Airbnb Pauses Services in Cuba, Impacting Hosts and Tourism
By Glenda Boza Ibarra (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – More than a thousand Cuban accommodations and experience hosts are listed on Airbnb, but this vital segment of the country’s private tourism sector now faces a serious crisis: they can no longer receive payments within Cuba.
In the case of experiences, Airbnb has indefinitely suspended both payments and services on the island, offering no clear explanation or transparent communication to those affected.
In early 2025, several Cuban hosts received a message stating that all pending reservations—including those not yet fulfilled—would be paid immediately. Soon after, calendars disappeared from the platform, and all experiences were labeled as “paused.”
While there’s been no official response, some speculate the move is tied to Trump-era U.S. policies.
“I’ve pretty much accepted that nothing will change for the next four years,” said a Havana-based host who has run an Airbnb experience for five years and holds an average rating of 4.92. “They shut us down for over a month during peak season. The least they could do now is turn the service back on.”
El Toque confirmed that the suspension applies to all hosts receiving payments within Cuba, whether for lodging or experiences.
“Anyone getting paid here [in Cuba] received their pending payouts, but they’re no longer allowed to take new bookings,” explained a host in Havana. “Now, it’s mandatory to receive payments through an overseas account.”
Previously, payments were often processed to bank cards in Cuba’s MLC magnetic currency.
Experiences in Limbo
Panic spread in WhatsApp groups on February 25 when hosts began noticing their calendars vanish and their listings go dark without warning.
Some received vague messages from Airbnb’s support team citing an “internal review” due to a high volume of new proposals. Yet many of the affected experiences had been active for years.
After the suspension, VaCuba—a Miami-based company handling Airbnb’s financial transactions in Cuba—reportedly submitted documents to the platform’s legal team showing that payments were going directly to hosts, not the Cuban government. There was no response
El Toque reached out to VaCuba via email for confirmation but received no reply.
Airbnb has vaguely attributed its decision to “new US government regulations,” but has not issued an official statement or timeline for resolution, but it has not published an official statement nor offered a calendar for solution.
Airbnb responded to El Toque: “In accordance with recent US federal regulations, we have notified hosts in Cuba that they must add a new payment method to their account in order to continue hosting on Airbnb. We are working with hosts and providing clear instructions on how to update their accounts and regain access. Additionally, we want to emphasize that we have already processed payments for future reservations confirmed using the current payment method.”
The lack of transparency has left many unsure whether they will regain access to what was once a primary source of income.
In the meantime, hosts are scrambling to find alternatives: opening bank accounts abroad, relying on relatives or friends as intermediaries, or using virtual cards.
Each option comes with added costs, higher fees, and increased dependence on third parties. “We’re already losing more than 20% in commissions, and now we have even more expenses if we have to get paid from abroad,” said another affected host.
While third-party payments may seem like a workaround, not all hosts have someone abroad willing or able to help. Moreover, any earnings must be declared for tax purposes, creating additional legal and logistical headaches.
Even hosts with foreign bank accounts are facing issues. One Havana-based experience host, who gets paid through a foreign bank, received a notice to update her information.
“But when I set my location to Cuba, it says that area is not supported,” she said. “I haven’t been able to update my info, and now I risk having the service permanently shut down.”
Her experience—among the first launched in Cuba back in 2016—had already been suspended once before, despite having confirmed bookings. Now it appears Airbnb is once again enforcing broad restrictions on all services tied to Cuban locations, regardless of where the money goes.
Sanctions, Legal Risks, and Corporate Caution
Airbnb’s decision may be linked to past legal troubles. In 2022, the company was fined over $91,000 for “apparent violations of sanctions against Cuba” by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
According to the Treasury report, the violations stemmed from Airbnb’s launch in Cuba in April 2015 without fully addressing the complexities of maintaining a sanctions-compliant program.
The expansion of its operations in Cuba had outpaced the platform’s ability to manage associated risks through its technology systems.
That fine may have prompted a more stringent review of Airbnb’s operations on the island.
In February 2025, Airbnb updated several terms and conditions, including its arbitration agreement for US users, effective April 17. While the updated policy primarily applies to United States residents, it may signal a broader shift in how the company handles sanctioned markets like Cuba.
Politics is also playing a role. The Trump administration, which began its second term in January 2025, has further tightened sanctions against Cuba. The country’s private sector, once seen as a path to citizen empowerment, is now caught in the crosshairs of foreign financial restrictions.
A Glimpse Into Cuba Beyond State-Run Tourism
Launched in 2016, Airbnb Experiences allow hosts to offer unique activities to travelers, either in person or online, across areas such as art, music, sports, nature, and cuisine.
In Cuba, these range from creating personalized perfumes, playing basketball in Havana’s Alamar neighborhood, to touring the capital with a local sociologist. They also include more traditional excursions to beaches and historic city centers.
“The problem is that once experiences are suspended, they have to go through the entire review and approval process again,” explained one affected host. “And since they only recently reopened new experience submissions, there’s a backlog. I don’t think they’ll be back up for several months.”
These experiences offered visitors a direct window into everyday Cuban life and had become a reliable source of income for many.
Now, Airbnb’s suspension doesn’t just represent a financial blow to Cuban hosts—it also erases an avenue for travelers to engage with a side of Cuba that exists beyond the reach of state-run tourism.