Overview
Cuba holds a rank-65 passport reaching 62 destinations without a prior visa. Its population is around 11.2 million, the capital is Havana, and the currency is the Cuban peso (CUP).
Cuba has no citizenship-by-investment programme, and does not recognise its citizens' second nationality.
📌 The two facts determining nearly everything about Cuban documents are in the first two sections of this article.
✅ 2013 — exit permits abolished
This was the largest change for Cubans in decades, and it belongs to a sequence this library has been tracking.
The events, stated as facts:
- 🔴 For decades, Cuban citizens wishing to travel abroad required an exit permit issued by their own authorities — commonly called the tarjeta blanca, the "white card".
- 🔴 Without it, departure was not permitted, even with a destination visa in hand. Issuance was discretionary, carried fees, and could be refused.
- ✅ In January 2013 Cuba abolished the requirement as part of a migration reform. Since then Cuban citizens can in principle depart with a valid passport and the destination country's visa.
📌 Placed in this library's "right to leave" sequence:
✅ Uzbekistan — exit visas, abolished 1 January 2019. ✅ Cuba — exit permits, abolished January 2013. 🔴 Turkmenistan — unpublished restriction lists, still in place. 🔴 Myanmar — restriction tied to conscription, from 2024. 🔴 Afghanistan — restriction by gender, still in place. 🔴 North Korea — ordinary citizens are not issued passports.
📌 The sequence is now complete enough to draw an observation: two of six have been abolished, and both within the last fifteen years. That is a real direction of travel, however slow.
🔴 But state it fully, because omitting this would gloss: abolishing the general permit does not mean everyone can travel. International reporting records that certain groups — including people in specified occupations and those regarded as having issues with the authorities — may still face departure restrictions under other provisions. 📌 What changed was the general requirement, not every possible restriction.
🔴 Non-recognition of second nationality — and its costly consequences
This is the most practical section for people of Cuban origin abroad, and the most frequently misunderstood.
The principle: 🔴 Cuba regards someone born a Cuban citizen as remaining a Cuban citizen, and does not recognise their acquisition of another nationality.
📌 This is precisely the fourth model this library described in the Iran article:
Prohibited outright — Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, India. Permitted by list — Pakistan, Bangladesh. Permitted outright — Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Vietnam in practice. 🔴 NOT RECOGNISED — Iran and Cuba.
Concrete consequences, and this is the part that costs real money:
- 🔴 People of Cuban origin holding another nationality must still use a Cuban passport to enter and leave Cuba. Using a foreign passport does not make one "a foreigner" in the eyes of Cuban law.
- 🔴 Cuban passports must be periodically revalidated at Cuban missions abroad — a procedure carrying fees, and for a family of several people a substantial recurring expense over years.
- 🔴 The second country's consular protection barely functions while the person is in Cuba — the same principle set out in the Iran article, and the general worldwide rule on dual nationality, not a Cuban peculiarity.
📌 For readers of this site, this is the question to ask before accepting any nationality: not merely "does this country permit dual citizenship", but "does my country of origin recognise the new one, and which document will I use when I visit home?"
🔴 A statute written for one nationality only
This is a rare legal detail, worth knowing because nothing equivalent exists elsewhere.
📌 The United States has a statute specific to Cubans: the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, allowing Cubans present in the United States for a defined period to apply to adjust to permanent resident status by a distinct route.
🔴 This is almost the only instance in US immigration law of a statute written for the nationals of ONE country.
📌 Its application has changed over time:
- For many years there operated a policy commonly called "wet foot, dry foot": Cubans reaching US soil could remain and pursue that route, while those intercepted at sea were returned.
- 🔴 In January 2017 the "wet foot, dry foot" policy was ended. The 1966 statute remains, but its application changed.
- 🔴 US migration policies concerning Cubans have changed repeatedly since, and continue to change. Check what is currently in force rather than relying on an article.
📌 Why this repays reading even for people with no connection to Cuba:
🔴 Because it shows something this whole site depends on but rarely states: migration conditions depend not only on who you are, but on what the destination country CURRENTLY THINKS about your nationality. That variable lies entirely outside an applicant's control and shifts with the destination's domestic politics.
