22OCT

Cuban peso sinks to 750 per dollar

3 min read

17:12UTC

El Toque's informal index put the dollar at a record 750 pesos on 29 September, with the euro rising alongside it to 850.

← Back to Cuba opens oilfields, US cuts dollar routes Jump to analysis ↓

PoliticsDeveloping

Key takeaway

Cuba's informal dollar rate hit a record 750 pesos on 29 September.

The informal US dollar reached a record 750 pesos on Tuesday 29 September on the index kept by El Toque, the independent outlet whose rate Cuba's street economy prices by⁠¹. It had stood at 683 on 6 September. Dollar-priced goods, from imported food to fuel, now cost about 10 per cent more in pesos than in early September. The euro climbed with it, from 775 to 850.

In early September the two currencies had moved in opposite directions; both rising together now points at a weaker peso. The Banco Central de Cuba's floating official rate followed, to 681 on 29 September. The dollar's gain took 23 days, after 1.5 per cent over the previous 30.

The rise followed the 3 September designation of Banco Exterior de Cuba. OFAC announced the end of U-turn clearing on 29 September, the day the dollar hit 750, after most of the move had happened. The data show sequence only, and a peso falling against both currencies has domestic causes too.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Cuba has its own currency, the peso. Officially, the state sets exchange rates, but most Cubans buy and sell dollars and euros on an informal market at a much worse rate. El Toque, an independent news outlet, publishes a daily estimate of that informal rate, and many Cubans price goods by it. On 29 September its rate reached 750 pesos for one US dollar, the highest it has recorded. That means anything bought with dollars, such as imported food, became more expensive for people paid in pesos.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Cuba earns hard currency mainly from tourism, remittances, medical services and a few exports, and tourism has fallen sharply this year. Fewer dollars and euros enter the island, while importers, private firms and families all need them.

The state pays wages and pensions in pesos and finances its deficit partly through the central bank, adding pesos faster than the economy produces goods.

The central bank's floating rate was introduced to pull trade into an official channel, but it follows the informal market rather than leading it, so the street rate still sets prices for most private sales.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Prices of imported goods sold by private firms are likely to rise in step with the informal rate.
Risk
If the central bank's floating rate keeps following the informal market, official prices pegged to it will rise as well.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Spain

Spain

Primary parallel: Venezuela's government blamed the website DolarToday for the bolívar's collapse from 2013 onward, sued its founders in the US and blocked the site at home. The informal rate kept rising because the central bank kept financing the deficit, so silencing the index did not stop the fall.

Counter-parallel: Egypt floated its pound in March 2024 after the United Arab Emirates committed $35 billion for the Ras El Hekma coast project. The parallel-market premium closed within days, showing that a large inflow of hard currency can end a black-market spread quickly.

Immediate effect: goods priced in dollars, from imported food to fuel sold by private firms, cost about 10 per cent more in pesos than in early September. Workers paid in pesos, including state employees and pensioners, lose that share of their buying power on imported goods.

Structural effect: the dollar's gain over 23 days followed a month of near stability. It overlapped with the Banco Exterior de Cuba designation and with OFAC's 30 September rule, but the timing proves no link. A peso falling against both the dollar and the euro points to domestic causes as well.

Consensus view: Pavel Vidal Alejandro, a former Banco Central de Cuba economist now at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali, has long tied the informal rate to the peso money supply. A state budget deficit financed by printing pesos pushes up every hard currency together, which fits the euro climbing from 775 to 850 alongside the dollar.

Counter-view: Cuban officials have accused El Toque, the independent outlet that publishes the index, of manipulating the rate from abroad with thin, unverifiable quotes. On that account the index amplifies panic rather than measuring trade, and the central bank's own floating rate of 681 shows a lower price where deals are settled.

Key tension: Whether the official rate is following the informal market up, or whether El Toque's quotes run ahead of the deals actually being done.

Sources:EFE via elDinero·EFE via elDinero

Mentions:El Toque →Cuba →OFAC →Venezuela →Banco Exterior de Cuba →Egypt →Banco Central de Cuba →United Arab Emirates (UAE) →

First Reported In

Update #15 · Cuba opens oilfields, US cuts dollar routes

EFE via elDinero· 22 Oct 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

Caused by

Cuba's dollar rises as the euro falls

El Toque's 6 September reading of 683 is the base from which the dollar rose to 750.

Occurred 6 Sept 2026

Read story →

This Event

Cuban peso sinks to 750 per dollar

A dollar and euro rising together point at a weaker peso, raising the peso cost of every dollar-priced import.

Different Perspectives

UN General Assembly

The Assembly passed last year's resolution against the US embargo by 165 votes to 7, with 12 abstentions, and votes again on 28 October. That count is the baseline against which Havana's lobbying claims and Washington's pressure will be measured.

Mexican Navy (Secretaría de Marina)

A Mexican Navy team inspected Grace at Progreso and found fuel in its ballast tanks, according to the US Coast Guard. The account of Mexico's role comes from Washington; the Mexican government's own position on the stop is not on record in the sources reviewed.

Pedro Monreal, independent Cuban economist

Monreal says the gazette contains no rule for the exchange-house licence ADT 64 received, so nobody knows how a second firm could apply. He says a representative rate would need at least ten houses in five provinces, Havana included.

Prisoners Defenders and OCDH (Madrid-based exile monitors)

Prisoners Defenders counted a record 1,351 political prisoners at the end of September, and OCDH logged at least 344 repressive actions that month. OCDH asked the European Union on 11 September to investigate possible trafficking in Cuba's medical brigade in Italy.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier

Uthmeier announced a no-bond state warrant for Raúl Castro on 19 October over the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown, after reopening the state investigation last year. The four men killed flew for a Miami exile group, and the warrant restricts Castro's travel rather than reaching him in Cuba.

Cuban government (Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla)

Rodríguez said on 21 October that Washington is pressing governments to abstain or leave the hall in the 28 October UN vote and called Florida's Raúl Castro warrant worthless. Havana is presenting its October oil and trade rules as openings and the US measures as an energy blockade.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.