Cuba
| Pros |
|---|
| High level of personal safety and low violent crime rates compared to other Caribbean nations. |
| Recent legalization of small and medium private enterprises for limited market-driven business growth. |
| Access to a highly skilled, educated workforce at significantly lower costs than international averages. |
| Cons |
|---|
| Pervasive state intervention in all economic sectors and restrictive centralized control over foreign currency. |
| Frequent power grid failures and unreliable telecommunications infrastructure with daily business operations and logistics disruptions. |
| Absence of robust legal protections for private property and high risk of arbitrary state expropriation. |
Will Cuba tax what you earn?
NO. Cuba doesn't tax personal income, and doesn't reach for you when you settle. No withholding, no return, no centre-of-vital-interests test waiting to trip. Salary is a non-event here, both in the rate and in the paperwork.
Will Cuba tax what you own?
NO. Cuba doesn't tax what you hold. No capital gains, no annual wealth assessment, no inheritance regime. The value sitting in your portfolio compounds untouched, and leaves it the same way it arrived.
Is it easy to run a company in Cuba?
YES. Cuba delivers the maximum operational chill: no corporate income tax on standard profits, no criminal liability for misuse of corporate assets, and non-public corporate registries. The state doesn't take a cut, doesn't put your intra-company flows on a prosecutor's desk, and doesn't drop your name into a public search box. VAT sits at n/a.
Is Cuba good for your holding company?
NO. Cuba doesn't carry a treaty network, which makes it unsuitable as a holding jurisdiction. Any dividend flowing in or out faces full statutory withholding, and no domestic participation exemption can compensate for missing relief on the source side.
| Country | Status | Dividends | Interest | Royalties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| ∅ // no treaties match | ||||
What does it cost to come and go from Cuba?
SOME. Cuba taxes worldwide income while you're resident, but there's no exit tax on the way out. The cost of leaving is mostly paperwork: unrealised gains follow you to the next jurisdiction untouched.
Will Cuba protect your privacy?
YES. Cuba has joined almost none of the major automatic-exchange frameworks (CRS, FATCA, CARF, MLI, MAAC), and its corporate registries are non-public. Account flows stay out of foreign hands; ownership stays out of public ones. Discretion is built into the system.
Is Cuba itself a liability?
NO. Cuba carries no entries on any major blacklist, though it sits outside FATF membership. Counterparties may apply light extra due diligence, but no formal stigma attaches to dealing with it.
Will you feel free in Cuba?
NO. Press freedom in Cuba is restricted (RSF rank #165). Civic space and independent media operate under pressure or not at all, a constraint that typically extends to financial expression as well, even where crypto isn't formally banned.
Other jurisdictions worth comparing
Picked by similarity of strategic profile to Cuba. No editorial ranking — neighbours in the same scoring space.