The Cuban Private Sector Represents 49 Percent of the Economic Fabric
Cuba closed the first half of the year with some 20,000 entities in its institutional fabric.
Private MSMEs are the most numerous group, with almost 10,000, equivalent to 49 percent of the total.
They are followed by cooperatives, which represent 24 percent; budgeted units, with around 13 percentage points; and state enterprises, with 10 percent. The registry is completed by mercantile companies, state MSMEs, and subsidiary enterprises.
The private sector, measured by private MSMEs, represents nearly half of the economic fabric. If cooperatives are added, non-state forms exceed 73 percent.
In contrast, the state bloc — enterprises, budgeted units, and state MSMEs — approaches 5,000 entities, slightly less than a quarter of the total. The trend shows a growing weight of the private sector and a smaller relative participation of state and cooperative forms.
Recent evolution confirms that change. In 2019 there were some 9,500 entities; in 2021, 10,000; and in 2025, 20,300. Private MSMEs went from 262 in 2021 to almost 10,000 in June 2026, which confirms the tendency that the growth of the fabric is explained, above all, by private expansion.
Territorially, Havana concentrates 30 percent of the total, followed by Holguín (1,500), Granma and Santiago de Cuba (1,400 each), while Isla de la Juventud registers fewer than 200.
The report does not include political and mass organizations, non-profit institutions, joint ventures, fully foreign capital, branches of foreign firms, the Chamber of Commerce, or Collective Law Firms.
The trend points to an increasingly prominent private sector and a strong concentration in the capital.
