The U.S. Treasury Department on Aug. 17 issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to define when payment stablecoins are issued, offered, or sold in the United States, setting the stage for key GENIUS Act restrictions that begin on Jan. 18, 2027.
The proposal focuses on Section 3 of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act. Treasury wants to establish what qualifies as issuing a payment stablecoin “in the United States,” and when a digital asset company is considered to have offered or sold a payment stablecoin to a U.S. person. Those definitions determine whether issuers must hold a federal or state license.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department was implementing the framework established by President Donald Trump and Congress while seeking feedback from companies and other stakeholders. He said the rules were intended to provide businesses with “regulatory certainty” while supporting U.S. innovation and maintaining the dollar’s position as the global reserve currency.
Under the proposed framework, companies generally would not be allowed to issue payment stablecoins in the United States without an appropriate federal or state license from Jan. 18, 2027. For foreign-issued stablecoins, digital asset service providers generally would be barred from making them available to U.S. users unless the issuer can comply with lawful orders and meets reciprocal arrangement requirements between the U.S. and the issuer’s home jurisdiction.
A broader restriction would take effect on July 18, 2028, after which platforms generally may offer or sell payment stablecoins to U.S. customers only if the tokens were issued by a licensed entity. Treasury’s proposed definitions of “offer or sell” and a person “in the United States” therefore affect exchanges, trading platforms, and other digital asset businesses that make stablecoins accessible to American customers.
The public has 60 days from Federal Register publication to submit comments. The proposal follows earlier work by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on reserves, redemptions, capital, liquidity, custody and supervision, as well as Treasury AML proposals that would place permitted payment stablecoin issuers under Bank Secrecy Act requirements. A separate April proposal said issuers with less than $10 billion in circulation could remain under qualifying state supervision if the state regime meets federal standards.
Although federal regulators missed the original July 2026 deadline for completing key GENIUS Act regulations, the expected Jan. 18, 2027 effective date remains in place.
