USD Contractor Pay: Cuban Private Studios Running U.S. Tech for U.S. Companies
U.S. companies contract Cuba’s independent entrepreneurs to build, support, and run their technology. QvaPay pays each contractor in dollars, by name, on their own invoice (§515.582; §515.340(b)). Not employment.
Tim Parsa · Co-Founder & CCO, QvaPay · 9 October 2026 · 5 min read Subscribe
Cuba trains engineers, developers, designers, and support staff by the thousands, and its independent private sector now employs more people than the state’s companies. Across the water, U.S. companies need exactly that talent, in their own time zone. The missing piece was payment: getting dollars to every independent contractor who does the work, legally.
How it works
- The client onboards. The company opens a QvaPay enterprise account and gets the same verification as any business customer: the company, its owners, and the purpose of its payments.
- Every contractor is verified. Each contractor opens a verified QvaPay account and is screened against the SDN List, the Cuba Restricted List, and the prohibited-official definitions before the first payment.
- The client funds the payment. One wire from the company’s bank to QvaPay’s U.S. bank.
- One instruction, many credits. The instruction names each contractor, their invoice, and amount. QvaPay credits QUSD to each one, with a purpose attestation on the instruction and BSA recordkeeping at $3,000 and above (31 CFR 1010.410(e)).
- Workers use their dollars. They hold QUSD, spend it at private businesses, pay U.S. software providers, or swap it for pesos with a screened peer.
Two ways U.S. companies run on Cuban teams
Direct. A U.S. software company pays twelve developers and testers in Havana and Santiago every two weeks, each credited in QUSD by name.
Through a Cuban private company. A Miami health-tech startup contracts a private company in Havana to run its customer support and data operations. It pays the invoice in dollars, and the company pays its 30 staff from its own QvaPay business account the same day.
Illustrative example; not customers.
A huge growth opportunity
The Dominican Republic and Mexico built whole industries on running work for U.S. companies: software, call centers, back offices, and factories on U.S. supply chains. Cuba has the education, the time zone, and a private sector that already employs more people than the state’s companies. Contractor payments turn that talent into a services export. Cuba’s private sector takes in an estimated $1.1–2 billion a year from abroad today (2024; estimates vary), almost all of it remittances; at the Dominican Republic’s rate per person, remittances alone would be about $9.8 billion a year. Every dollar of contractor pay in that number needs a rail.
A U.S. company’s payments to an independent Cuban contractor or studio rest on 31 CFR § 515.582, with QvaPay’s processing ordinarily incident under § 515.421. How a Cuban studio then pays its own staff from its QvaPay balance is part of QvaPay’s request pending with OFAC (Case CU-2025-1426925-1). We have asked OFAC, in our pending request for guidance, to confirm how § 515.582 applies to services Cubans deliver online.
In Mexico City I watched U.S. companies move work south as soon as paying people there became easy and legal. Cuba is next, and closer.
U.S. companies, run by Cuban private companies, paid in dollars on a U.S. rail: Techno-Cubanism at work, one invoice at a time.
Contractor payments turn Cuban talent into a services export: U.S. companies pay, Cuban private companies run the work, and every contractor is paid in dollars on their own invoice.
| Flow | How we grow it | U.S. tech meets Cuban talent |
|---|---|---|
| Pay independent contractors Permitted for U.S. payers · §515.582, §515.340(b); not employment | Sign U.S. companies that contract independent Cuban developers and studios; one onboarding per client. | U.S. companies contract independent Cuban engineers and designers and pay each invoice in dollars. |
| 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. |
| 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.
The non-state sector now employs just over 1.6 million people, more than Cuba’s state enterprises. On cubanew.com ↗
Sources
- eCFR, 31 CFR § 515.582 ↗
- eCFR, 31 CFR § 515.421 ↗
- eCFR, 31 CFR § 515.578 ↗
- Tim Parsa, "Independent Digital Entrepreneurs in Cuba" (the 2023 OFAC guidance request, published December 2025) ↗
- EFE/Swissinfo, private SMEs approved in Cuba since 2021 exceed 11,000 ↗
- FinCEN, MSB registrant search ↗
- QvaPay, AML/BSA program and transparency page ↗
- Periódico Cubano, Cuba’s private sector imported nearly $1.2 billion in the first half of 2025 ↗
If this was useful, pass it to someone building in Cuba.