Whether it’s genuine fascination or gloomy intrigue, Cuba is a destination that many Americans have contemplated visiting at least once, and between the fascinating culture and the unspoiled beaches, we wouldn’t blame them for looking past the ideological divide.
The only deterrent?
Cuba has never been exactly the easiest, most hassle-free vacation for Americans, from the more stringent entry regulations to their own government’s advice against vacationing on the island–but that’s been slowly changing.
Earlier this year, Cuba announced a groundbreaking change in its visa policy, launching a new eVisa that simplified border procedures for most travelers, including Americans, and now they’re taking it a step further:
2 Big Updates Benefitting Americans Traveling To Cuba From Now On
According to Visa & Travel News, one of the leading sources for keeping up to date with visa policy updates on the internet, Cuba is making two important updates to its border regime that directly benefit Americans.
Essentially, they have simplified formalities both before and upon arrival and allowed for more flexibility in planning travel:
You Can Apply For eVisas At Any Point Up To One Week Prior To Travel
The first update concerns eVisa applicants:
Since May, in order to be able to travel to Cuba, Americans have been required to fill out a registration form, pay a fee, and present an authorization to travel at the boarding gate and once arriving in Cuba and going through border control.
That’s much easier than the once hard-to-get visas, but there was still one caveat:
eVisas could only be purchased 48 hours prior to arriving to Cuba: we’re not sure what’s your experience with eVisas, but on our end, delays can never be ruled out.
Between non-functional websites, and the slow processing of the application, it can take much longer than 48 hours for those to be processed, and while there seems to be no indication this has been the case with Cuban eVisas, anxiety remained a problem for some travelers.
Just imagine heading to the airport, only three to five hours ahead of your flight, without having been issued your permit––or even the refusal of it––yet?
It seems like Cuban authorities are aware of the potential backlogs and criticism, and they are now allowing tourists to apply for an eVisa for up to a week in advance, thus reducing both stress and the administrative burden associated with last-minute applications.
Cuban eVisas can be purchased through the D’Viajeros platform.
Before submitting your application for review, you should register and complete a questionnaire, including personal and security questions.
So, to be clear, as per the official wording of the Cuban Ministry of Tourism, ‘you can complete your declaration up to 7 days before the date of your trip to Cuba‘, meaning at any point in time, up to one week before your scheduled flight.
Tourist Card Validity Extended Until June 2025
As for the second update, is there any U.S. traveler here who still holds one of those soon-to-become-collectible pink cards?
If you’ve ever traveled to Cuba before the introduction of the much-simpler eVisas, you know purchasing a ‘Tourist Card’ was required in order to board the flight: for Americans, that was the equivalent of forking out a whopping $100.
When the eVisa was announced, Cuban authorities set a validity deadline for already-issued Tourist Cards to December 31, 2024: anyone who had already been approved to travel to Cuba under the previous program would not require a new application.
That will remain the case, except the deadline has been postponed until June 30, 2025, in order to ease the transition process from one border policy to the other, and give pre-screened travelers a reasonable amount of time until they’re subject to the new rules.
So there you have it: if you applied for a new Tourist Card prior to April 2024 and it has yet to be used, you didn’t need to submit an eVisa application for another eight months at the time this article was written.
Learn more about, and start planning your trip to the Pearl of the Antilles here.
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