By Timothy S. Donahue

Top Takeaways:

• Travel tightened: Americans can’t rely on a general license to travel to Cuba to attend or organize professional meetings and conferences.
• Cigar impact: The change could affect U.S. cigar professionals seeking to attend events such as the Festival del Habano, although other authorized travel categories remain.
• Journalists different: OFAC continues to separately authorize qualifying travel to Cuba for journalistic activity.

Traveling to Cuba for a cigar conference just got considerably more complicated.

The U.S. Treasury Department has eliminated the general authorization that permitted people subject to U.S. jurisdiction to travel to Cuba to attend or organize professional meetings and conferences, a change that directly affects U.S. cigar professionals traveling to the island.

The changes to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations took effect on Sept. 30, one day after the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the amendments. “Persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are no longer authorized to attend or organize professional meetings or conferences in Cuba,” OFAC said.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel criticized the measures, arguing that the restrictions on private businesses undermine U.S. assertions that its policies are directed at the Cuban government rather than the Cuban people.

“These actions against the Cuban private sector clearly demonstrate that their only intention is to inflict the maximum suffering on our people and to limit the implementation of economic and social transformations,” Díaz-Canel said in a post on X.

For the cigar industry, the change raises an obvious question: What does it mean for Americans who want to attend the Festival del Habano?

The annual Havana gathering is one of the premium cigar industry’s most prominent international events. The event is a five-day-long adventure featuring conferences, visits to tobacco plantations and cigar factories, a trade fair, tastings, and new product launches. The event typically draws more than 1,300 participants from about 70 countries and more than 200 journalists.

The 26th Festival will not be held in 2026. Habanos announced in August that the event would not take place this year, following an initial postponement. The company said it would monitor conditions and hold a future edition when circumstances allow.

Whenever the Festival returns, however, an American cigar manufacturer, retailer, distributor, or other industry professional could no longer rely solely on the former professional-meetings general license to travel to Cuba to attend the Festival.

That does not mean Americans are categorically barred from attending the Festival.

OFAC says that specific licenses may be issued on a case-by-case basis for travel-related transactions involving professional meetings or conferences, provided those activities are otherwise consistent with U.S. regulations. Travelers may also qualify under another authorized category, depending on the purpose and circumstances of their trip.

Journalists are an important example.

OFAC continues to maintain a separate general license for travel-related transactions directly incident to journalistic activity in Cuba. The authorization, subject to its conditions, covers full-time journalists, supporting broadcast or technical personnel, and freelance journalists.

The traveler’s schedule cannot include free time or recreational activities beyond what is consistent with a full-time schedule of journalistic activity, OFAC states.

Professional research also remains generally authorized, subject to OFAC’s conditions, when it relates to the traveler’s profession, professional background, or area of expertise. The Sept. 30 changes do not impose a blanket ban on U.S. travel to Cuba, though travel solely for tourism remains prohibited.

U.S. law identifies 12 categories under which Cuba-related travel transactions may be authorized by general or specific license.

The categories include family visits; official business of the U.S. government, foreign governments, and certain intergovernmental organizations; journalistic activity; professional research; qualifying educational activities; religious activities; certain amateur or semi-professional athletic competitions; support for the Cuban people; humanitarian projects; activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes; activities involving information or informational materials; and certain authorized export transactions.

The rules and eligibility requirements vary by category.

The significant change for the cigar industry is that professional meetings and conferences are no longer generally authorized. People-to-people educational travel in groups has also been eliminated, while other educational travel has been narrowed.

The “group people-to-people educational travel” category is how travel agencies have organized past tours to Cuba.

Amid the island country’s spreading economic and humanitarian crisis, global travel to Cuba has dropped sharply. According to Cuba’s National Statistics and Information, the number of international visitors declined 64.4 percent between January and August of this year, compared with the same period last year.

OFAC established a limited wind-down provision for people who were already in Cuba on Sept. 30 under the former professional-meetings authorization. They may complete previously authorized transactions through Oct. 30, provided they leave Cuba by that date. Travelers may also cancel trips that qualified under the former authorization and obtain refunds through Oct. 30.

The Treasury Department made other changes affecting Cuba at the same time, including eliminating an authorization that had allowed U.S. banking institutions to open and maintain accounts solely in the names of Cuban nationals who qualified as independent private-sector entrepreneurs. Unless separately authorized, OFAC said those accounts and funds must now be blocked.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez also criticized the changes, saying they “openly attack both the public sector and the private sector, which some U.S. officials claim they want to help develop.”