The Cuban regime published this Monday the Official Gazette No. 83 Ordinary of 2026, which formalizes the authorization for individuals to import goods for commercial purposes and establishes that the corresponding tariffs and taxes must be paid in United States dollars.
The three published regulations — from the Council of State, from the Ministry of Finance and Prices, and from the General Customs of the Republic— come into effect on October 12, 2026, seven days after their publication.
The mechanism does not establish a full commercial import regime for individual citizens. What it does is allow travelers the option to formalize an importation—when customs detects that it exceeds the non-commercial limits or has a commercial nature—instead of losing the goods to confiscation, by paying the corresponding duties in foreign currency.
The text of Decree-Law 132 itself clarifies that this mode "does not constitute an activity of foreign trade," but rather a means to regularize situations that previously resulted in confiscation.
The tariff rates for commercial imports made by travelers are progressive: 15% on the first $2,000; 20% on the amount between $2,000 and $4,000; 25% between $4,000 and $6,000; and 30% on any amount exceeding $6,000. For goods arriving through shipments, the rate is a fixed 30%.
Payments must be made with international cards or national cards in dollars. Cash will only be accepted at designated entities in airports.
Resolution 340/2026, signed by the head of the General Customs, Nelson Enrique Cordovés Reyes, also establishes detailed rules for determining when an import is considered commercial, with reference value lists by categories: appliances, computers, construction materials, tools, and others. For mobile phones, for example, up to five units are allowed as non-commercial imports; for appliances of the same type, up to two.
This regulation is the regulatory implementation of a measure that Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz announced in June before the National Assembly as part of a package of 176 economic and social transformations, framed within Axis 15, which is dedicated to foreign trade.
In practice, thousands of Cubans operated as "mules" — travelers who transported goods from abroad for informal sale on the island — an activity that took place in a legal gray area and was pursued by customs through seizures. The new regulations provide a way for them to regularize their situation, though at a cost in foreign currency that many will find hard to bear.
The economist Elías Amor warned in September that this set of measures, along with Decree 160/2026 which prohibits wholesale trade for individual self-employed workers, aims to displace the "mules" from the import business in order to concentrate it within small and medium enterprises and cooperatives with greater state control.
At the end of September, the Cuban government reported that it had implemented 158 of the 176 announced measures —89% of the package— supported by 197 legal norms. This publication on Monday represents the latest regulatory pieces of one of the most anticipated transformations by those supplying the Cuban informal market.
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