FinCEN rules are the reporting, recordkeeping, and program requirements that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network imposes on banks, money services businesses, broker-dealers, casinos, and a growing list of other industries under the Bank Secrecy Act. They cover cash transaction reports, suspicious activity reports, customer due diligence, beneficial ownership reporting, and targeted orders aimed at specific risks. Several of the biggest rules are in motion in 2026: a proposed overhaul of AML program requirements, a residential real estate rule that a federal court has vacated, a rollback of beneficial ownership reporting for U.S. companies, and a two-year delay of the new investment adviser rule.
The Core Reporting Obligations
Two filings do most of the work under the Bank Secrecy Act.
A Currency Transaction Report is required whenever cash transactions by or on behalf of the same person exceed $10,000 in a single business day. Institutions aggregate all known cash-in or cash-out activity for that person; if either side of the ledger crosses the threshold, a CTR is due. Reports are filed electronically within 15 calendar days and kept for five years.1FinCEN. Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Currency Transaction Report
The $10,000 figure has not moved since Treasury set it in 1972. In 2023 dollars it would be roughly $72,880. A Government Accountability Office review found that law enforcement accessed only about 5.4 percent of CTRs in FinCEN’s database from 2014 through 2023, and under 3 percent in 2023 alone. GAO recommended that FinCEN consider raising the threshold or broadening exemptions, and FinCEN agreed to study the question as part of its review under the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020.2U.S. Government Accountability Office. Currency Transaction Reports
A Suspicious Activity Report is required when a covered institution knows, suspects, or has reason to suspect that a transaction of at least $5,000 is designed to evade BSA requirements or otherwise involves illicit activity. Covered filers include banks, casinos, money services businesses, broker-dealers, mutual funds, insurance companies, futures commission merchants, loan and finance companies, and housing government-sponsored enterprises. All SARs are filed through the BSA E-Filing System.3FinCEN. Suspicious Activity Reports
In October 2025, FinCEN and the federal banking regulators issued guidance aimed at cutting low-value filings. Transactions sitting near the $10,000 CTR threshold are not automatically suspicious. Institutions are not required to document a decision not to file a SAR, and they are not required to perform a separate review to determine whether previously reported suspicious activity has continued, though they may set their own risk-based monitoring policies.4FinCEN. SAR FAQs
Customer Due Diligence and the 2026 Relief
FinCEN’s 2016 Customer Due Diligence Rule requires banks, broker-dealers, mutual funds, and futures commission merchants to identify and verify the beneficial owners of legal entity customers, understand the nature and purpose of customer relationships, and monitor for suspicious activity on an ongoing basis.5Federal Register. Customer Due Diligence Requirements for Financial Institutions
On February 13, 2026, FinCEN issued exceptive relief order FIN-2026-R001 that eased a repetitive piece of the rule. Institutions previously had to re-identify and re-verify the beneficial owners of a legal entity customer at every new account opening. Now that information is required only when the entity first opens an account, when the institution learns facts that call earlier information into question, or when its own risk-based procedures call for an update. Institutions may still verify at every account opening if they prefer.6FinCEN. FinCEN Issues Exceptive Relief to Streamline Customer Due Diligence Requirements7FinCEN. CDD Rule FAQs
Beneficial Ownership Reporting Now Applies Only to Foreign Companies
The Corporate Transparency Act, enacted with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, directed FinCEN to build a national beneficial ownership database. The rule has been dramatically narrowed since 2025.
