Cuba abolished its convertible peso on 1 January 2021 under a decree-law giving holders 180 days to exchange it at twenty-four Cuban pesos to one. The window was reopened twice more and then given a statutory end of 17 September 2022, which is 625 days after unification.
Abolishing a currency is mostly a question of dates. The state has to say when the old money stops being spendable, when it stops being exchangeable, and what it converts into. Cuba set those dates in 2021 for its convertible peso, and then had to set them again, and again.
Key Takeaways
- Unification took effect on 1 January 2021 and gave holders 180 days to exchange the convertible peso.
- From 1 July 2021 the currency could no longer be spent in shops, only redeemed at selected banks.
- The window was reopened twice more and closed by statute on 17 September 2022, 625 days after unification.
- Households converted at twenty-four to one; a separate administered rate of one to one applied inside the state sector.
- The reform promised a single exchange rate for the whole economy, and that promise was withdrawn in 2022.
What the reform actually was
Four things at once, and the currency was one of them.
Decree-Law 17 of 24 November 2020, published in the official gazette of 10 December 2020 and in force from 1 January 2021, opens by ordering the implementation of what it calls the ordering process. Its first article lists the parts: monetary and exchange unification, correction of relative prices in the legal-persons segment, elimination of excessive subsidies and undue gratuities, and transformation of the distribution of household income as regards wages, pensions and social-assistance benefits.
The recital gives the purpose in one clause: that the Cuban peso recover the functions of money.
The rest arrived in the same batch of gazettes that day. A national minimum wage of 2,100 pesos a month and a minimum pension for age and total disability of 1,528 pesos were set by labour ministry resolutions, alongside seventeen more covering sector salary systems from education and health to maritime crews and the foreign service.
A separate provision handled the legal debris: any reference to the convertible peso in existing legislation is to be read as a reference to the Cuban peso, applying the exchange rate where relevant.
The window, and what closed when
The original terms were tight and specific.
Article 2 withdrew the convertible peso within 180 days of unification, and provided that once that term elapsed it would have neither legal tender status nor liberatory power. Article 3 required exchange bureaux and bank branches to accept it during that period, and required shops to keep accepting it, but only in order to complete the transaction and take the note out of circulation.
That second obligation ended first. Decree-Law 37 of 14 June 2021 extended the exchange period by a further 180 days and simultaneously recorded that from 1 July 2021 the convertible peso ceased to be accepted in the shops previously authorised to receive it, the earlier period having elapsed.
So from mid-2021 the currency occupied an unusual position: not spendable anywhere, still redeemable at selected bank branches. The stated reason for the extension was that the epidemiological situation had left people unable to make the exchange.
A third instrument followed. Decree-Law 62 of 27 May 2022 established a new period of ninety days for cash held by natural persons to be exchanged at bank branches.
The date that finally fixed it
Decree-Law 63 of 3 August 2022 did two things in one page. Its special provision maintained exchangeability until 17 September 2022, at the same twenty-four to one. Its final provision repealed all three earlier decree-laws.
That is the only end date stated in words rather than produced by counting days from a commencement, and it is the one to use. Measured from unification on 1 January 2021, a 180-day withdrawal took 625 days and four instruments.
| Date | What changed | Instrument |
|---|---|---|
| 1 January 2021 | Unification; 180-day exchange window opens | Decree-Law 17 of 2020 |
| 1 July 2021 | No longer accepted in shops; window extended 180 days | Decree-Law 37 of 2021 |
| Mid-2022 | A new 90-day window established | Decree-Law 62 of 2022 |
| 17 September 2022 | Exchangeability ends; earlier instruments repealed | Decree-Law 63 of 2022 |
Two conversion rates, not one
The headline figure is twenty-four Cuban pesos to one convertible peso, and it is genuinely administered rather than a market price: a central bank resolution of 26 November 2020 set it, and three successive decree-laws restated it.
What the headline leaves out is that a second rate applied at the same time. The same resolution applied one Cuban peso per convertible peso to the balances of central state bodies, local government, state enterprises, budgeted units, the agricultural cooperative sector and certain bilateral accounts. The twenty-four to one rate applied to households, non-agricultural cooperatives, non-state management forms, embassies, airlines, religious institutions and foreign company representative offices.
So a household and a state enterprise converted the same currency at rates twenty-four times apart. A guide that quotes only the household figure is accurate for a person and wrong about the balance sheet the reform was mostly concerned with.
Accounts were handled separately from cash. Convertible peso deposit accounts survived for a period in which the holder could convert, after which remaining balances converted automatically. No new deposits were accepted, withdrawals were made in Cuban pesos, and cash machines dispensed Cuban pesos whatever the account was denominated in.
What happened to the single rate
The reform's own promise was a single exchange rate for the whole economy. It lasted nineteen months.
In June 2021 the central bank suspended acceptance of US dollars in cash from natural and legal persons, while expressly confirming that people could continue to hold foreign currency without restriction. The stated reason was that the country could not deposit abroad the US dollars collected domestically.
In August 2022, in the same gazette that fixed the convertible peso's final deadline, two further resolutions changed the framework. One replaced the wording providing for a single rate under a fixed regime with a provision that the rates of the Cuban peso against foreign currencies are those applied by the central bank. The other reopened purchases of foreign currency at bank branches and exchange bureaux at a new official rate, from 4 August 2022, while expressly deferring the sale side to a date the bank would announce.
The dollar deposit ban was lifted in April 2023, and the resolution lifting it says why in its own recital: the exchange market implemented from August 2022 had created the conditions for dollar deposits to be accepted again. Between June 2021 and April 2023 there was a 659-day period in which a person holding US dollar notes in Cuba could not bank them.
