Cuban Currency: Pesos y Pesos

CUCs: convertible pesos and coins

There are two sets of bills, one set of pesos known as Cuban convertibles, or CUCs, abbreviated CUC$, the “tourist currency,” and the other set of pesos known as moneda nacional, known as CUPs, abbreviated MN$, the local Cuban currency. 25 CUP equals one CUC. All of the bills are colorful, similar in size, and, yup, all called pesos. If only one set of bills were varieties of coins! That would be far less confusing.

Generally, tourists use CUCs, and locals use CUPs, but a person can pay using either. For example, we could buy the 3 year Havana Club rum at the grocery with either 5.55 CUC$ or 138.75 MN$. Clear as mud?


A couple days into our trip, while laying out the bills for a photo shoot, we had an ah ha moment… All the CUC$ feature monuments or statues. All the MN$ have big faces of revolutionary heroes.

Moneda nacional: fronts and backs

Hooray for diversity! These differences are more noticeable, at least to me, than the small word “Convertible” on the CUCs.

And yes, there are coins, too, but we’ll leave that for another day…