OFAC amends Cuban Assets Control Regulations — bars Cuba Restricted List entities from remittance general licences

Mechanism

The Cuba Restricted List, maintained under the LIBERTAD Act (Helms-Burton Act, 1996), identifies Cuban entities and sub-entities — predominantly controlled by the Cuban military, intelligence, and security services — that the State Department has determined to be off-limits for certain US-person transactions. As of late 2020 the List included several hundred entities, most notably Gaviota S.A. (tourism), CIMEX (retail/remittances), Fincimex (payment processing), and Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA, the military holding company).

Prior to this rule, the three remittance general licences authorised US persons to send money to Cuba without an OFAC-specific licence, provided the recipients were private individuals. The problem was that many remittance channels — particularly Fincimex, which acted as the Cuban correspondent for Western Union and other US-licensed money services businesses — were on the Cuba Restricted List. The Trump administration interpreted the existing licences as indirectly funding the Cuban government by routing remittance flows through these controlled entities.

This amendment closes that gap: a general licence that authorises remittances does not cover any transaction in which a Cuba Restricted List entity acts as an intermediary, recipient, or fee-collector. In practical terms it made Western Union's Cuba remittance corridor non-viable (Western Union suspended Cuba transfers in November 2020, citing this rule).

Downstream implications

• Western Union suspended Cuba remittance service effective 23 November 2020, three days before the rule took effect, citing inability to operate outside Fincimex (the Cuban military's payment processor).
• US-to-Cuba remittances — estimated at ~USD 3.5 bn annually prior to the pandemic — were severely disrupted, impacting Cuban households dependent on family transfers from the diaspora.
• The Biden administration partially reversed this direction in 2022 (reinstating group travel licences) and 2024 (restoring U-turn transactions); see related actions.
• This rule illustrates the structural leverage point of Cuba Restricted List designations: by listing the financial intermediary rather than banning remittances directly, the administration achieved near-equivalent economic effect while maintaining nominal compliance windows for private-individual remittances.

Open questions

• The Biden administration did not directly undo this specific amendment when it eased CACR in 2022 and 2024; the Cuba Restricted List-based exclusions appear to remain in force as of 2026.
• Whether alternative remittance channels not involving Cuba Restricted List entities (e.g., direct bank transfer for authorised recipients) emerged at scale post-November 2020 is unclear from public sources.