Cuba Policy Shift: Administration Eases Restrictions on Small Businesses
On May 28, 2024, the Biden administration announced new measures easing restrictions on independent small businesses in Cuba. The announcement follows a recent decision by the State Department to remove Cuba from the list of countries deemed uncooperative on counterterrorism.
The Administration criticized the Cuban government in the announcement, saying: “We know the Cuban economy is in dire straits amid recurring shortages of fuel, electricity, increasingly even food. It’s clear the communist experiment of Cuba has failed, the government is no longer able to provide for its citizens’ most basic needs.”
The new measures implemented by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) include four main parts:
1. Authorized Internet-Based Services and Software.
Cuban small businesses will now be able to access additional internet-based services such as video conferencing, social media, maps, e-learning, automated translation, and other online services.
U.S.-based entities will be allowed to provide cloud-based services to these small businesses. OFAC is also authorizing the export or reexport of Cuban-origin software and mobile applications from the United States to third countries.
2. Re-defining “Self-Employment.”
OFAC is scrapping the term “self-employed individual” and replacing it with a new term: “independent private sector entrepreneur.” The new term will still cover traditional self-employed individuals such as business owners, but it will also cover private cooperatives or small businesses that are wholly owned by such individuals.
