New Large Denomination Cuban Bank Notes
Cuba’s latest high-denomination notes respond to inflation while breaking precedent with the first prominent depictions of women.
Shortly after the Cuban Revolution deposed Fulgencio Batista’s regime on January 1, 1959, the revolutionary government launched its first bank notes. They were signed by the appointed Minister-President of the Cuban National Bank and Commander Ernesto “Ché” Guevara and were first produced in 1961 in the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. The notes were issued in nominal values of 1-, 5-, 10-, 20-, 50-, and 100-pesos in keeping with the tradition of the pre-revolutionary issues.
No larger denominations were issued for more than half a century. The deterioration of the Cuban economy, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union and communism in 1990s Western Europe, led to escalating inflation that significantly reduced the purchasing power of the traditional currency (i.e., national peso).
To cope with the problem, authorities created a second monetary unit in 1994, which was at least partly backed by foreign currency: the convertible peso. Following the same policy as the Cuban peso, convertible bank notes were also issued in identical nominal values. From 1994 until their demonetization on January 1, 2021, convertible bank notes in nominal values of 1, 3,1 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 pesos circulated alongside the greatly depreciated Cuban national pesos. As in the former case, no bank notes in denominations higher than 100 pesos were issued in the convertible series.
While it helped mitigate monetary problems, the convertible currency created significant economic distortions in the country’s planned economy. Consequently, in 2013, authorities initiated a gradual process to scrap the convertible peso that would eventually leave the national peso as the sole currency in circulation. It soon became evident that bank notes in larger denominations would be needed to facilitate daily transactions.
In 2010, bank authorities prepared for the issue of bank notes in nominal values of 200, 500, and 1,000 pesos. While the first notes issued had 2010 engraved on the obverse, they were placed in circulation on February 1, 2015, following the enactment of Resolution No. 4 signed on January 15 of that year.
It did not go unnoticed that the new Cuban patriots chosen to portray the obverse of the new notes were all male. No Cuban woman had been portrayed in the currency circulating on the island, with the exception of the presence of Celia Sánchez’s image in a barely perceptible watermark added to some of the bank notes, which was only visible when held up to light. And even that practice was recently abolished in favor of the same (male) character featured in the obverse of the notes, also in the watermark.
On March 31, 2026, the Central Bank of Cuba announced the issue of bank notes of 2,000 and 5,000 pesos. The latter entered circulation on April 1, while the 2,000-peso note followed. Once again, galloping inflation was behind the decision of authorities to introduce bank notes of larger denominations. According to the official exchange rate, 5,000 Cuban pesos currently amount to around $208, but are worth less than $10 at the informal trade values used by the population. In any case, the sum is just higher than the monthly average income of most Cubans.
New bank notes came with at least some good news in relation to long-term demand. For the first time, Cuban women were depicted as main characters in bank notes.2 Interestingly, the designs chosen significantly deviated from the uniformity exhibited by previous circulating notes, thereby evidencing a foreign manufacture.
Courtesy Banco Central De Cuba.
The 2,000 peso note (150x70 mm) features Mariana Grajales on the obverse. The reverse recreates a monument dedicated to her as the “mother of the Cuban nation” (la Madre de la Patria) that was erected in 2017 in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where she is buried. Mariana was the mother of the great Cuban patriot, Antonio Maceo, and played an active role in securing logistics and maintaining campaign hospitals during the war of independence against Spanish rule.
The 5,000-peso bank note (150x70 mm, blue) carries the image of Celia Sánchez on the obverse. A reproduction of a monument dedicated to her in 1985 and placed in Lenin Park in Havana occupies the central position of the reverse. Celia became an active revolutionary after the Batista coup d’etat and was the first woman to join Fidel Castro’s guerrilla in Sierra Maestra. She was one of Castro’s closest aids until her death in 1980.
Courtesy Banco Central De Cuba.
The watermark inserted in the notes reproduces images seen in the respective obverses. Both notes have engraved the national flower of Cuba, a white garland-lily (Hedychium coronarium), as a security element, which changes colors when tilted.
These new notes hold another surprise. Namely, the rare opportunity to contemplate the images of a mother and a son in circulating bank notes of different denominations. While Mariana Grajales is present in the referred notes of 2,000 pesos, her son, Antonio Maceo, is currently on the 5 pesos.
Footnotes
[1] A 3-peso bank note of the traditional currency (i.e., the national peso) had been introduced into circulation in 1983.
[2] An earlier precedent dates from colonial times when a Spanish Queen Regent was portrayed in circulating Cuban bank notes at the end of the 19th century.
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