Where to live in Cuba
We track 3 cities in Cuba: Camagüey, Havana and Santiago de Cuba. Each averages 26°C over the year. For foreigners, long-term residency is hard to obtain.
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- Safety
- 61/100
- country-level estimate
- Healthcare
- 66/100
- country-level estimate
- Democracy
- 2.7/10
- estimated
Estimated from World Bank indicators and calibrated to the scales of our reference tables: safety from the country-level homicide rate per 100,000 people (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5, 2019) and Worldwide Governance Indicators Political Stability and Absence of Violence estimate (GOV_WGI_PV.EST, 2025), healthcare from the life expectancy at birth (SP.DYN.LE00.IN, 2024) and current health spending per person in US dollars (SH.XPD.CHEX.PC.CD, 2020) and democracy score from the Worldwide Governance Indicators Voice and Accountability estimate (GOV_WGI_VA.EST, 2025). Source: The World Bank (World Development Indicators, Worldwide Governance Indicators), CC BY 4.0.
Limited data for Cuba. Figures for safety, healthcare and political stability in Cuba are country-level estimates from World Bank indicators, each named with its year. We have no tax, cost of living, English, social openness or internet speed figures for Cuba, so the quiz scores those factors conservatively and this page leaves them out.
The 3 cities we track
| City | Size | Setting | Avg temp | Rain a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Camagüey | mid-sized | near the coast | 26°C | 1,339 mm |
| Havana | large | coastal | 26°C | 1,188 mm |
| Santiago de Cuba | mid-sized | coastal | 26°C | 1,134 mm |
Source: City size from GeoNames, temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages), rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals), coast distance from Natural Earth.
Residency and visas
Hard to obtain. Long-term residency realistically comes via family ties (marriage or Cuban relatives), a Cuban employer's work permit, or buying into an authorized foreign-investment property complex for a renewable real-estate-resident visa; there is no retirement or passive-income route.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Cuba:
- Investment: about $120k (Cuba 'Residente de Inmobiliaria' visa via purchase in an authorized foreign-investment real estate complex (resort/marina/golf development); no fixed legal minimum, entry-level tourist-complex apartment from about USD 120,000; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 21 of 198 passports can enter visa-free, 156 can get an e-visa or visa on arrival and 21 need a visa in advance.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).