FinCEN and the Federal Reserve on Friday, November 6, withdrew a 2020 proposal that would have cut the cross-border crypto transaction reporting threshold under the Bank Secrecy Act from $3,000 to $250.
Key takeaways
- The $3,000 cross-border reporting threshold stays in place, sparing exchanges new data-collection duties on transfers as small as $250.
- FinCEN said the five-year delay, a changed industry and the case for fresh public input justified pulling the proposal.
- The Crypto Council for Innovation said the $250 threshold would have placed undue burden on institutions.
- The withdrawal is the third Bank Secrecy Act crypto rollback in a month, after Treasury dropped the unhosted wallet and mixing rules in October 2026.
The proposal, first floated in 2020, would have required financial institutions to collect and transmit originator and beneficiary details on cross-border convertible virtual currency transfers of $250 or more. That would have swept a large volume of ordinary remittances and small customer transfers into a reporting regime built for much larger flows, forcing exchanges and custodial institutions to build new data-collection systems and retain records on transfers that today stay under the wire.
In its announcement of the withdrawal, FinCEN said any new version of the rules “should be considered in light of these recent developments to ensure that such amendments are fit for purpose.” The agency said the proposal had sat idle for more than five years while the sector it covered moved on, and that fresh public input would be useful before any new version.
Compliance teams had reason to plan around the lower figure. When the rule was proposed, FinCEN made the case that criminals had shifted toward smaller transfers in part to stay under reporting lines, and FinCEN said the proposal had not moved forward over the past several years. Industry groups pushed back throughout: Coin Center warned that dropping the threshold from $3,000 to $250 would subject more ordinary transactions to what it called warrantless financial surveillance.
The relief is explicit in the industry’s response. “Lowering the threshold from $3,000 to $250 for cross-border transfers would have placed undue burden on institutions,” said Ji Hun Kim, chief executive of the Crypto Council for Innovation.
It follows October’s withdrawal of two other 2020-era Bank Secrecy Act proposals covering self-hosted wallets and cryptocurrency mixing, rules Coin Center had also opposed. Taken together, the rollbacks leave the $3,000 threshold as the line exchanges actually work to.
The rule is shelved, not dead. FinCEN’s statement leaves the door open to new Travel Rule amendments, and no timetable for a rewritten proposal has been given.