The Supreme Court, in McHenry v. Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc., stayed a nationwide injunction on January 23, 2025 and let enforcement resume.8ABA Banking Journal. Supreme Court Lifts Barrier to Beneficial Ownership Information Collection On March 21, 2025, FinCEN issued an interim final rule that exempted all entities created in the United States, along with their U.S.-person beneficial owners, from filing.9FinCEN. FinCEN Removes Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements for US Companies and US Persons
Under the current interim rule, only “foreign reporting companies” — entities formed under foreign law that have registered to do business in a U.S. state or tribal jurisdiction — must file. Even those companies do not report U.S. persons as beneficial owners. Foreign companies registered before March 26, 2025 had to file within 30 days of that date; those registering later have 30 calendar days after receiving notice their registration is effective. FinCEN said it intended to finalize the rule in 2025, but as of mid-2026 no final rule has been published. A separate constitutional challenge by the National Small Business Association produced a final declaratory judgment from a federal court in Alabama that the CTA exceeds Congress’s authority, and FinCEN continues to honor that order as to those plaintiffs.10FinCEN. Beneficial Ownership Information
The Proposed AML/CFT Program Rule
On April 7, 2026, FinCEN proposed a rewrite of the AML/CFT program requirements that apply to financial institutions under the BSA. The proposal implements changes from the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 and shifts the emphasis from paperwork volume to risk-based effectiveness.11FinCEN. FinCEN Proposes Rule to Fundamentally Reform Financial Institution Programs
Every covered institution would maintain a risk-based program built on four pillars: internal policies, procedures, and controls (including a risk assessment process); independent testing by outside parties; a designated compliance officer based in the United States; and ongoing employee training.12FinCEN. Program NPRM Fact Sheet The rule distinguishes “establishing” a program (designing the framework) from “maintaining” it (executing it). FinCEN said it generally intends to avoid enforcement actions against institutions that have established a compliant program absent a significant or systemic maintenance failure.
The proposal also adds a supervisory consultation step: federal banking supervisors would have to give FinCEN’s director at least 30 days’ notice before initiating a significant AML/CFT supervisory action against a bank. Institutions would have to incorporate the government-wide AML/CFT Priorities, first published on June 30, 2021, into their risk assessments, but that requirement waits for the final rule to take effect.13Federal Register. Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Programs The comment period closes on June 9, 2026. The proposal supersedes and withdraws an earlier version from July 2024.
The Residential Real Estate Rule Has Been Vacated
FinCEN finalized a rule in August 2024 requiring a “Real Estate Report” for certain non-financed transfers of residential property to legal entities and trusts. Codified at 31 CFR 1031.320, it targeted the use of shell companies and trusts to buy homes with cash without disclosing the real owner.14Federal Register. Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for Residential Real Estate Transfers
A transfer would be reportable if the property was residential (one to four units, cooperative shares, or land intended for such construction), the purchase was not financed by a lender with its own AML obligations, the buyer was a legal entity or trust rather than an individual, and no exemption applied. There was no dollar threshold. The reporting obligation ran down a seven-tier “cascade” starting with the settlement agent, and reports were due within 30 days of closing.15FinCEN. RRE FAQs
The rule had an original effective date of December 1, 2025 but never took operational effect nationwide. On March 19, 2026, Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, in Flowers Title Companies, LLC v. Bessent, vacated the rule in its entirety. The court held that FinCEN had exceeded its statutory authority under the BSA, calling the agency’s argument that all non-financed transfers to entities and trusts are inherently “suspicious” under 31 U.S.C. § 5318(g)(1) “vague, conclusory, and unpersuasive.” The court also declined to read § 5318(a)(2) as an independent grant of broad reporting authority.16Justia. Flowers Title Companies LLC v. Bessent
A month earlier, on February 19, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida had upheld the rule in Fidelity National Financial, Inc. v. Bessent.17Shumaker. FinCEN Real Estate Rule Thrown Into Uncertainty After Split Federal Court Decisions FinCEN filed a notice of appeal to the Fifth Circuit on May 11, 2026, and the Florida decision is expected to go to the Eleventh Circuit.18Adams and Reese. Notice of Appeal Filed Following Vacatur of FinCEN Residential Real Estate Transfers Rule While the vacatur stands, reporting persons are not required to file real estate reports and face no liability for not doing so. If the vacatur is later overturned, FinCEN has said it will not require retroactive filings for transactions that took place during the period the order was in force.19FinCEN. Residential Real Estate
Investment Adviser Rule Delayed to 2028
FinCEN had been preparing to bring registered investment advisers and exempt reporting advisers under BSA requirements for the first time, requiring them to establish AML/CFT programs and file SARs. The original effective date was January 1, 2026. In a final rule issued on December 31, 2025, FinCEN pushed the effective date to January 1, 2028, to allow a broader review of how the rule fits the range of advisory business models. FinCEN and the SEC also plan to revisit a joint proposed rule on customer identification programs for investment advisers.20U.S. Department of the Treasury. FinCEN Issues Final Rule to Postpone Effective Date of Investment Adviser Rule to 2028
Special Measures and Geographic Targeting Orders
Beyond its standard rules, FinCEN can impose special measures on specific institutions and drop reporting thresholds in specific places through Geographic Targeting Orders.
