As lines grow at banks, Cuba tiptoes away from communism but stability seems distant

Víctor Rodríguez, a 72-year-old retiree, rose before dawn to nab his ​spot in line at a bank in Havana several kilometers from his home.

If ​he'd risked a later start, the bank might have ‌run ​out of bills before his turn. Or the power or internet could go out, shutting the branch down. Arriving at 7.30 in the morning, he hoped he would be done before the heat of midday. Around him, dozens of others, many also ‌elderly, had made a similar bet — arriving early and hoping for their chance to take out the maximum daily allowance of 20,000 pesos, or about $28 at the black market exchange rate.

Such scenes have become a common sight in Havana and around the country, where on top of long-running shortages of food, fuel and medicine there is now not enough cash to go ‌around. The lack of hard currency has been exacerbated by soaring prices, with Cuba's rapidly dollarizing economy increasingly dependent on imports and the peso hitting a new record ‌of 700 to the dollar on Wednesday, a roughly tenfold decline in value since 2021.

The situation has led Cuba's government, communist since the 1959 Cuban Revolution, to introduce swaths of free-market reforms in order to try to bring the situation under control. Last week, the government released new bills, in 10,000- and 20,000-peso denominations, which officials said they hope will improve cash supply. Cuba also authorized last week the first private currency-exchange house, an ⁠unprecedented move ​in a country where the central bank has ⁠long controlled the exchange rate.

The advent of private, legal exchange houses, the central bank says, will help inform the official exchange rate, making the process more transparent and tamping down on speculation. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has ⁠said Cuba is not renouncing socialism, but is responding to the punishing effects of US sanctions, which have escalated under President Donald Trump.

NO END IN SIGHT For many Cubans, the fruits of such efforts ​still seem far off.

"If you eat, you can't buy clothes. If you buy clothes, you can't go out; if you go out, you can't eat," said ⁠42-year-old Havana resident Yuset Rodríguez, summarizing the daily dilemma facing many families. Rising prices have been a growing problem in Cuba since the COVID pandemic and a flawed monetary reform in 2021. But consumer prices in 2026 increased upwards ⁠of ​25% between January and August versus the same period the year before, Cuba's statistics agency ONEI said in September.

Many economists say real inflation — the official consumer price index estimate does not include the booming informal market — is much higher, especially as fuel prices have soared following a US move in January to cut off oil imports to the island. Gas ⁠prices have settled since the initial shock. But at between $2 and $3 per liter, they remain nearly double the global average of $1.57 for high-octane fuel.

Many Cubans say that soaring ⁠prices, not shortages, are today the biggest challenge ⁠they face. Midiala Hon Mesa, a 56-year-old Havana resident on a shopping trip late last week, said local farm markets maintain abundant supply, but prices can jump drastically from one day to the next while wages remain stagnant.

"There is food in Cuba. The problem ‌is that prices have skyrocketed and ‌the economy is in the gutter," she said.