Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information released figures Tuesday showing that 26.7% of residents were age 60 or older in 2025. ONEI said the share made Cuba’s population the oldest in Latin America and the Caribbean and was nearly double the regional average of 13.4% for that age group.

The agency counted 2,519,823 Cubans age 60 or older, an increase of 1 percentage point from the previous year. Cuba’s total population stood at 9,434,593.

Population aging varied across the island. ONEI identified Villa Clara, a province in central Cuba, as having the country’s oldest population, with 30.2% of residents age 60 or older, followed by Havana at 29.1%. Eastern Guantánamo province recorded the lowest proportion, at 23.3%, while Santiago de Cuba and Artemisa each reported 24.2%.

ONEI Vice President Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga said, according to Prensa Latina, that every province was experiencing advanced stages of demographic aging. Fraga described the trend as a major structural challenge for Cuba’s economic and social development.

ONEI said Cuba’s sustained demographic decline was driven by low birth rates and large-scale emigration, particularly among young people of working and reproductive age.

According to ONEI, Cuba lost approximately 1.4 million residents between 2020 and 2024. ONEI also said more than 1 million people of working age had been lost over the past five years, placing growing financial pressure on the country’s public healthcare and social security systems.

If current birth and emigration trends continue, ONEI projects that people age 60 or older could account for 36% of Cuba’s population by 2040. The agency said reaching that level would require substantial changes to public policies and social care services in the short and medium term.

The United Nations Population Fund projects that Cuba’s population will continue to decline, reaching 5.6 million by the end of the century.