Can foreigners buy property in Cuba? A 2026 legal guide

Residential property in Cuba has been governed by the Ley General de la Vivienda (Ley 65 of 1988), substantially reformed by Decreto-Ley 288 of 2011. The 2011 reform is the norm that legalised direct buying and selling of homes between individuals, ending the era when a permuta (a swap) was effectively the only way to move house.

Under that framework, the people entitled to hold residential title are Cuban citizens and people with permanent residency in Cuba. A foreign national with no Cuban residency has historically not been able to buy an ordinary home on the open market. The narrow exception has been real estate tied to approved foreign-investment or tourism developments, which is registered through a separate central registry for foreign investment rather than the ordinary municipal housing route.

Practitioner and expat guides also describe a limit of one permanent residence plus, in some readings, one recreational or vacation home per person. We flag that as commentary rather than a clause we can quote: it is widely repeated but hard to pin to a specific article. The 2026 bill discussed below instead speaks of a cap of two homes held in property by a natural person.

A wholly new Ley de la Vivienda went out for public consultation as an anteproyecto in February 2026, the bill text was published by the National Assembly in June 2026, and the Assembly approved the law on 30 July 2026 during its ordinary session. The government's own framing is that the law expands owners' rights and introduces new forms of management in the housing sector.

Press analysis of the June 2026 bill text reported that it would:

• end state confiscation of the homes of Cubans who emigrate;
• allow foreigners to acquire apartments under certain conditions;
• authorise mortgage financing, in a market that has been effectively cash-only;
• recognise the right of a natural person to own up to two homes;
• keep the State's right to claim homes deemed abandoned;
• impose mandatory maintenance contributions in multi-unit buildings and restrict the transfer of subsidised homes for 15 years.

Read that list as reported, not settled. Those points come from analysis of the pre-approval bill. We have not been able to review the final enacted articles as published in the Gaceta Oficial, and we do not yet know whether Ley 65/1988 and Decreto-Ley 288/2011 are formally repealed or continue alongside the new law. The conditions under which a foreigner could buy an apartment — residency, location, or investment-linked only — were not specified in the coverage available.

We track this on our Cuban property law updates page and will revise this guide as the enacted text becomes reviewable.

Under the older migratory rules, Cubans who left on a salida definitiva risked their housing reverting to the State if it was left unoccupied or unmanaged, and disputes over occupied emigrant homes are still reported. The 2026 law is reported to end confiscation on the basis of emigration — but the conditions attached (maintenance, taxes, a designated caretaker) were not detailed in the sources available, so do not treat it as a blanket protection yet.

To act on a Cuban property from abroad, the working instrument is a poder notarial — a notarial power of attorney. Cuba's Ministry of Foreign Relations publishes a dedicated form, the Poder Especial Trámite de Vivienda, and the Cuban consular office in Washington, D.C. issues these authorisations to Cuban nationals resident in the United States. Since 2020, consular practice has allowed authorisations to be issued without attending in person in some cases, generally via paid intermediaries; those intermediaries are commercial services, not legal authorities.

For an inherited home, a share of an estate before formal partition (the cuota ideal) can itself be ceded through a special power of attorney. Taxes on transfer by sale, donation, or inheritance are calculated against minimum reference values set by Resolución 313/2024 of the Ministry of Finance and Prices, and since Decreto-Ley 93/2024 the tax on a sale between individuals is credited at the moment the notarial deed is signed.

Cuban law is only half of the picture. If you are a person subject to US jurisdiction, the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (31 CFR Part 515) apply to you regardless of what Cuban law permits. Three points matter most:

• Buying is generally not authorised. OFAC's published guidance states that a person subject to US jurisdiction is generally not authorised to purchase or lease real property in Cuba absent a specific licence. The narrow existing authorisation covers certain entities establishing an office presence, not homebuying.
• Inheritance generally is authorised. The regulations authorise transactions incident to the administration and distribution of the assets of a blocked estate of a decedent, subject to conditions — so receiving an inherited interest is treated differently from buying.
• Family remittance licences do not fund a purchase. The general remittance authorisations exclude transfers connected to real-estate transactions, so they cannot be used as a funding route.

Selling a property you already own or inherited and moving the proceeds to the United States sits in a genuinely unclear space: we could not find OFAC guidance squarely addressing that reverse flow. Treat it as requiring specific advice.

Separately, Title III of the Helms-Burton Act lets US nationals sue those who "traffic" in property confiscated by the Cuban government. It is live litigation, not theory: a South Florida jury returned a roughly $29.8 million verdict in 2025, and the US Supreme Court took up a Title III case that October. Anyone whose transaction might touch formerly confiscated property should get that risk assessed before signing.

• Match the seller against the Registro de la Propiedad entry and the title. Mismatches are the most common way an overseas buyer loses money.
• Ask whether the home was subsidised or is part of a legalisation process — those carry transfer restrictions.
• Confirm nobody else has a residency right in the property, including relatives listed on the housing record.
• Get the tax position in writing before the deed date, using the current reference values.
• Use a Cuban notary for the Cuban side and, if you are a US person, a US attorney familiar with Cuba sanctions for yours.