Sending USD Home to Cuba With QvaPay
Family money, phone credit, and the small payments that keep a Cuban household running, in dollars, in seconds.
Tim Parsa · Co-Founder & CCO, QvaPay · 14 July 2026 · 3 min read Subscribe
Remittances are the oldest bridge between Miami and Cuba, and for decades the most expensive: envelopes carried by travelers, agencies taking a cut on both ends, money arriving in a currency the state prices. A family's money should move like a text message.
Elena in Hialeah sends $150 to her father in Pinar del Río. He tops up his phone, pays the carpenter who fixed his door, and keeps the rest in dollars. Four minutes, start to finish.
Illustrative example; not customers.
In 2020 Venezuela’s interim government, working with the State Department and the Treasury, set out to pay more than 62,000 health workers up to $18 million in recovered state funds through Airtm, under an OFAC license. The Maduro regime blocked the site; the workers reached it by VPN. I learned there that the hardest dollars to deliver are the ones that matter most, and U.S. compliance is what makes them deliverable.
Every remittance that lands in a dollar account is capital for a Cuban household or a Cuban startup. At the Dominican Republic’s rate per person, that flow would be five to nine times today’s.
Remittances and top-ups are the first QvaPay transaction for most families.
| 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. |
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
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