If you are visiting Cuba as tourist you will enjoy the benefits established in the Convention on Customs Facilities for Tourism. You will have the right to enter items for your personal use carried in your check-baggage or in your hand-baggage, that there is no reason to consider that these rights are being used in excesive quantities and they will be reexported when leaving the country.

To this effect, personal items are in addition to clothings and other articles that can reasonably be considered of personal use by the tourist, taking into account the circumstances of the trip, and other items according to the type of tourism, such as:

• Photo and video cameras, camping tent, fishing gear, bicycle, sports equipments, laptop computer, equipments for recording and reproducing sounds

If you are only carrying your personal items and cash not exceeding $5000,00 USD or its equivalent in other currencies, YOU DO NOT NEED TO FILL OUT THE CUSTOMS DECLARATION.

ALL TRAVELLERS
Any given passenger can carry with him to Cuba:

Exempt from the payment of Import Duty:

• His personal items, considering those articles a passenger may need for personal use during the trip
• medicines, prosthetics and wheelchair for the use of ill and disabled people
• Books and articles for teaching purposes

In addition, a passenger can import articles for non-commercial purposes up to a limit in value of $1000 pesos, of which the first $50 pesos are exempt from the payment of import duty, and for the rest (from 51 to 1000) pesos must pay the import duty applying the following Ad-valorem Progressive Fee.

The $50.00 pesos exempt from the payment of import duty are included in the first line.

When arriving and when leaving the country the passenger can not carry with him:

• Drugs, narcotics and psicothropic substances or hallucinogen, except those of medical use accompanied by the corresponding physician prescription
• Explosives
• Fire arms and ammunitions, unless when submitting the expressed authorization from the appropriate institution
• Blood products
• Obscene or pornographic literature, articles and objects, or those publications considered a threat to the general interests of the nation
• Endangered species registered in the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in case of not submitting the permit issued by the appropriate authority (CITES permission)
• Import Prohibitions (Entry):

The following electronic appliances:

• Freezers having a capacity exceeding 7 feet
• air conditioners
• cookers and electric ranges, including electrical resistance
• ovens and microwaves
• showers; fryers; water heater
• irons not having a consumption exceeding 290 watts/hour with spray or 703 watts/hour with spray and steam
• bread toasters.

On Import (Entry) – Articles and Products subject to Requirements:

Licence or Previous Permits from the Ministry of Informatics and Communications:

• wireless fax equipments; telephone boards; data-net devices; wireless telephones except those operating in 40 – 49 MHz, 2,4 GHz and 5 GHz bands; radio transmitters; radio transceptors, including walkie-talkie; professional radio receiver; land earth stations and satellite communications terminals, including parabolic antennas and satellital phones

Previous Permit from the Hidrographical and Geodesical National Office:

• Global Positioning System (GPS), of any type.

Subject to Inspection and Authorization from the Veterinarian and Phitosanitarian Authorities:

• Alive animals, plants and its parts, and products of animal and vegetable origin whether processed or not.

On Export (Exit) a passenger can not carry with him:

• More than three units of the same medicine of national production, except those destined to continued treatment, according to its length of time and accompanied by the Certificate of the Health Center, and in the case of non permanent residents in Cuba of the corresponding Official Invoice
• National heritage works or with museum value; books, brochures and publications in series dated more than 50 years ago, as well as Editorial “R” books if they do not have the Export Certificate from the Cultural Works Registry
• Cuban Handmade Cigars in an amount exceeding 50 units not having the Official Invoice from the stored where they were purchased
• Lobster (frozen tails in its shell) not having Invoice which accredits its licit purchase in the authorized stores
• Cash in an amount exceeding $5000,00 USD or its equivalent in other currencies that have not been declared when entering the country or not having the corresponding authorization of the Bank
• More than $100.00 Cuban National Currency (CUP) or more than $200.00 Cuban Convertible Pesos (CUC)
• Manuscript books; incunabula (books dated between 1440 and 1500); books, brochures and foreign publications in series printed from XVI to XVIII centuries (1501 -1800); books, brochures and publications in series published in Cuba in the XVIII century; books, brochures that have the seal of libraries part of the national system of public libraries or other informational systems, as well as Cuban organization and institutions; ARE NOT EXPORTABLE
• Pieces and collections with numismatic value not submitting the Authorization of the Numismatic Museum or the Central Bank of Cuba

If you acquire fresh paintings and sculptures in the points where they are sold, make sure that they have the Seal which authorizes their Export or request the corresponding Permit indispensable requirement to take them out of the country.