A USD Business Account for Cuba’s Capitalists
Cuba legalized private small and medium businesses, the MIPYMES, in 2021. They still lacked the most basic business tool.
Tim Parsa · Co-Founder & CCO, QvaPay · 28 July 2026 · 3 min read Subscribe
Since 2021 Cuba has registered thousands of private small and medium businesses, the MIPYMES: bakeries, workshops, software houses, builders, importers. Capitalists, legally, in a communist country. What they lacked: an account that could take payment from a customer abroad and pay a U.S. supplier.
A family bakery in Santa Clara takes its customers' payments into QvaPay, and buys flour and an oven from an exporter in Florida, paying the invoice from its dollar balance.
Illustrative example; not customers.
In 2013 JP Thieriot and I co-founded Bitreserve, later Uphold. The lesson: businesses adopt new money when it plugs into the rails they already use. That’s why a QvaPay business account pays U.S. exporters by ordinary wire.
Every MIPYME with a dollar account is a customer for U.S. technology. More than 11,000 today, and at the Dominican Republic’s rate per person, many times that.
A business account takes dollars in and pays U.S. sellers out: the two flows a MIPYME needs.
| Flow | How we grow it | U.S. tech meets Cuban talent |
|---|---|---|
| MIPYME business accounts QvaPay's position · pending with OFAC (Case CU-2025-1426925-1) | MIPYME accounts marketed by use case, supported from our Miami HQ; financing for Cuban buyers once OFAC clarifies it. | Cuban entrepreneurs buy U.S. equipment and software and run their companies in dollars. |
| Assisted vendor payments QvaPay's reading of §515.533/§515.421 · pending with OFAC | SkyMind will pay U.S. exporters by wire from QvaPay's U.S. bank; a Florida logistics hub shortens delivery. | U.S. exporters sell solar panels, tools, and machines to Cuban private businesses. |
The potential. Remittances into Cuba run an estimated $1.1–2B a year (2024; estimates vary). At the Dominican Republic’s rate per person, Cuba would receive about $9.8B, five to nine times today. That is the market QvaPay is built to serve.
| Market | Cuba today | Cuba at the Dominican Republic’s rate per person |
|---|---|---|
| Remittances received | $1.1–2B 2024 est., estimates vary | $9.8B DR total $11.9B (2025) |
A scenario, not a forecast. The Dominican Republic received $11.9B in remittances in 2025 across 11.4 million people, about $1,040 a person; at that rate Cuba’s 9.43 million people would receive about $9.8B a year, five to nine times today. Method and sources.
The private sector is close to a third of Cuban jobs, about 15% of GDP, and close to 60% of retail, and imported more than $2 billion in 2025. Their roadmap includes direct private imports and exports. On cubanew.com ↗
Sources
If this was useful, pass it to someone building in Cuba.