The US Treasury wants to know exactly who’s behind the stablecoins Americans use, and it’s giving foreign issuers about nine months to prove they belong at the table.
A proposed rule issued on April 8, 2026, by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) would require digital asset service providers, or DASPs, to stop offering foreign-issued payment stablecoins unless those issuers meet strict registration and compliance standards with US regulators. The restrictions are set to take full effect on January 18, 2027.
What the rule actually does
The proposal classifies permitted payment stablecoin issuers (PPSIs) as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act. That’s the same legal framework that governs banks, money transmitters, and broker-dealers when it comes to anti-money laundering obligations.
In practice, this means stablecoin issuers would be subject to customer due diligence requirements, suspicious activity reporting, and the full suite of AML rules that traditional financial institutions already follow.
For foreign issuers specifically, the bar is even higher. They’ll need to register with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and hold their reserves in US institutions. If they don’t, US-based exchanges and platforms simply won’t be allowed to list their stablecoins.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent framed the proposal as a national security measure, stating that it aims to protect the financial system from potential threats. The comment period runs until June 9, 2026, giving the industry a two-month window to weigh in before the rules are finalized.
The GENIUS Act backdrop
This rule doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s the enforcement mechanism for the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act, better known as the GENIUS Act, which was signed into law on July 18, 2025.
The GENIUS Act created the first comprehensive federal framework specifically for payment stablecoins. Before it passed, stablecoin regulation in the US was a patchwork of state-level rules and informal federal guidance. The law established clear definitions of what qualifies as a payment stablecoin, who can issue them, and what obligations issuers carry.
It’s worth noting that no specific tokens or issuers are named in the proposed rules. The framework applies broadly to payment stablecoins and their issuers as a category.
Who wins, who sweats
The clearest beneficiaries are US-domiciled stablecoin issuers that already operate under domestic regulatory oversight. If foreign competitors get locked out of US platforms for failing to meet OCC registration requirements, the domestic players inherit that market share almost by default.
For the major offshore stablecoin issuers, the calculus gets complicated. Registering with the OCC and parking reserves in US institutions is not a trivial undertaking. It requires legal infrastructure, compliance teams, and a willingness to submit to US regulatory jurisdiction on an ongoing basis.
Then there are the exchanges and platforms that currently list foreign-issued stablecoins. They’ll need to audit their offerings and verify that every stablecoin issuer they work with meets the new standards before the January 2027 deadline.