Swiss Companies Face Daunting Challenges in Conducting Business with Cuba

Swiss enterprises striving to engage in commerce with Cuba encounter a nearly insurmountable hurdle: while they can issue orders, invoices, and guarantees through Cuba's state-run banks, they seldom succeed in receiving payment.

Ursin Mirer, the president of SwissCubanCham, a Swiss-Cuban trade chamber, explains this predicament in a report by Swissinfo, the international service of Swiss public broadcasting. The report highlights the collapse of bilateral trade in 2026.

The root cause is the unprecedented tightening of U.S. sanctions against Cuba, prompting banks and financial institutions across Europe and Latin America to either cut ties or substantially reduce their exposure to any operations linked to the island.

Key Challenges for Swiss Businesses Dealing with Cuba

As per Swissinfo's findings, these are the primary reasons why Swiss companies struggle—and in some cases, find it nearly impossible—to collect payments for services rendered to Cuba:

Chronic Currency Shortage: Cuba suffers from a severe lack of foreign currency, preventing the state and Cuban entities from consistently fulfilling their obligations to international suppliers. This is a fundamental structural issue.

Payment Delays and Defaults: While state banks can issue payment orders, invoices, or guarantees, foreign companies face significant hurdles in cashing them, as noted by the Swiss-Cuban Chamber of Commerce.

Lack of Security for Foreign Firms: Swiss companies operate in a market where they perceive inadequate legal security and protection for their investments and contracts.

Fear of U.S. Sanctions: European and Latin American financial entities avoid processing specific operations related to Cuba to mitigate the risk of U.S.-imposed measures.

De-risking Practices: Many banks opt to limit or sever commercial ties with Cuba, even when a particular transaction might be legal, due to the high cost and risk of verifying such operations.

U.S. Financial System Connections: Transactions between European companies could pass through a U.S. correspondent bank, especially when involving the dollar, subjecting them to American controls.

Automatic Banking Controls: Compliance systems may flag a company as Cuba-related, subjecting its transactions to extra scrutiny, even if those pertain to business conducted in third countries.

Extraterritorial Effect of U.S. Sanctions: The fear of losing access to the U.S. market or financial system leads third-country entities to avoid Cuban operations, even when not explicitly banned by their own laws.

Limited Effectiveness of European Measures: The EU's Blocking Statute aims to shield companies from certain U.S. extraterritorial sanctions, but in practice, it doesn't prevent banks from adopting more restrictive internal policies.

Closing Payment Routes: Panama, once a financial intermediary between Cuba and foreign companies, has dramatically curtailed transactions related to the island.

Costly and Insecure Payment Channels: As fewer banks agree to process transactions tied to Cuba, finding intermediaries to complete international transfers becomes increasingly difficult.

Extraordinary Measures: Caribbean Tours exemplifies the extreme; its owner sometimes personally delivers cash to Cuba to pay for hotels, guides, and local suppliers.

Vulnerability of Small and Medium Enterprises: Swiss SMEs are less capable of withstanding months of delays, banking blocks, or non-payments, prompting many to scale back or exit the Cuban market.

The Impact of U.S. Sanctions on Swiss-Cuban Trade

The challenges stem from multiple sources. Cuba's severe liquidity issues, coupled with difficulties in paying foreign suppliers and offering scant guarantees to businesses, are exacerbated by U.S. sanctions. The fear of international banks being exposed to these sanctions drastically reduces available channels for moving money to or from Cuba.

The outcome is particularly damaging: even if a Swiss company manages to sell a product or provide a service in Cuba, it has no assurance of receiving payment.

Trade figures illustrate the decline: Swiss-Cuban trade volume plummeted from over 2.7 million Swiss francs in 2025 to just 1 million in the first half of 2026. Swiss watch exports, once highly visible, dropped from 1.4 million francs the previous year to roughly 357,000 francs in the initial six months of the year.

The turning point was Executive Order 14404 issued by the Trump administration on May 1, 2026, expanding the sanctions regime and, for the first time, introducing secondary sanctions risks for non-U.S. companies.

On June 4, GAESA, MININT, and MINFAR were blocked under this order. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) set a deadline of June 5 to cease operations with these entities.

Since then, any foreign company maintaining ties with GAESA or entities where it holds a 50% stake or more is subject to penalties.

In 2026 alone, Washington has launched at least nine rounds of sanctions against Cuba, impacting 31 individuals and 49 companies.

Long-standing Banking Issues

The banking challenge isn't new. PostFinance, the Swiss postal bank, closed its payment channel to Cuba on September 1, 2019, during Trump's first term, leaving numerous Swiss projects on the island without payment avenues. This set the stage for a gradual withdrawal by international banks.

Accumulated fines have deepened this aversion. In 2022, Swiss company CA Indosuez Switzerland SA was fined $720,258 by OFAC for embargo violations.

Additionally, Key Holding, LLC paid $608,825 for facilitating 36 cargo shipments to Cuba between January 2022 and July 2023, and BitPay paid $507,375 for processing bitcoin payments linked to island residents.

Switzerland, which announced in April 2023 it would end development cooperation with Cuba by 2024, now witnesses its private trade with the island crumble.

This situation demonstrates how Washington's maximum pressure not only affects U.S. companies but is also reshaping the boundaries of international trade with the Cuban regime, leaving Havana increasingly isolated from the global financial system.