Cuban peso sinks as dollar hits 680 on informal market

The peso kept sliding fast enough to change the math on a street stall, a remittance pickup, and a family grocery run all in the same day. On Cuba’s informal market, the U.S. dollar rose to 680 CUP on June 17, up 10 pesos from the previous day, while quotes were still being completed around 650 CUP in some transactions and as high as 710 CUP in others.

That spread says as much as the headline rate. It points to a market with little agreement on where the currency should really trade, and to a pace of depreciation that leaves households and small sellers making decisions in real time. Since the end of May, the peso has lost 100 pesos against the dollar, a 17.2 percent drop in just the first 17 days of June.

The formal numbers tell a different story, but not a comforting one. The Banco Central de Cuba listed the official dollar rate at 555 CUP for June 17, with the euro at 644.7713 CUP and the Canadian dollar at 396.9105 CUP. The gap between those official rates and the informal market has become part of everyday commerce, especially for anyone paid in CUP and trying to protect savings, restock inventory, or buy imported goods.

The euro has moved in the same direction, and the Canadian dollar has also fallen sharply in daily terms even though it still shows a weaker peso over the month. elTOQUE’s historical dashboard, which tracks USD, MLC and euro rates back to January 1, 2021, shows that this is not a one-day shock but a long deterioration. Reporting this year has put the peso’s loss of value against the dollar at about 95 percent since 2020, when the greenback traded near 42 CUP on the informal market.

The pressure on Cuban wallets is brutal. A March 2026 report put the average state salary at about 6,500 CUP a month and the average pension at about 4,000 CUP, both worth less than $13 at the informal rate. That same reporting said a carton of 30 eggs cost more than 3,000 CUP in February, a price that can wipe out a week of wages in a single purchase.

The strain is also shaping policy. On April 7, Fincimex said remittances sent from abroad could be collected in cash in U.S. dollars at Cadeca exchange offices, a sign of how central hard currency has become to household finances. At the same time, journalists at elTOQUE have faced threats of prosecution and prison over publishing informal rate estimates, a reminder that the market price of the peso is now politically sensitive as well as economically painful.

By the time the peso dropped another 10 pesos in a single day, the story was no longer just about exchange rates. It was about how quickly Cubans are forced to change prices, postpone purchases, and cling to dollars while the currency they are paid in keeps losing ground.