From January to September, Cuba hosted 20.5% fewer visitors than the previous year, the worst result since the Covid-19 pandemic.
14ymedio, Madrid, November 6, 2025 — On Wednesday, more than half a month late, Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) published tourism data for last September, confirming the collapse of the sector. In the first nine months of 2025, Cuba received a total of 1,366,720 international visitors, 20.5% fewer (340,486) than in the same period last year.
In September, 106,748 international travellers arrived on the island, a figure lower than those recorded in the same month in 2024 and 2023, and also lower than those reported in August (135,985) and July (142,131). Going by countries, there were fewer visitors from the United States, which fell to third place, and from Cubans abroad (19.6% and 20.7% respectively) while Russia moved up to second.
These figures mainly reflect Donald Trump’s tougher immigration measures. In recent months, many Cuban residents in the US have reported being grilled by the authorities when they returned from trips the island, which hadn’t happened before.
The Dominican Republic, a direct competitor of Cuba, is not only receiving more and more tourists, but also more and more Cubans.
On the other hand, Cuban families scattered throughout the island, and also abroad, are increasingly meeting up in the Dominican Republic. This Caribbean country, a direct tourist competitor of Cuba, continues to receive not only more and more tourists, but also more and more Cubans. Between January and September 2025, a total of 6,575,073 international travellers entered the country. Of these, Cubans account for just 0.1% (6,153), but they did not even appear in the report for the same period last year, and their numbers have been going up in recent months: by August, there were 5,246.
What’s happening in the Dominican Republic is dramatic for Cuba, with its definitely unreachable annual target of 2.6 million visitors. Given the trend, it will hardly get to two million, even lower than the negative record for 2024 (2.2 million), the lowest figure in 17 years, excluding the two years most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Apart from that, Canada continues to top the list of countries of origin, although it has also seen a drop (from 695,557 travellers between January and September 2024 to 559,715 in the same period this year, down 19.5%). Russia, which follows closely behind, has also suffered a sharp downturn, from 141,612 last year to 88,879 this year, a drop of 37.2%.
The biggest fall was among German visitors, from 47,323 to 26,735, down 43.5%, with Spain and France also seeing drops (27.1% and 23.8%, respectively). Of the top ten countries of origin, only Argentina increased the number of tourists so far this year (more than 7% year-on-year).
The systemic crisis that has got worse in recent years, with food shortages for visitors themselves, long power cuts and a fall in the quality of services, even in luxury tourism, has now been added to by an epidemic of various arboviruses spreading throughout the country. Last October, the United States issued a travel alert for Cuba due to the rise in chikungunya infections, and the island itself has already warned of various dengue outbreaks in almost all provinces.
See also: Cuban Regime Suggests That the US Is Behind the ‘Suspicious Coincidence of the Virus in Cuba’
Translated by GH
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