Informal rate
The informal dollar rate in Cuba
This rate has not been updated since April 2, 2026 — the informal market moves fast. Treat it as a reference, not as today's quote.
This figure comes from the informal market — it is not the Cuban government's official rate, and it can change from one day to the next, sometimes sharply. We use it to estimate how much your family receives when the payout arrives in cash (CUP); it does not apply to MLC card balances, which stay in dollars.
Why does this rate move so much?
There is no official, liquid currency market in Cuba where anyone can buy or sell dollars at the government rate. In practice, the real price of the dollar is set by street money changers (informally), based on how many people want to sell remittance dollars that day and how many want to buy dollars or euros to import, travel or save.
When more people are receiving remittances than looking to buy dollars, the rate falls. When foreign-currency cash is scarce — for example, if a bank limits withdrawals or import demand rises — the rate climbs, sometimes within days.
That is why we do not publish this figure as a live ticker: we verify it manually, cross-checking several public sources, and we clearly mark when it was last updated. A stale number in this kind of market can lead you to miscalculate how much your family receives.