Gasoline in Dollars: The Gap Widens Between Cubans
between those with dollars and the majority without
HAVANA TIMES – Amalia, a doctor from Havana, returned from Angola in early 2025 with a car given to her as “recognition” for her work in that country. Today, the car sits unused. It’s impossible for her to pay for gasoline in dollars. Filling the tank with cheaper options would only damage the engine.
Every day, she faces the same uncertainty: leave it parked, sell it, or take on expenses she can’t really afford. What was supposed to be a reward has become a luxury she can’t sustain.
“Because of the whim of some people who clearly don’t need to buy fuel, my mother either sells the car or parks it for good. Tell me, how can a doctor pay for gasoline in dollars? Filling up with regular or motor fuel isn’t viable — the repairs would cost more than the fuel itself,” Amalia’s son told elTOQUE.
Gasoline in Dollars, Mobility in Crisis
The sale of gasoline in dollars throughout the country was officially announced by the Cuban government in January 2024.
Tania Danay Vives Alfonso, Economic Vice President of Cimex (part of the military conglomerate GAESA), said the measure would take effect in February and that the main goal was “to facilitate fuel access for tourists, as well as individuals, economic actors, foreign branches, joint ventures, and anyone who wishes to pay under these conditions.”
Shortly afterward, the First Deputy Minister of Economy, Mildrey Granadillo, announced on Cuban television that the measure was postponed due to a computer virus that had compromised gas station security.
By June 2024, Cimex had incorporated nearly twenty service stations into the dollar-based fuel network “to meet demand in tourist areas.”
In February 2025, Irenaldo Perez, deputy director of the state company Unión Cuba-Petróleo (Cupet), explained on national television that the country did not have enough 94-octane gasoline to meet demand, and that priority would be given to the “network of [dollar-based] service stations.”
By October of this year, the number of gas stations selling in USD had surpassed 60 service stations across the country.
But the story isn’t new: in 2017, after fuel imports from Venezuela dropped, Cuba supplied high-octane gasoline exclusively to rental cars for tourists.
Meanwhile, some sectors of the population receive gasoline quotas in Cuban pesos (CUP). But the assigned quantities are minimal, and according to users interviewed by elTOQUE, it can take months to refill, following a complex system of lists and numbered turns.
“I have a motorbike, I need to go to work 25 days a month, and they give me ten liters every four months,” said José Simón from Sancti Spíritus.
The quota in national currency is not for everyone (it applies to certain professionals such as doctors, church workers, employees of gas stations, and state entities like the Post Office or bus terminals). Outside of this quota, gasoline appears only sporadically — either at state service stations that sell in foreign currency or on the informal market at over 450 pesos ($1 USD) per liter (for regular).
In April 2023, the EFE news agency and independent media reported a fuel shortage crisis that lasted several days across the country.
Even the official newspaper Granma reported that allocations for “vital activities” in Havana’s service stations would be adjusted, without specifying which. Since then, the fuel situation on the island has only worsened.
“In national currency, there’s no fuel. The lines are still enormous (…) and that affects everyone because fares go up, and for us private drivers too. So you don’t know how you’re going to survive,” said botero (private taxi driver) Rafael Alba Macías to Martí Noticias in January 2025.
“We know that the only place they sell gasoline to the Cuban people — and in a currency we don’t earn — is in dollar service stations. You either earn dollars, have a family abroad who sends them, or else buy a horse and pray it doesn’t get stolen. We’re screwed, no matter how you look at it,” said Carlos Enrique Perez from Consolación del Sur, Pinar del Rio.
From Havana’s Cotorro municipality, private taxi driver Alejandro Rodriguez told El Toque that at first, dollar-priced gasoline was “more or less manageable.”
Rodriguez explained that “there’s an order” stating that once 5,000 liters of gasoline are sold — even if paid in dollars — sales must stop.
“And now they don’t allow you to take gasoline away in cans. Sometimes the only place that has any is the Riviera, and the line is enormous. It’s lines and lines; sometimes it’s easy, but most of the time you wait five hours there,” he said.
Power Generators Enter the Dollar Game
The model of fuel dollarization doesn’t just affect vehicles: those who own electric generators, after registering them, are assigned a purchase limit in national currency.
Owners must present their ID card, the generator’s legal documentation, and their ration book to be included in the census.
The stated purpose of this process is to determine who can access fuel in Cuban pesos through the digital platform Ticket, which is used to supply generators amid the ongoing shortage.
Outside that limited quota — which takes a long time to process — the only option is to buy in dollars. For those who depend on constant power, this means planning, paying more on the informal exchange market, and often improvising.
“They’ve now implemented fuel sales — a measly 20 liters for generators once a month — but the electricity still goes out every day,” commented one user on social media who buys fuel at the Cupet station in Tangana, Havana.
From Holguín, Jose Enrique Paz Antunez said that when he manages to buy fuel in dollars, there are restrictions on both hours and quantities, and the gasoline he needs for his generator is limited.
In Las Tunas, Yony Hernandez said he had to transport his generator in a car trunk more than 50 kilometers to Camagüey just to refuel.
A Country Divided by Currency
The Cuban government has adopted a model in which foreign currency dictates mobility and daily life on the island. The gap between those who can pay in dollars and those who rely on the peso has become painfully wide. Daily life revolves around a currency most people don’t possess.
By evening, Amalia’s car remains motionless. Her routine, like that of hundreds of thousands of Cubans, now depends more on the availability of dollars than on her effort or work.
On the island, gasoline has become a scarce commodity — a privilege that divides even among car owners: those who can access foreign currency and those who can only wait.
As the country dollarizes its economy, citizens improvise, adapt, and survive, aware that each liter purchased or each empty tank left behind is a reminder of the distance between official rhetoric and real life.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.