📌 This is the same principle the Kosovo article concluded with: a document's value sits with the receiving country, not the issuing one.
🔴 The migration waves — and the recent one is the largest
Cuban emigration has occurred in distinct waves, worth recording because few countries show the pattern so clearly:
- The early 1960s — the first wave after the change of government in 1959.
- 1965 — an arrangement permitting departure through the port of Camarioca.
- 📌 1980 — the Mariel episode, when hundreds of thousands left through the port of Mariel within months.
- **1994 — the balseros wave**, people crossing by improvised raft.
- 🔴 From around 2021 to the present — an outflow that many sources assess as the largest in modern Cuban history by number, amid economic crisis, power shortages and scarcity of basic goods.
📌 A demographically notable point: 🔴 Cuba faces population decline and population ageing simultaneously, as emigration concentrates in working-age groups on top of low fertility. This is a far harder problem than losing workers alone — this library recorded brain drain in Guyana, Suriname and Bhutan, but Cuba is where it compounds an already ageing structure.
Geography & climate
📌 Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, at the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico, about 150 km from the US state of Florida.
The terrain is mostly plain and low hills, with the Sierra Maestra in the southeast. 📌 The Viñales valley, with its tower-like limestone formations, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the most renowned tobacco-growing area.
🔴 Tropical cyclones are a constant risk. 📌 Worth recording: Cuba's hurricane preparedness and evacuation system is highly regarded by many international organisations, and death tolls here are typically far lower than in neighbouring countries struck by the same storm — a result of organisation, not luck.
🔴 Material damage nonetheless remains very large, and reconstruction is constrained by economic difficulty.
History — stated at the level of facts
Cuba was a Spanish colony from the late fifteenth century. 🔴 The Indigenous population declined almost entirely in the early colonial period, and the sugar plantation economy rested on enslaved labour brought from Africa — Cuba was among the last countries in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1886.
📌 Independence from Spain came in 1898 after the Spanish–American War, followed by a period of US occupation and substantial influence.
- 🔴 1959 — a revolution brought a change of government and a new state model.
- 🔴 From the early 1960s, the United States applied a trade and financial embargo on Cuba. 📌 The UN General Assembly has adopted resolutions calling for its end annually for decades by overwhelming majorities. This site states the facts and records that positions differ between the parties.
- 1962 — the Cuban missile crisis, among the tensest moments of the Cold War.
- 1991 — 🔴 the dissolution of the Soviet Union removed Cuba's main support and trading partner, beginning the severe economic crisis Cuba calls the Período Especial.
- 2014–2016 — a period of diplomatic normalisation with the United States and reopened embassies; 🔴 many of the subsequent easings were reversed.
- 🔴 From 2019 to the present — severe economic crisis with prolonged power shortages, and scarcity of medicines and basic goods, alongside high inflation following currency unification.
📌 Vietnam and Cuba have a long and close relationship, with generations having studied and worked in each other's countries. It is among the most distinctive bilateral relationships either country holds, and the Vietnamese community in Cuba, though small, has history.
Economy
🔴 The context must come first: Cuba's economy is in severe difficulty, with shortages of foreign currency and fuel producing prolonged rolling power cuts, and scarcity of basic goods.
Principal revenue sources:
1. Medical services abroad. 📌 This has been Cuba's largest source of foreign currency for many years — teams of Cuban doctors and health workers serving under contracts with the governments of many countries. 🔴 For completeness: the working conditions and income-sharing arrangements of these missions have been raised as concerns by some international organisations and governments. Both halves are facts.
2. Tourism. 🔴 Sharply reduced from pre-2020 levels and not recovered.
3. Remittances. From very large communities in the United States, Spain and elsewhere. 🔴 Transfer channels are affected by embargo-related rules and have changed repeatedly, making this a technically unstable flow.
4. Nickel, tobacco, rum and sugar. 📌 Cuban cigars and Cuban rum are the two most valuable national brands, with their own markets worldwide.
5. Biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. 📌 Cuba's biotechnology sector is more developed than in most countries at comparable income levels, with several domestically developed vaccines and medicines.
🔴 On currency: for many years Cuba operated two parallel currencies. 📌 Currency unification in 2021 ended that, but 🔴 brought very high inflation and the emergence of multiple unofficial exchange rates. For visitors, currency and payment questions must be researched carefully in advance, not afterwards.
🔴 Cards issued by US institutions generally do not work in Cuba, and some other cards face restrictions too. Visitors frequently do not know this in advance and encounter real difficulty.
Culture & people
Spanish is the official language.
📌 Cuba's cultural influence far exceeds its population, particularly in music — son, rumba, mambo, cha-cha-chá, and a foundational influence on salsa. 📌 Cuban rumba and several other forms are inscribed on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage lists.
📌 Old Havana is a UNESCO World Heritage site, alongside Trinidad, Cienfuegos and other colonial cities.
📌 On social indicators: Cuba has very high literacy and good basic health indicators relative to income — documented by international organisations over decades. 🔴 But state it fully: the health and education systems have been heavily affected by the economic crisis of recent years, with shortages of medicines and supplies and departing staff.
Immigration routes
No investment programme exchanging for citizenship.
🔴 Cuba has no residence category for foreigners in the sense this site usually means. Existing categories include work permits tied to specific projects, residence through marriage to a Cuban citizen, and study, research and medical categories.
📌 Foreign investment operates chiefly through joint ventures with state partners under the foreign investment law, and 🔴 the largest barrier for businesses is not procedure but international payments and embargo-related compliance risk — the same problem class described in the Iran article.
Citizenship
- By birth and by descent.
- 🔴 Second nationalities are not recognised — see the opening section.
- Naturalisation of foreigners exists in law but requires long residence and case-by-case assessment; numbers are very small.
- 📌 Provisions exist for restoring citizenship to former Cuban citizens in certain cases — those affected should enquire directly with a Cuban mission.
🔴 If anyone offers you "Cuban citizenship by investment", stop. No such programme exists.
Everyday life
🔴 This section must be written plainly, because tourism material does not reflect it accurately.
Electricity: 🔴 Prolonged rolling power cuts are a daily reality in many areas, in some periods for many hours a day. This affects everything else.
Goods: 🔴 Shortages of basic goods, medicines and fuel are widespread. Anyone staying long should bring a full supply of personal medication.
Healthcare: 📌 The public health system has broad coverage and long tradition. 🔴 But shortages of medicines and supplies are real. A separate service exists for foreigners. Health insurance is mandatory for entry — check whether your policy is accepted by Cuba.
Internet: infrastructure has improved with mobile networks, but 🔴 costs are high relative to incomes and access restrictions have occurred.
Connectivity: José Martí International Airport in Havana connects to many Latin American, European and Canadian points.
Safety: violent crime is low by regional standards.
Who should consider Cuba
It may fit if:
- You have Cuban family — the most realistic route.
- You work in healthcare, biotechnology, agriculture or renewable energy with a specific project under a cooperation framework.
- You research music, Caribbean history or public health.
Not a fit if:
- 🔴 You are offered "Cuban citizenship by investment": no such programme exists.
- 🔴 You are of Cuban origin holding another nationality without understanding the consequences of Cuba's non-recognition — research it first, as it has real documentary and financial effects.
- 🔴 You need ordinary international payment channels or reliable electricity.
The point to carry away: ✅ Cuba is one of two countries in this library to have ABOLISHED a requirement to seek permission to leave — alongside Uzbekistan. In a sequence of six cases where four remain in place, two abolitions in fifteen years is a real direction.
🔴 But Cuba also shows the second half of the same problem, which is discussed far less: being permitted to LEAVE is not the same as being treated as having left. Cubans holding another nationality must still use a Cuban passport to return, must still revalidate it, and remain within the Cuban legal framework while on Cuban soil.
📌 That is what to ask before accepting any second nationality: not only "what do I gain", but "how will my country of origin regard this".