The Cuban government has set the basic monthly salary for a newly graduated doctor at 7,045 Cuban pesos (CUP), according to the , published this Tuesday in the Official Gazette as Special Edition No. 8, a corrected version of the regular edition from July 17.
The regulation places non-specialized doctors in Group XVII of a salary scale consisting of 32 groups, and it is part of the increase package for the budgeted sector that took effect on July 1, 2026, with actual payment reflected in the August payroll.
The increase represents a nominal improvement compared to the 4,610 CUP that a newly graduated doctor earned after the 2021 salary reform, known as Tarea Ordenamiento.
However, with an informal exchange rate exceeding 510 CUP per dollar, those 7,045 pesos amount to barely between 13 and 14 dollars a month, a figure that reflects the profound deterioration of purchasing power on the Island.
The approved scale for the health sector establishes a progression by category: the resident doctor receives 8,115 CUP (Group XX), the first-degree specialist 8,500 CUP (Group XXI), and the second-degree specialist or one with two specialties 8,880 CUP (Group XXII).
For the specialties deemed critical —Anesthesiology and Resuscitation, Neonatology, Pediatric Intensive Care, and Adult Intensive Care— the resolution approves 100 CUP per night hour and an additional payment of 20 CUP per hour for "high performance."
The rest of the health personnel also receive differentiated rates for night shifts: 50 CUP per hour for doctors and dentists, 40 CUP for nurses, and 30 CUP for technologists and technicians, during the hours from 7 PM to 7 AM.
The regime itself acknowledged that the new salaries "are still insufficient to cover the basic basket of goods and services," an admission that contrasts with the official presentation of the adjustment as a social advancement.
The economist Javier Pérez Capdevila estimated that a person needs around 96,000 CUP per month to cover their basic needs in Cuba, of which more than 70,000 would be solely for food, leaving the new medical salary far below that threshold.
The gap between income and cost of living has driven an unprecedented exodus of professionals: more than 30,000 doctors left the National Health System between 2021 and 2024, and the government itself confirmed in July 2025 that over 24,000 health workers were providing services abroad.
The Official Gazette clarified in the introductory note of the special edition that the original publication from July 17 contained "inaccurate data" recorded due to an error by the issuing body, which is why this corrected version was released with resolutions 15, 17, 18, and 23, all dated July 15, 2026.
The general salary increase in the budgeted sector raised the minimum wage from 2,100 to 3,210 CUP, an increase of 53%, with an estimated cost of 42.5 billion pesos for the state budget, in a context where the year-on-year inflation in the Cuban formal market was at 15.89% in May 2026, according to the EFE agency.
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