The island is experiencing a combination of gross domestic product contraction and rising prices, which is affecting food in particular.
Inflation has tripled prices on the island in the last five years. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, 10 January 2026 — Cuba closed the last month of 2025 with year-on-year inflation of 14.07% in the formal market, according to data published by the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei). The figure, presented as a sign of a “slowdown,” is 10 percentage points below that recorded in December 2024, when the consumer price index (CPI) grew by 24.88%. However, for most economists and for most people’s pockets that number does not reflect everyday reality.
The official methodology itself excludes the informal market, which is now larger and better stocked than the state market. By incorporating these prices, real inflation in 2025 would be “around 70%,” according to estimates by Cuban economist Pavel Vidal. The gap between the two measurements is the chasm that separates the state’s statistics from the daily experience of millions of Cubans.
According to ONEI, the monthly variation in December was 0.88% compared to the previous month, and the cumulative inflation for the year coincided with the year-on-year figure (14.07%). By category, the largest increase was recorded in Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (69.82%), followed by Restaurants and Hotels (21.46%), Education (17.22%), Housing Services (14.47%) and Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (13.9%). Communications (0.46%) remained the least inflationary item, despite the sharp increase in web browsing rates applied on 30 May, which sparked protests over the rise in mobile phone top-ups.
The contrast between official data and real life becomes more evident when looking at the entire period since 2020. The government’s own statistics acknowledge that inflation has tripled prices on the island in five years: 77% in 2021, 39.07% in 2022, 31.34% in 2023, 24.88% in 2024 and now 14.07% in 2025. The sequence suggests a slowdown, but the cumulative level remains very high, especially in an economy that is not growing.
In fact, Cuba is experiencing simultaneous stagnation and inflation. Economist Pedro Monreal warns that 2025 was “the worst year of stagflation since 2020,” a combination of gross domestic product (GDP) contraction and high inflation. The economy contracted by 1.1% in 2024 and has accumulated an 11% decline over the last five years, according to official figures. ECLAC also forecasts that GDP will return to negative growth.
Economist Pedro Monreal warns that 2025 was “the worst year of stagflation since 2020”.
Monreal stresses that the government has used the “delay” in wages and pensions compared to inflation as an anti-inflationary tool. In practice, this strategy reduces purchasing power, cools demand and has a recessionary effect that ultimately deepens the crisis. For the economist, the problem is not only the pace of prices, but also the “questionable reliability” of their official measurement, which tends to underestimate inflation by excluding the markets where the population actually shops.
Food prices illustrate this gap well. Between May and December 2025, rising food prices accounted for an average of 58.1% of the increase in overall inflation. In seven of the eight months of that period, the food price index grew more than the total CPI. And it is not just imported products: in December, there were notable increases in foods that can be produced domestically, a sign of structural problems in the national supply.
The crisis that has been dragging on for more than five years is evident in the shortage of basic goods – food, medicine, fuel – in the growing dollarisation, in the prolonged power cuts and in the sustained loss of purchasing power. Added to this picture are the effects of the pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions since Donald Trump’s first administration, and a series of failed economic and monetary policies that have been unable to stabilise prices or revive production.
The result is profound social unrest. Protests, which had been rare for decades, have become commonplace in recent years, and mass migration – unprecedented in its scale and duration – has become an escape valve for those who see no other way out. In this context, talking about 14% inflation may sound like statistical relief, but it does not explain why wages evaporate within days of being paid.
Translated by GH
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