette, that is, from Monday, July 20.
The regulation comes after the well-known failure of the mandatory banking policy imposed in August 2023.
Three years later, only 3.77% of transactions in Cuba are digital, and less than 10% of private businesses routinely accept transfers.
The official media outlet Cubadebate itself admitted on July 14 the collapse of the system, stating that "the street has already built its own parallel financial system."
This parallel system operates with commissions that escalated from 15% in September 2025 to 40% documented in Santiago de Cuba just one day before the publication of this resolution, where transferring 1,000 pesos equates to receiving only 600 in physical bills.
The writer and doctor Ericka Castellanos Abad reported this situation on Facebook on July 16, describing the business that operates near BANDEC ATMs on Avenida Victoriano Garzón, just a few blocks from the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party.
"Transferring 1,000 Cuban pesos to receive 600 Cuban pesos in cash is the worst kind of abuse, and for this to happen just a few blocks from the Provincial Party is both shameless and a clear indication of the significance that the people hold for the highest echelons of national power," wrote Castellanos Abad.
Despite the regime imposing 15,240 fines and ordering 269 closures of establishments for not accepting electronic payments, the policy did not achieve its goal, and the official newspaper Venceremos acknowledged on July 3 that the banking crisis "has ceased to be a banking difficulty and has become a social problem."
The anonymous Cuban who starred in a viral video on July 13 summarized everyday reality: “One’s salary is on a card, and what one is going to buy is like this, that one can manage it. It’s not easy.”.
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