Travelling

Travelling to Cuba, you need valid passport (validity deadline is minimally till a moment when the passenger is leaving Cuba). When entering the country, the traveller has to fill in a small form. A copy which must be carefully kept and must be presented when leaving the country. This document is requested in very strict way. In case of loss, the passenger could obtain a new one (his identity must be checked in central evidence).

When leaving the country, the passenger is obliged to pay airport tax (USD 25 per one person). Local authorities do not accept the argument that airport taxes were paid in airport ticket.

Rules valid for motor vehicles: standard driving licence is sufficient (the document is valid for 180 days only, if you stay in Cuba longer, you have to apply for international driving licence. This act is a formality, no tests from traffic rules are required).

Anyway, we wish to recommend you to check in advance at Cuba Embassy abroad, if the conditions for entry and stay in the country did not changed in the meantime.

Travelling to Cuba, you need to have the entry visa. If you travel there for tourist purposes, you receive from Cuba Consolate a visa in a form of so called Tourist Card. This card could be executed within scope of tourist stay, by means of travel agency. This Tourist Card authorizes a stay in Cuba territory for time period of 30 days, and could be prolonged in police office for foreigners for another 30 days. The fee makes USD 25. Tourist Card must be obtained before your trip to Cuba, it is impossible to get it directly at the airport. Provided your journey would be different from those touristic one, you are obliged to ask for the visa at Consular Section of Cuba Embassy abroad. The fee makes USD 35.

Entry visa for journalists: the activity is not allowed for those who do not have the respective permit. The journalists are obliged to get so called „working visa“ D-6. It costs USD 50. After arrival, the journalists must be registered in a Centre of International Press in Habana (CPI - Centro de Prensa Internacional). They are obliged to present their identity card and inform about their place of stay. All these formalities cost USD 60.

However, getting of a visa takes very long time period (more than six months). Cubanian authorities follow carefully foreign press and register all journalists who inform „bad news“ from Cuba. Those persons could not get the visa at all. The issuing is granted and checked by CPI, too.  The same rules are valid for journalists who presented in past  non positive news about Cuba life during their preceding visit of the country, so, they violeted their „working permission“.

Announce duty: in entry form which each passenger gets immediately after his arrival to the country, you are obliged to fulfill also a place of your stay. If the traveller does not indicate place of his stay, the authorities will urge him to pay the accommodation for three nights in a hotel, and sometimes, they stipulate even a certain type of hotel.

Provided you are accommodated in private, the announce duty must be fulfilled by house - or flat - owner. Provided this duty is not kept, so local Cubanian citizens are punished in very severe way (a nest of so called „House Confidants“ looks after that the authorities will be informed soon, that a foreigner is accommodated in private place). In cased of accommodation in hotel, all this is secured by hotel owner.

Warning: this announcing duty and efforts of Cubanian Authorities to have each foreigner under control, is closely connected with problems of camping and stay in the open air. Cubanian Authorities do not permit such way of accommodation.