Cuba document photos online

Cuba treats the place of your birth as a lifelong claim that no other passport can override. If you were born on the island, Havana considers you Cuban forever — so even a naturalized U.S. or Spanish citizen must enter and leave Cuba on a valid Cuban passport, and the 2019 constitution forbids using any foreign citizenship while on Cuban soil. Cubans living abroad have also had to pay a periodic fee (reported at around €200 every two years) to keep their entry rights alive. In a world of dual nationality and flexible borders, few countries bind a travel document so tightly to the soil where you were born.

• Dual passport rule Anyone born in Cuba must enter and exit the island on a Cuban passport, even if they also hold a U.S., Spanish or other passport, because Havana never recognizes loss of Cuban nationality.
• Exit permits Until January 2013 ordinary Cubans needed a government exit permit — the dreaded 'tarjeta blanca' (white card) — just to leave the country, a Cold-War-era restriction that had stood for over 50 years.
• Passport power The Cuban passport ranked 83rd on the Henley Passport Index in October 2025 with visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to just 59 destinations, down from 60 in July 2025.
• Citizenship Cuba grants nationality by birth on its soil (jus soli), and people born to unknown parents or who would otherwise be stateless are automatically made Cuban citizens.
• Currency For nearly three decades Cuba ran two parallel pesos — the everyday CUP and the dollar-pegged convertible CUC — until the CUC was abolished in 2021 at an exchange rate of 24 CUP to 1 CUC.
• Money origins The peso traces its name to the Spanish 'piece of eight' silver dollar, yet the Republic of Cuba minted no coins of its own until 1915, more than a decade after independence.
• Oldest fort Havana's Castillo de la Real Fuerza, begun in 1558, is considered the oldest stone fort in the Americas and anchors the UNESCO-listed Old Havana fortifications.
• Largest island At about 109,884 square kilometres, Cuba is by far the largest island in the Caribbean, stretching roughly 1,250 km from northwest to southeast across some 1,600 islands and cays.