Sending Cash to Cuba Is Broken — Send Value Instead

If you've tried wiring money to family in Cuba this year, you already know the story. Apps freeze. Portals shut down without warning. Fees climb. And the person on the other end still can't find what they need at the store.

Montreal families are quietly making a switch — and it's not to another remittance app.

The problem: cash isn't reaching the shelves

The traditional remittance model assumes something simple. You send dollars. Your family converts them. They walk to a store and buy what they need.

In Cuba right now, that chain breaks at almost every link:

• Major online delivery portals for Cuba have paused or stopped taking new orders
• Popular food-basket sites are refusing customers "until further notice"
• Fees eat a growing chunk of every transfer
• Even when money arrives, shelves are often empty — especially for medicine, cooking oil, and basic hygiene items

So Abuela receives the money. She's grateful. But she still can't find her blood pressure pills.

The question stopped being "how do I send money?" It became "how do I send what the money was supposed to buy?"

The shift: send the thing, not the currency

This is where the model changes. Instead of sending cash and hoping the store has what your family needs, you send the actual items — from Montreal, door to door, with everything handled for you.

You skip the currency, the fees, and the empty shelves in one move.

A box of rice, cooking oil, powdered milk, laundry soap, and a month of prescription medicine leaves Brossard on a Tuesday and lands in your mother's kitchen 7 to 14 days later. No exchange rate. No app freezing. No trip to a store that doesn't have stock.

What "sending value" actually looks like

Here's how a Montreal family typically replaces a monthly remittance with a shipment:

1. They list what their family actually needs. Usually food staples, hygiene products, and any prescription medicine.
2. They either pack a box themselves — using free home pickup in Montreal, Laval, or Brossard — or they use Buy and Ship. With Buy and Ship, EasyCargo Express purchases items from Amazon, Walmart, Costco, or Canadian Tire on their behalf and consolidates everything into one cheaper shipment.
3. They pay one fixed price in Canadian dollars. Pickup, customs paperwork, insurance, and door-to-door delivery are all included. The recipient pays nothing.
4. They track the box on WhatsApp and get a delivery photo the moment it arrives.

Shipping to Cuba starts from $7 CAD, with a standard minimum of about 10 lbs (4.5 kg).

"But what about medicine?"

This is the piece that usually decides it for families. Cash can't solve a medicine shortage. But a properly documented shipment can.

EasyCargo Express is the only service in Montreal authorized to legally ship medicines to Cuba — something DHL, FedEx, and UPS refuse to do. Under Cuba's current special regime (Res. 139/2025), medicine, food, hygiene products, and medical supplies can enter duty-free within specific limits when they arrive in a separate, sealed, commercially labeled parcel.

More than 200 medicine shipments have already been delivered this way — the kind of help no wire transfer can replicate.

"Isn't shipping more expensive than sending money?"

It depends on what you're actually paying for. Consider a monthly wire transfer:

• Transfer fees
• Exchange-rate spread
• Cash-out fees on the Cuban side
• Higher-than-normal in-country prices when items are in stock
• The hidden cost of items your family simply cannot find

Now compare that to a fixed CAD shipping price where the box contains exactly what your family will use — bought at Canadian retail prices, with customs and insurance included. For many families, the shipment turns out to be the better deal per useful item delivered.

How to start without changing everything at once

You don't have to abandon remittances entirely. Most families find a rhythm like this:

• Keep a smaller monthly transfer for anything cash can still handle locally
• Ship a monthly box for the essentials that are hard to find — medicine, quality food staples, hygiene products, small electronics
• Use Buy and Ship for gifts around holidays, birthdays, and back-to-school

The result is real, visible help in your family's home instead of a receipt that says the money was sent.

Ready to try it once and see the difference?

Message EasyCargo Express on WhatsApp at +1 (438) 873-3589 — real humans reply, in Spanish, French, or English, usually within 10 minutes. Tell them what your family needs, get a fixed CAD quote, and schedule a free home pickup in Montreal, Laval, or Brossard.

Or start online at easycargoexpress.ca. Your package arrives, and so does your peace of mind.