What for decades was the most accessible street food for low-income Cubans has become a barometer of the economic crisis: the price of a pizza in Cuba varies in 2026 between 100 CUP at a provincial stand and more than 7,000 CUP at a private restaurant in Havana.
In cities like Holguín, a basic pizza from a street vendor costs around 100 to 150 CUP, while in Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila, prices range from 180 to 200 CUP.
The capital is a different story.
In Havana, street vendors charge around 300 or 400 CUP, but the increase has been staggering: at the Playa stop, the price rose from 250 CUP at the end of 2025 to 400 CUP in June of this year, a 60% increase in less than three months.
In private restaurants, the figures rise even more. A pizza at the Hotel E Velasco and Louvre costs 1,000 CUP, with additional ingredients that can add between 200 and 500 CUP more, while in high-end establishments, prices can range from 6,000 to 7,000 CUP.
In September, three pizzas at a private business totaled approximately 7,700 CUP, about 2,567 CUP each.
The impact on Cuban wallets is severe, and the prices of pizzas vary by location, highlighting the gap that reflects the devastation of the population's purchasing power.
With an estimated average salary of 6,930 CUP per month and a minimum salary ranging from 2,100 to 2,200 CUP, a single restaurant pizza can represent between 14% and 47% of a worker's monthly income.
A Cuban documented in July that a family outing—shrimp, ropa vieja, pork, and takeout pizzas— cost her 20,000 CUP, equivalent to four months of her salary.
Behind the increase in costs, there is a chain of structural factors.
The sack of flour, a basic ingredient for any pizzeria, reached a cost of 45,000 CUP in 2026, and the informal exchange rate of the dollar reached 780 CUP in October, increasing the prices of all imported ingredients: cheese, cold cuts, and oil.
The official year-on-year inflation in Cuba reached 25.19% in August, but in the category of food and non-alcoholic beverages, the increase was even more pronounced: 36.01% in that same month.
In public events and spaces, prices are also relentless. During the Pa'Cuba festival at the National Aquarium, a pizza cost 1,350 CUP, while at a popular beach in Las Tunas, a state-run stall sold it for about 300 CUP.
For foreign tourists, the reality is different: in tourist restaurants in Havana, an Italian pizza can cost between 14 and 22 dollars, highlighting the divide between the economy based on pesos and the dollarized one.
Pizza was for decades the symbol of popular Cuban food, an inexpensive alternative that survived even the Special Period of the 1990s.
Today, as noted in a recent analysis on food in Cuba as an unattainable luxury, what once sustained the poorest has now become a privilege that many Cubans can no longer afford.
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