95% Informal: How the Cuban Diaspora Really Sends Money Home, and How Big It Can Grow
Almost all the dollars Cuban families abroad send home now move through informal networks: slow, expensive, and risky. QvaPay is the screened, sanctions-aware alternative, and the market can grow many times over.
Tim Parsa · Co-Founder & CCO, QvaPay · 7 October 2026 · 5 min read Subscribe
About 2.9 million people of Cuban origin live in the United States, 1.2 million of them in greater Miami. Most of the money Cuba receives from abroad comes from them. And almost none of it now moves through a formal channel.
How it works today
Since Western Union stopped again in February 2025, when its military-linked processor went on the Restricted List, the formal channel has collapsed. By one estimate, more than 95% of the flow has moved to about 150 informal networks: a sender in Miami pays someone in a Telegram or WhatsApp chat group, and a partner in Cuba hands cash to the family. Other money travels in the suitcases of «mulas», or through a hawala-style pair of agents, one on each side.
- Slow. Delivery takes a day or more, and the formal services that remain take one to five business days.
- Expensive. A 10% commission for same-day cash is common, and after Western Union closed, some Miami agencies charged up to $40 to send $100.
- Risky. Cash changes hands with no record, no recourse, and scams on informal platforms.
- Hard on both sides. The sender has to find a trusted agent; the family waits at home for an envelope.
Elena in Hialeah used to pay a chat-group agent 10% and wait two days for her father in Pinar del Río to get an envelope. Now she sends QUSD from her phone, and he has dollars before she puts it down.
Illustrative example; not customers.
How big remittances can grow
Remittances to Cuba are an estimated $1.1 to $2 billion a year (2024; estimates vary), down sharply from their peak. If Cubans abroad sent money home the way Dominicans do, Cuba would receive about $9.8 billion a year, five to nine times today. The money already wants to move. It needs a fast, cheap, sanctions-screened rail. That is QvaPay.
Every Cuban family in Miami has a story about the envelope that arrived late, short, or not at all. Techno-Cubanism starts there: U.S. technology making the most personal money flow on the island fast, safe, and legal.
The diaspora is ready to send. QvaPay brings it inside U.S. law, and that is how an estimated $1.1–2 billion flow becomes a $9.8 billion one.
Remittances are the flow the diaspora already sends; QvaPay moves it from chat groups and envelopes onto a screened U.S. rail.
| Flow | How we grow it | U.S. tech meets Cuban talent |
|---|---|---|
| Remittances Permitted · 31 CFR §515.570 (U.S. senders) | Marketing by use case to the diaspora in Miami and beyond; every sender and recipient screened. | Diaspora dollars become working capital for families and the private businesses they start. |
| Phone top-ups Permitted · §515.570 remittance, completed in Cuba by a peer | Sold in the same app as remittances; the first transaction for many new users. | A connected phone is the tool every Cuban developer, seller, and freelancer works from. |
| P2P forex Pending with OFAC · no authorization asserted | SkyMind matches orders and more screened traders join. | Every trader is a small business: Cubans earn a spread connecting dollars and pesos. |
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.
Cash remittances to Cuba fell 71% from their 2019 peak by 2021, and, citing Pavel Vidal, remittances lift household consumption, jobs, and private-sector sales without passing through the state economy. On cubanew.com ↗
Sources
- Pew Research Center, 10 facts about Cubans in the U.S., May 2026 ↗
- CiberCuba, Cuba and remittances: how the state turns economic desperation into its own business (cites Cuba Siglo 21: more than 95% informal), April 2026 ↗
- elTOQUE, Remittances to Cuba from the United States: how they work, 2025–2026 ↗
- elTOQUE, Remittances to Cuba reinvent themselves, August 2025 ↗
- CiberCuba, Cubans in Tapachula turn to informal networks to send money home, July 2026 ↗
- Havana Times, "Western Union to Shut Down Cuba Operations Nov. 23rd", 2020 ↗
- eCFR, 31 CFR § 515.570 ↗
- Diario de Cuba, Cuba Siglo 21 on GAESA and the MIPYMES (cites the 43% fall in 2024 remittances) ↗
- Banco Central de la República Dominicana, remittances 2025: US$11,866.3 million ↗
- QvaPay, AML/BSA program and transparency page ↗
- Reuters, "Western Union to open money transfers to Cuba from all 50 U.S. states", 2 March 2023 ↗
- Havana Times, "Western Union Suspends Money Transfers to Cuba", February 2025 ↗
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