The foreign exchange international companies do not stop increasing their value in Cuba. The increase that they have been experiencing in recent weeks in the informal market is also compounded by the increase in their quotes in the floating rate established just a month ago by the Central Bank of the island.
The result is a greater depreciation of the Cuban peso against these currencies, not only due to the exchange outside the official mechanisms, but also through them.
To give you an idea, so far this week the dollar has gone from trading at 419 pesos (CUP) in the floating rate on Monday at 426 CUP this Wednesday. This is an increase of seven pesos in just two days, and 16 pesos when compared to his first performance, December 18.
As for the euro, although it has risen less, it has also risen. Two days ago it was officially quoted at 485.87 CUP and today it is at 499.36, just under four pesos higher.
Its increase is greater, however, compared to its initial value in the floating rate: 481.42 CUP. In this way, the jump of the European currency has been around 18 pesos since then.
For its part, the Canadian dollar shows a value this Wednesday about seven pesos higher than on Monday: 307.99 CUP to 300.90 CUP. With respect to its first quote at the new rate (297.42 CUP), the increase is just over seven pesos.
“With sorrows and without glory”
The behavior of the floating rate in its first month confirms the sustained depreciation of the Cuban peso in the midst of a prolonged and structural economic crisis on the island.
For economist Pedro Monreal, who critically analyzes the precarious scenario of the Cuban economy, during this first month the floating rate has fought a “’battle’ with pain and without glory.”
In a publication this Tuesday on his networks, the expert highlighted that until that moment the CUP had devalued 3.9% against the US dollar with the floating rate. With this, he pointed out, “the government’s expectation that the official ‘new exchange market’ would favor the recovery of the purchasing capacity of the national currency” has been unfulfilled.
2/2 Until today, the CUP has devalued 3.9% against the USD with the floating rate, failing to fulfill the government’s expectation that the official “new exchange market” would favor the recovery of the purchasing capacity of the national currency pic.twitter.com/1dFzxtNGit
— Pedro Monreal (@pmmonreal) January 20, 2026
When announcing the establishment of the floating rate last December, the minister-president of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Juana Lilia Delgado, pointed out that its purpose was not to “replace one distortion with another, but to gradually close the monetary gaps that affect the economy and families.”
The official assured that this transformation was conceived by the Government as “a tool to organize the economy and strengthen the financial system”, and that it sought to “incentivize the entry of foreign currency into the exchange market” to reduce “the pressures and irregularities of the informal market.”
However, a month later, currencies have skyrocketed again on the black market, leading to the floating rate tow and opening the value gap with it.
Without going any further, this Wednesday the dollar was trading at 490 CUP, the euro at 535 CUP and the Canadian dollar at 315 CUP, in all cases with visible increases compared to their December values. according to the rate of the opposing media The Touch.
In the same, the MLC has also increased its price significantly and now stands at 410 pesos.