Where it stands now
The framework has been replaced again, and the objective is familiar.
A central bank resolution in force from 18 December 2025 sets out the general bases for exchange rate policy and repeals the August 2022 resolutions that had reopened the market. Its stated objective is to achieve the unification of the official exchange rates.
Five years after a reform whose text promised a single exchange rate for the whole economy, unifying the official rates is again an objective rather than a description. That is the honest summary, and it does not require quoting a single rate to make.
Meanwhile the direction of retail has moved the other way. A package of instruments published on 4 August 2026 authorises the sale of motor vehicles, trailers, engines and related goods in US dollars or their equivalent in other convertible currencies, and applies a special products and services tax and customs tariffs denominated in US dollars to those sales. A state that legislated in 2020 for its own peso to recover the functions of money was, by 2026, writing tax rates for a retail category in somebody else's.
Where to look next
The AUD to CUP page carries the live reference rate and a short block on what the Banco Central de Cuba publishes today. For a country running two different currencies side by side rather than retiring one, how a country uses two currencies at once sets that arrangement out, and why a country drops zeros from its money covers the different operation of a redenomination. And for a withdrawal that capped how much any household could convert, when a redenomination has a ceiling sets out what that clause does to the people holding the old notes. Both are about a country running more than one money at a time, which is the condition this reform set out to end.
Sources
- Decreto-Ley 17 of 24 November 2020, Gaceta Oficial No. 68 Extraordinaria, 10 December 2020 - article 1's four limbs, article 2's withdrawal within 180 days and the loss of legal tender status, article 3 on exchange and on shops accepting only to withdraw the note, the recital's statement that the Cuban peso recover the functions of money, and the reading of references to the convertible peso as references to the Cuban peso
- Gaceta Oficial No. 69 Extraordinaria, 10 December 2020 - the labour ministry resolutions setting the national minimum wage and the minimum pension, and the sector salary systems
- Gaceta Oficial No. 73 Extraordinaria, 10 December 2020 - Resolución 177 of the Banco Central de Cuba, setting twenty-four to one for the public and one to one for the state sector, and governing the deposit accounts, the withdrawal currency and the cash machines
- Decreto-Ley 37 of 14 June 2021, Gaceta Oficial No. 51 Extraordinaria, 21 June 2021 - the first extension of 180 days, the end of acceptance in shops from 1 July 2021, and the stated reason
- Decreto-Ley 62 of 27 May 2022, Gaceta Oficial No. 56 Ordinaria, 2 June 2022 - the further period of ninety days
- Decreto-Ley 63 of 3 August 2022, Gaceta Oficial No. 46 Extraordinaria, 3 August 2022 - exchangeability maintained until 17 September 2022, the repeal of the three earlier decree-laws, and the Cuban peso as the legal tender means of payment
- Resolución 176 of 2021 of the Banco Central de Cuba, Gaceta Oficial No. 47 Extraordinaria, 10 June 2021 - the suspension of US dollar cash acceptance from 21 June 2021, the confirmation that people may hold foreign currency without restriction, and the stated reason
- Resolución 63 of 2023 of the Banco Central de Cuba, Gaceta Oficial No. 26 Extraordinaria, 10 April 2023 - the repeal of the 2021 suspension, and the recital attributing it to the exchange market implemented from August 2022
- Gaceta Oficial No. 46 Extraordinaria, 3 August 2022 - the resolutions replacing the single-rate wording and reopening purchases of foreign currency from 4 August 2022, the sale side deferred
- Resolución 127 of 2025 of the Banco Central de Cuba, Gaceta Oficial No. 94 Ordinaria, 18 December 2025 - the current bases for exchange rate policy, the repeal of the August 2022 resolutions, and the stated objective of unifying the official exchange rates
- Gaceta Oficial No. 65 Ordinaria, 4 August 2026 - the motor vehicle package authorising sale in US dollars, and the tax and customs tariff instruments denominated in that currency
General information about monetary unification and currency withdrawal. Not financial advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.
Common questions
When did the convertible peso stop being exchangeable?
On 17 September 2022. Decree-Law 63 of 3 August 2022 provided that convertible pesos in cash held by natural persons would continue to be accepted for exchange at bank branches until that date, at twenty-four Cuban pesos per convertible peso. That instrument also repealed the three that preceded it.
What was the original deadline?
One hundred and eighty days from unification. Decree-Law 17 of 24 November 2020 withdrew the convertible peso from circulation within 180 days counted from monetary and exchange unification on 1 January 2021, and provided that once that term elapsed the currency would have neither legal tender status nor liberatory power.
What was the conversion rate?
Twenty-four Cuban pesos to one convertible peso for households, set by a central bank resolution of 26 November 2020 and then restated in three successive decree-laws. A different administered rate of one to one applied inside the state sector, covering central state bodies, state enterprises, budgeted units and the agricultural cooperative sector.
Was the unification only about currency?
No. The decree-law names four limbs: monetary and exchange unification, correction of relative prices for legal persons, elimination of excessive subsidies and undue gratuities, and transformation of the distribution of household income through wages, pensions and social assistance. A national minimum wage and a minimum pension were set the same day, in the same batch of official gazettes.
Did the reform achieve a single exchange rate?
Not durably. The decree-law provided for a single exchange rate for the whole economy. In August 2022 a central bank resolution replaced that wording with a provision that the rates are those applied by the central bank, and a resolution in force from 18 December 2025 states its own objective as achieving the unification of the official exchange rates.