Cuba's 2021 MSME Legalisation — Private Enterprise Returns at Scale, Then Stalls

For six decades Cuba restricted private enterprise to small-scale self-employment (cuentapropismo); Decree-Laws 46/47/48 of August 2021 authorised private micro, small and medium enterprises (mipymes) for the first time, alongside the pre-existing self-employed category.

The first 35 mipymes were authorised in September 2021; the count grew to about 9,000 by September 2023 and 11,046 by early 2024, employing around 297,000 workers alongside 602,000 registered self-employed workers; the private sector's share of retail sales rose from 4% (2020) to 44% (2023), and mipymes and the self-employed contributed 23% of national tax revenue in 2024, per Ministry of Economy data cited by Americas Quarterly, OnCubaNews and the Cuba Study Group.

Caveat: 2024 was the first year the number of active mipymes declined, as high inflation, acute foreign-currency shortages and newly reinforced price and import controls squeezed margins; independent Cuba-focused outlets and the Miami-based Cuba Study Group flag continuing restrictions on private firms' access to financing, wholesale imports and foreign exchange as structural constraints on the sector's durability.

Read the full analysis: https://americasquarterly.org/article/the-truth-about-cubas-private-sector/