Cuba After September 30: What Changed for the Cigar Trade, and What Did Not

Every change to the Cuba rules sends a wave of questions through the cigar business, and September 30, 2026 was no exception. That day, OFAC published amendments to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations at 31 CFR Part 515 and, separately, a new set of Cuba Sanctions Regulations at 31 CFR Part 516. Both took effect immediately.

The two rules carry out a policy direction set in 2025 and expanded by Executive Order 14404 on May 1, 2026. Reading them closely, the pattern for our industry is clear: the government tightened money flows and travel, created new blocking authority, and did not touch the parts of the regulations that matter most to brand owners.

What changed in Part 515

The Cuba Restricted List now reaches indirect dealings. The State Department's Cuba Restricted List identifies entities tied to the Cuban military, intelligence and security services. Before September 30, the prohibition centered on direct financial transactions with listed entities. The amended rule adds "or indirect" to that prohibition and to many general licenses. A transaction that reaches a listed entity through an intermediary is now squarely within the ban.

U-turn transfers are gone. U.S. banks could previously process certain funds transfers that passed through the U.S. financial system on their way between parties outside the United States. That authorization was eliminated. Banks may only reject those transfers now.

Accounts for Cuban entrepreneurs were withdrawn. The authorization for U.S. banks to maintain accounts for Cuban independent entrepreneurs was removed, and existing accounts must be blocked.

Travel narrowed. The general license for professional meetings in Cuba was removed, with a wind-down for travelers through October 30, 2026. Educational travel outside the programs of accredited U.S. institutions now generally requires a sponsoring organization and an accompanying representative, and group people-to-people travel is no longer authorized. Educational and people-to-people trips for which a travel-related transaction was completed before September 30 remain authorized.

The new Part 516

Part 516 is a separate program. It authorizes the designation and blocking of persons found to operate in specified sectors of the Cuban economy, including energy, defense, metals and mining, financial services and security, along with certain officials and others. The rule states that no license under Part 515 authorizes anything Part 516 prohibits. GAESA, the Cuban military conglomerate, was designated under the May executive order on May 7, 2026.

For a U.S. company, the practical effect is that a Part 515 license is no longer the end of the analysis. A transaction that is authorized under the old program can still be blocked if it touches a person designated under the new one.

What did not change

The trademark licenses. Sections 515.527 and 515.528, the provisions that authorize transactions related to registering and renewing trademarks, were not amended. That includes the path for U.S. persons to protect their own marks in Cuba, whether through a Madrid Protocol designation or a national filing with OCPI, the Cuban industrial property office. For brands with Cuban heritage, or that expect to sell in Cuba someday, that door remains open.

The import ban. Neither the rule nor OFAC's alert addresses imports of Cuban-origin cigars or tobacco. The prohibition on bringing them into the United States is unchanged, including for travelers.

The basic shape of the embargo. The new rules adjust money flows, travel and designations. They do not reopen trade.

The trademark front: COHIBA and the long tail of Section 211

The most important Cuban cigar case in a generation is still unresolved. In December 2022, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board cancelled General Cigar's U.S. registrations for COHIBA, applying Article 8 of the Inter-American Convention for Trademark and Commercial Protection, a 1929 treaty that lets the owner of a mark protected in one member country challenge a later registration in another. On May 7, 2025, Judge Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia affirmed the cancellation and dismissed General Cigar's complaint with prejudice, also holding that the embargo regulations do not bar it. General Cigar appealed to the Fourth Circuit, where the appeal has been argued. No decision has been reported.

General Cigar has said its registrations remain valid while the appeal is pending and that it holds common law rights in COHIBA through its long use. Whatever the Fourth Circuit does, the case has already shown that an old treaty can do work that ordinary U.S. trademark doctrine cannot.

Congress has pushed in the other direction. Section 211 of the 1998 omnibus appropriations act bars U.S. courts from recognizing certain rights in marks connected to property confiscated by the Cuban government without consent of the original owner. The No Stolen Trademarks Honored in America Act, signed December 1, 2024, extends that rule by its terms to executive branch agencies, including the USPTO, where the person knew or had reason to know of the connection to confiscated property. How those two currents meet in a case like COHIBA is one of the open questions in this field.

What this means for cigar companies

For most U.S. cigar companies, September 30 changes compliance more than strategy. The checks get harder: the indirect-dealing rule and the new Part 516 designations both reward knowing exactly who is on the other side of a transaction, and who stands behind them.

For brand owners, the message is different. The rules that protect trademark activity were left in place through two rounds of tightening. A company whose brand trades on Cuban heritage should treat Cuba as a trademark jurisdiction like any other: one where protection comes from registration, and where a gap in protection today becomes a dispute later. The COHIBA litigation is a reminder of how long those disputes can last.