Cuba taxes residents on worldwide income and non-residents on Cuba-source income only, within a state-dominated economic system where most productive activity operates through state enterprises rather than private companies. Cuba's tax administration is centralized under the Oficina Nacional de Administracion Tributaria (ONAT).
The Cuban tax year is the calendar year.
35% standard rate for wholly foreign-owned enterprises; 30% for joint-venture/mixed-economy companies; 4% for foreign companies without a permanent establishment (no deductions); preferential 15% available in some Special Economic Zone/Mariel cases.
Progressive, historically ranging up to a top rate of 50% on Cuban-peso brackets; a flat 15% monthly tax applies to income earned by expatriates in Cuba.
10% general sales/services tax (a commonly cited 'VAT' figure of 100% found in some secondary sources is almost certainly an error and has been disregarded).
Cuba does not use a single unified "residence" concept for individuals in the way most jurisdictions do. An individual with a fiscal domicile in Cuba is taxed on worldwide income. A foreign individual without Cuban fiscal domicile who is present in Cuba for at least 180 days in a tax period is taxed on Cuban-source income only, defined as income paid by a Cuban entity. A legal entity is subject to profit tax if it has a permanent establishment in Cuba - a fixed place of business or a representative with authority to conclude agreements on its behalf; joint venture companies formed under the Foreign Investment Act are treated as Cuban companies by law regardless of the foreign partner's share. Corporate income of companies with total foreign capital is taxed at 35%; joint ventures and parties to international economic association contracts are taxed at a reduced 30% rate under a special regime, with the Council of Ministers empowered to grant exemptions on reinvested profits or investments made in a free-trade zone.
A non-Cuban entity has a Cuba permanent establishment through a fixed place of business or a dependent agent habitually concluding contracts in Cuba on the entity's behalf, assessed under Cuban domestic law and any applicable tax arrangement, though Cuba's tax framework for foreign investment operates through specific joint-venture and foreign investment law channels distinct from a conventional OECD-model PE test.
Cuba's tax law (Ley No. 113 "Del Sistema Tributario" of 23 July 2012, as amended) contains no regime attributing the undistributed profits of a foreign-controlled subsidiary to a Cuban resident. This is also structurally consistent with how the Cuban economy is organized: outbound private capital flows are themselves tightly restricted under Cuban currency and investment controls, and the bulk of Cuban entities with any cross-border corporate structure are the state-directed joint ventures and international economic association parties regulated under the 2014 Foreign Investment Act (Law No. 118), which governs inbound investment into Cuba rather than outbound investment by Cuban residents into foreign companies.
Cuba's corporate profit tax rules do not include a debt-to-equity ratio or earnings-stripping-style thin capitalization cap of the kind common in other jurisdictions. Given Cuba's tightly state-controlled financial system and restrictions on private cross-border debt financing, related-party interest deductibility questions in the conventional sense arise far less often than in market economies with open capital markets; confirm current deduction rules for any specific financing structure directly with Cuba's Oficina Nacional de Administracion Tributaria (ONAT).
Cuba does not use an elective check-the-box classification system. Cuba does not have a comprehensive ATAD2-style anti-hybrid regime.
No foreign bank account or foreign financial asset reporting regime exists requiring residents to separately disclose foreign accounts; foreign income is reported through the standard annual tax return.
Cuba does not provide a broad participation exemption for foreign dividends in the conventional sense, consistent with its state-directed economic structure.
Per Cuba's own Ley No. 113 "Del Sistema Tributario," Cuban legal entities may deduct from their Impuesto sobre Utilidades (profit tax) liability, up to that liability's own limit, amounts paid for the same or a similar tax abroad - an ordinary foreign tax credit written directly into the primary tax statute, capped at the Cuban tax otherwise due on that income.
Limited. Cuba has at least one confirmed comprehensive double tax treaty in force, with Spain (listed by Spain's own tax agency among its DTA partners). Other sources describe Cuba as having "signed double taxation agreements with several countries" without naming them; those additional partners are not independently confirmed in available sources, so treat Spain as the one verified treaty partner and confirm any other claimed partner directly with Cuba's tax authority (ONAT) before relying on it.