MBaer Merchant Bank
On February 26, 2026, FinCEN proposed to sever MBaer Merchant Bank AG, a Swiss bank, from the U.S. financial system by designating it a “financial institution of primary money laundering concern” under Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act. The proposal would bar U.S. financial institutions from maintaining correspondent accounts for MBaer and require enhanced due diligence to prevent indirect access. FinCEN alleged the bank funneled over $100 million through the U.S. financial system on behalf of illicit actors, including sanctioned Russian oligarchs, individuals tied to Venezuelan state-oil-company corruption, and entities connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force.21U.S. Department of the Treasury. Treasury Proposes Rule to Sever Swiss Bank MBaer’s Access to US Financial System The comment period closed April 1, 2026, and the rulemaking is not final.22Federal Register. Proposal of Special Measure Regarding MBaer Merchant Bank AG
Southwest Border GTO
A Geographic Targeting Order effective March 7 through September 2, 2026 requires money services businesses in specified counties in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas to file CTRs on cash transactions of $1,000 or more, well below the standard $10,000 threshold. The order followed a data-driven operation in late 2025 that reviewed more than a million CTRs and 87,000 SARs from over 100 border MSBs, producing six notices of investigation, dozens of IRS examination referrals, and more than 50 compliance outreach letters. It is tied to executive actions designating several Mexico-based cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.23U.S. Department of the Treasury. FinCEN Announces Data-Driven Border Operation24FinCEN. Southwest Border GTO FAQs
Minnesota GTO
A separate GTO issued in January 2026 targets banks and money transmitters in Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, Minnesota, requiring them to report international funds transfers of $3,000 or more as part of an effort to combat government benefits fraud. The order runs from February 12 through August 10, 2026 and requires detailed beneficiary information and certification of whether funds originate from government benefit programs. FinCEN narrowed the order in February 2026 through an exemptive relief order that excluded certain categories of institutional customers.25Federal Register. Geographic Targeting Order – Minnesota26FinCEN. Minnesota GTO Exemptive Relief Order
What Non-Compliance Costs
FinCEN’s civil money penalty authority produced two headline cases in the past year.
In March 2026, FinCEN assessed an $80 million penalty against Canaccord Genuity LLC, an SEC-registered broker-dealer, calling it the largest BSA penalty ever imposed on a broker-dealer. Canaccord admitted willfully failing to maintain an effective AML program from 2018 through 2024. The firm was one of the most active market makers in over-the-counter penny stocks, executing nearly $70 billion in microcap transactions during the period, while its compliance operation was severely understaffed. For much of the time, four employees with no AML training were responsible for reviewing more than 100 daily surveillance reports, and two of them falsified nearly 400 documents to conceal that required reviews were not happening. A lookback identified at least 160 SARs that should have been filed covering thousands of suspicious transactions, including wash sales and pump-and-dump schemes.27FinCEN. FinCEN Assesses Historic $80 Million Penalty Against Canaccord Genuity LLC The SEC and FINRA separately assessed $20 million each, which FinCEN credited against the total; FinCEN suspended another $5 million contingent on completion of the SAR lookback, leaving a net payment of $35 million to Treasury.28FinCEN. Canaccord Consent Order No. 2026-01
In December 2025, FinCEN assessed a $3.5 million civil penalty against Paxful, a peer-to-peer virtual asset platform, for willfully failing to register as an MSB, failing to implement an effective AML program, and failing to file SARs. Paxful had no written AML program until 2019, no know-your-customer processes until the same year, and did not file its first SAR until November 2019. FinCEN found the platform facilitated over $500 million in suspicious activity involving actors in sanctioned jurisdictions including Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, along with transactions linked to ransomware, darknet markets, and a site seized by the DOJ for facilitating sex trafficking.29FinCEN. FinCEN Assesses $3.5 Million Penalty Against Paxful In a parallel criminal case in the Eastern District of California, the company agreed to plead guilty to three conspiracy charges and pay a $4 million criminal penalty. Its former chief technology officer had previously pleaded guilty in the same district.30FinCEN. Paxful Consent Order
The wider enforcement docket continues to focus on money services businesses, virtual asset platforms, and institutions that fail to detect securities fraud or sanctions evasion.31FinCEN. Enforcement Actions